By Connie Schultz
Plain Dealer Reporter
October 13, 2000

Helen Moss is wealthy and she has breast cancer.

She wants others to know that for two reasons: Her affluence could not protect her from a disease that hits one in eight American women. And it is the reason she feels a moral obligation to use the influence money can buy to raise funds for breast cancer research. "I am so shocked by how many women keep their cancer a secret," says.

Moss, 63, a vice president at Merrill Lynch. "They're ashamed, and they don't talk about it in public."

She points to the silver pin she wears to chemotherapy sessions since her mastectomy in July. It is the figure of a woman, wild-haired with her mouth wide open.

"It's my screaming woman' pin," she says. "She's screaming with no sound. That's what women do. We don't make a sound because we're trying to be brave. Maybe we're too brave. Maybe that's why there's not enough money for breast cancer research." Moss hopes to change that. Recently, she founded the Helen Moss Breast Cancer Research Foundation. She has already raised $100,000, and this afternoon she is opening her Bratenahl mansion for a tea-party fund-raiser. She mailed 3,500 invitations and expects at least 300 people to show up.

"The pink ribbon is not where I am," says Moss, referring to the national symbol for breast cancer survivors and their loved ones. "I'm cobalt blue - strong and fighting. Money is ammunition. People aren't going to do cancer research for free. We have got to be activists, and we have to involve men and women, because cancer is like a hand grenade tossed in the middle of a family. It affects everyone."

Moss got the idea for the foundation while she was in the hospital recovering from her mastectomy. "Three days after my surgery, they told me 15 out of 16 of my lymph nodes had cancer in them. I had four tubes hanging out of me, I had lost a breast, and I was hearing statistics that scared me. I thought, I need to do something. Now.'" She laughs when asked if she hesitated naming the foundation after herself.

"I thought, My God, that is an ego!' But I figure people know me, and I have a reputation for doing things well. The focus of the foundation is breast cancer research, but it also will allow us to lobby politically and work with other organizations." Her voice softens, and for a brief moment there is a crack in the tough-broad veneer.

"The thing is," she says, her voice breaking, "If I die, I want to leave something behind for the others. I've got a big battle up ahead, a bone marrow transplant in December, lots of chemo. The odds could be better. ... But if I can help one woman ..." Her voice trails off, and then she clears her throat. "Listen, you can't have cancer and not think about dying."

Moss' husband, architect Richard Fleischman, says that starting the foundation was his wife's way of coping with the disease.

"She has to have something to focus on mentally or she would destroy herself," says Fleischman, 71. "Our phrase is, If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room.' She wants to celebrate life, she wants to still feel joy. And she wants to feel like she's doing something other than just taking it."

Boot camp

In some ways, Moss' life has been one long boot camp preparing her for this ultimate battle. An avowed feminist who grew up working class, she was 34 and a mother of four young children when she divorced her first husband.

"I had gone back to college and got a degree, and my husband said, It's not going to look good if I don't have a college degree and you do.' I offered to send him to college, but he said he was happy with the way life was. I told him, This isn't going to work out.'

I divorced him based on principle. I didn't want to raise my kids working class. I wanted more for my children and myself."

She helped set up the National Organization for Women's Akron chapter, was politically active and painstakingly built a career at Merrill Lynch, where she was hired as a stockbroker in 1975. In 1983, she became the company's first female vice president in Northeast Ohio.

Moss says that, even as a child, she was determined to lead, rather than be led. "There were 13 of us cousins, eight of us the same age, and I was always in charge of everything. I was always queen of the castle."

Her need to be in charge kicked into high gear when she was diagnosed with cancer. After a nurse told her chemotherapy would make her hair fall out, she cut it before the drug could get to it. "If I waited until it fell out, then I was a victim," she says. "If I cut it first, I was still in control." She planned to shave her head before today's luncheon.

Her son, Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor Jim Moss, 36, says she's well-equipped to fight cancer. "What most sets her off as unique to me is her fearlessness," he says. "She could walk into a room with the president of the United States and not be intimidated. She's a real fighter, and she always has been. Whenever I have questioned my own abilities, I tell myself, If my mother can do it, I can, too.'"

In recent times, though, he has seen her vulnerable. "My mother is not the type to blind herself to reality. She sometimes says, Well, I could die.' And I say, Yes, you could. But let's look at all the possibilities for treatment, all the ways we're going to fight it.' And the mood passes."

Enduring chemotherapy

Last Tuesday, Moss arrived for chemotherapy at University Ireland Cancer Center with her husband; another son, John, 40; and her mother, Frances Smith. Moss' hair was plastered with mousse under a saucy burgundy hat to match the chemotherapy drug Adriamycin that would be injected into her vein.

"If I brush my hair, most of it would come out today," says Moss. "I didn't panic because all my friends told me that this would happen. So I moussed it down flat to keep it in place. Thursday I'm going to shave it all off."

Her nonstop chatter betrays her nervousness. "Wait till you see this red stuff," she says, referring to the chemo. "I dreaded this visit more because I know exactly how I'm going to react, I know all the awful side effects. Chemotherapy is like burning down the barn to find the needle in the haystack. I really believe that someday we're going to look back on this and say, 'Oh, gosh, the treatment was so barbaric.' I feel confident it won't always be like this, but it's all we've got right now."

Anne Kolenic, an oncology nurse, arrives with three large syringes. Slowly, she begins to inject the deep red fluid into the intravenous line in Moss' arm. "The last time, I couldn't look," says Moss as she stares at the needle. "I was so scared, I just couldn't even look."

Kolenic laughs. "I know, this time I can get a word in edgewise. You were so talkative last time."

Moss smiles, but her earlier effusiveness has faded. "I am not a person who could sit alone in this room. Why would I use up any of my energy for that kind of pain? I have nothing to prove. This is scary, and imagine how much worse it is for someone who really is alone." Kolenic begins to inject the second syringe. Moss looks away and starts talking about how others share their cancer stories with her since her diagnosis.

"People do get confessional, but in a good way. They tell me about their own cancer, or how they went through it with someone they love. It's helpful because at least you know you're not alone. And it helps with the guilt you feel when you get it, because, you know, you always feel guilty, as if it's your fault you got cancer."

Her 79-year-old mother starts to cry. "I feel guilty that you got it. I wonder, What did I do that you got cancer?'"

Fleischman looks shocked. "Honey, why would you think that? You've done nothing wrong. Nothing."

Smith looks down at her lap, and for a moment, the room is still.

"There's that hand grenade I was telling you about," says Moss. "It hits everybody."

Donations to the Helen Moss Breast Cancer Research
Foundation can be sent to 9619 Lakeshore Blvd., Bratenahl, OH 44101
or Merrill Lynch, 1375 East Ninth St., Cleveland, 44114.

E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Phone: (216) 999-4854
(c) 2000 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.