SURVIVOR SPOTLIGHT

Learn more about our services and programs through those who have benefited from them, our local survivors.

Natalie Dutcher:
Not ‘just a resource
… it’s a lifeline’

BY MADISON COOPER
mcooper@bakersfield.com

“Links for Life isn’t just a resource; it’s a lifeline.” Those words came from Natalie Dutcher, who deemed herself not only a survivor of breast cancer but a thriver during a speech Thursday at the Links for Life Luncheon at Seven Oaks Country Club.

Links for Life is a local nonprofit that serves women — and a few men — who are fighting breast cancer with everything from grocery gift cards and healthy eating education to support groups to wigs. It
also offers mammograms to those in need. Before becoming an area manager and Amazon artistic coordinator, Dutcher
was a hairstylist. One of the few times she cried during her breast cancer journey was upon losing the first clump of her hair following chemotherapy.

“As a hairstylist, your hair is your expression, it’s part of who you are,” Dutcher said. She then posed a question to some 200 people present: “Think about what you’re known for. Now imagine it’s all taken away from you.” That’s what cancer can do to a person. She learned that “cancer doesn’t discriminate.”

But a support system can mean everything. “I was only able to be strong because I was supported,” Dutcher said, speaking highly

of her husband, Paul, saying he stood by her throughout this journey. He was something of a doomsday prepper in terms of packing a bag for her chemotherapy and radiation treatments, even down to bringing Jolly Ranchers to help alleviate the metal taste in her mouth. Dutcher also drew on her faith.

“What carried me through was faith, my relationship with God, my husband, family and friends,” she said.

She prayed: “God just please help me get through this.” Accepting help made all the difference for her and her journey to beating cancer,

she said. She wanted to return to her love — dancing — to try to feel like herself again. And on Thursday, she and Elizabeth Vargas, both with Ballet Folklorico Huaztecalli, took to the stage to perform two dances.

That performance capped a lunch at which Links for Life board member Carrie Johnson quoted Revelation

1:8: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega — the beginning and the end,’ says the Lord God. ‘I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come — the Almighty One.’”

Jennifer Henry, executive director of Links for Life, shared some of the organization’s impact. Support groups for survivors include those in both English and Spanish, for the newly diagnosed and for husbands and partners of survivors. She shared that Links for Life originally started as Golf Links — but became so much more. Just last year 700 wigs were provided to breast cancer patients.

A mobile mammography unit has been taken to rural areas of the county without one. “Time goes by fast when you’re doing what you love,” Henry said of her work. Attendees had the opportunity to further support Links for Life by purchasing raffle tickets for themed baskets, a 50/50 opportunity drawing and donating for the table centerpieces.