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Cancer Support Group Serving Ventura, Santa Barbara Counties Celebrates 30th Anniversary

June is Cancer Survivor Awareness Month

They are three simple, but together very frightening words. You have cancer. But, image this. A Ventura County woman has heard those words not once, but twice in her life.

Lynn Buchanan living in Seattle, and working for a large corporation when she was first diagnosed with cancer in 1990. She underwent surgery and chemotherapy.

Buchanan made it through her bout with breast cancer. She says one of the hardest parts was trying to stay strong emotionally through the ordeal.

In 2008, she retired, and moved to the Conejo Valley. Buchanan stumbled across a non-profit she could have used early, when she was first diagnosed with cancer. She became a volunteer with The Cancer Support Community/Valley/Ventura /Santa Barbara,

Four years later, during a check, she got bad news. Two decades after battling, and beating cancer, she was once again facing it. She was not only a volunteer with the support group, but suddenly also one of the participants

Buchanan says the Cancer Support Community/Valley/Ventura /Santa Barbara was there for her.

The Westlake Village based non-profit has been helping people like Buchanan for three decades. Monica Merryman is the organization’s Executive Director. She says they have therapists who run groups dealing with a number of cancer related topics.

This is National Cancer Survivor’s Month. And, the Cancer Support Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary, with a year long series of events including a project telling the tales of 30 survivors, and a huge anniversary party.

So how is Lynn Buchanan, who’s fought cancer twice, doing today? She says she's done well.

You can find out more about the Cancer Support Community/Valley/Ventura /Santa Barbara at: https://www.cancersupportvvsb.org

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.