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ROBBINSVILLE: Town rallies to support young mom battling cancer

By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
   ROBBINSVILLE — The story of Tracy LaManna, a mother of two toddlers who has been battling lung and brain cancer, has so touched this community that even the biggest restaurant in Town Center can’t hold all the people who want to attend an upcoming fundraiser for her and her family.
   A township website posting about the Jan. 14 event at Centro Grille generated such an avalanche of RSVPs in just three days that organizer Andrea Wyatt, president of Women with a Purpose, scrambled to book a second location — Dolce & Clemente’s Venue on North Commerce Drive — to handle the overflow.
   ”If the number of RSVPs end up exceeding the number of seats at both locations, we’re going to encourage people to drop off or mail in contributions for Tracy instead if they want to help out,” Ms. Wyatt said Monday.
   Tracy was hospitalized earlier this week at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and unable to be interviewed. Her mother-in-law, Gail LaManna of West Manor Way, said the family is deeply touched by the support the community has shown for Tracy, who she called “the strongest and the most compassionate person I have ever met.”
   ”She’s is very upbeat and believes she is going to beat this,” Mrs. LaManna said Monday. “She wants to be there for her kids.”
   Mrs. LaManna said Tracy, an athlete who played college basketball and never smoked, was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer in August 2011 when she was pregnant with her second daughter, Charlee.
   ”We thought she had pneumonia or bronchitis, but it turned out to be lung cancer,” Mrs. LaManna said.
   Tracy and her husband, Charlie, also have another daughter, Makayla, who will turn 3 in March.
   Tracy left her job as a special education teacher in the West-Windsor Plainsboro School District after her diagnosis, Mrs. LaManna said. Months of chemotherapy followed by treatment with a cancer maintenance drug, Tarceva, led to a significant improvement in Tracy’s health for a time, but she suffered a setback two months ago when doctors found that the cancer had spread to her brain.
   Tracy began a series of radiation treatments in November, which successfully treated the brain cancer, but her lungs worsened.
   ”She couldn’t breathe and the doctors thought that we might lose her,” Mrs. LaManna. “But she’s a fighter and was determined to get better, and she’ll be coming home.”
   Throughout her ordeal last month in the hospital, Tracy’s main concern was her children and other relatives, and how her hospitalization caused them to worry.
   ”That’s just the way Tracy is,” Mrs. LaManna said. “She never once has said, ‘Why me?’ She just worries about everyone else.”
   Tracy is going to be released from the hospital before the fundraiser on Jan. 14, but her doctors will not let her attend because her immune system is too compromised right now from the treatments, Mrs. La Manna said.
   The fundraiser at Centro Grille and at Dolce & Clemente’s Venue begins at 6 p.m. The cost is $20 per person for dinner, which goes directly to the restaurants, and a minimum $10 per person gift is requested to help the LaMannas.
   Ms. Wyatt stressed that anyone interested in attending should RSVP by emailing her organization directly, instead of calling the restaurants. The email address for Women with a Purpose is [email protected].
   As of Monday, 150 people had already signed up to attend. Even if the event sells out, Ms. Wyatt people can still help by mailing a check payable to Women with a Purpose, P.O. Box 74, Titusville, NJ 08560. Please write Tracy LaManna’s name in the check’s memo line.
   Women with a Purpose is a grassroots organization with more than 1,000 members who are dedicated to “giving back” by supporting individuals, children, or families in great need or distress, Ms. Wyatt said. Most of the group’s members hail from Mercer County, New Jersey and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, she said.
   The group, which she founded in 2009, meets once a month in different restaurants, where members and their guests contribute a minimum $10 to raise funds for individuals and families who are in distress due to catastrophic illness or other life-altering circumstances, she said.