By ANNIE DECK-MILLER
Buffalo Law Journal

While most of us know about cancer's devastating impacts and its wide reach, few of us are broadly informed about coping resources for cancer patients and those around them.

That inspired the 8th Judicial District Gender & Racial Fairness Committee to expand outside its normal area of focus for an informational session to be presented this week.

The committee, which is chaired by Hon. Rosalie Bailey of Erie County Family Court, is hosting a cancer awareness program Wednesday from noon to 2 p.m. in the ceremonial courtroom on the second floor of Erie County Hall, 92 Franklin St.

The session, open to the public, will focus on challenges facing families affected by cancer, and on resources to help them address those issues. Among the presenters will be a longtime court employee who is himself a prostate-cancer survivor - Rich Lunghino, a court assistant in Buffalo City Court.

Lunghino was diagnosed two years ago, when he was 48 - statisically, very young to be facing prostate cancer. "The first urologist looked at me and said, ‘What are you doing here?' " he recalls.

Three of four members of Lunghino's immediate family have had cancer or a related illness. His voice breaks and he fights off tears as he talks about his father, Richard, who died of a rare leukemia-
related blood disorder in February.

"They say one in four people will get diagnosed with cancer. My family never could stand to be statistically normal," he jokes.

"The reason we wanted to do this is that so many people who work in the courts have been affected by cancer, either themselves or a family member," said program chair Hon. Lisa Bloch Rodwin, a judge in Erie County Family Court. "It affects our lives, and therefore it affects our work.

"I really would be surprised if everyone who attends the program doesn't learn something about the programs our community offers," she said.

Lunghino said he's seen firsthand how important support networks can be for anyone battling cancer.

"I'm not the sort to share deeply personal details. But when I learned about my cancer, something struck me, and I realized this was not going to be something I could go through myself," he said. "I immediately enlisted the help of people here (at City Court) and some other friends and reached out to them.

"It is scary, and you do kind of want to shut things out and shrink inside yourself, but if you seek out things outside yourself, it really makes a world of difference."