BUCKSPORT — Two area cancer survivors hope a walk they have organized will help others realize they too can beat the disease.

The theme of the March Against Cancer is “Attention on Prevention.” Diagnosed several years ago as having terminal uterine cancer, walk organizer Sharyn Davenport of Bucksport believes people diagnosed today have an even better chance of surviving.

“It’s frightening, but it can be beat. I had a form that should have killed me, but I decided to survive,” Davenport said.

At 10 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, walk participants will meet at the Seaboard Federal Credit Union building across from Champion International. They will march to the area behind the town office, where an open-microphone rally will be held.

This is not an event in which monetary pledges are taken for miles walked, but will emphasize information instead. Known in the community as a member of the Bucksport Town Council, Davenport said she felt the need to take some action after her friend, Nancy Allen of Surry, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

`I told her, `I’m not going to let you die.’ … I cheered her right up,” Davenport said. The two women organized the walk together.

When Davenport had chemotherapy nine years ago, the chemicals were harsher, and the treatments greater in number, than they are today. These are the kinds of facts people diagnosed now don’t always realize.

Organizers hope the walk will result in a renewed call for cancer research. “I’d like to blame industry or pollution, but I can’t in all honesty blame it on just those things, said Davenport, whose family was full of women with the disease.

“Cancer can kill. We know that,” she said. “But we can maybe get someone to the doctor a few months earlier.”