By Jennifer Baldwin

Nearly two years ago to the day, local children’s advocate Wendy Wayne didn’t feel well. She knew something was wrong and called a friend to pinch hit for her as a guest speaker at a United Way conference for nonprofit professionals.

Her friend, Mary McCabe, took on the task.

Wayne was taken to the hospital. A week later, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Fast forward to today: McCabe beamed from the audience as Wayne, the former executive director of First 5 Kern, finally took her place at the podium to deliver a keynote speech to a room full of nonprofit professionals.

Alas, after eight rounds of chemotherapy, a declaration of remission, a return of the cancer and a stem cell transplant to send it back into remission, Wayne is feeling much better.

In fact, at a recent event, the United Way of Kern’s executive director found Wayne “dancing up a storm and I thought, ‘She owes me a speech,’” Della Hodson said as she introduced the guest speaker.

Wayne agreed. Only this speech would be about a far more personal journey — and about www’s. No, not the World Wide Web, but rather a lesson in Wendy’s Words of Wisdom.

“This is the first time I’ve spoken about my experience, so forgive me if I’m a bit shaky,” Wayne said Tuesday morning at the Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center. “This has been the most phenomenal experience of my life. It’s been hard, it’s been challenging and on some levels it has been rewarding.”

Cancer as a phenomenal experience? Rewarding, even? After hearing Wayne’s story, it’s clear she accentuates the positive in even the dreariest of life events.

For one, Wayne refers to her cancer journey as the “eighth continent.” She explained to the audience that early in life, she made it her goal to swim in all five of the world’s oceans and step foot on all seven of its continents. In January 2008, two months before her cancer diagnosis, her husband surprised her with a birthday trip to Antarctica, where she fulfilled the final frontier. But her journey was not over.

“I called (the cancer) the eighth continent because I knew there would be new geography, new people, definitely new foods and new experiences,” Wayne said.

WWW No. 1: Committing an act of kindness makes you feel as good or better than the person receiving the act.

As Wayne underwent her first round of chemotherapy, her two daughters-in-law in Texas and San Jose started a page for Wayne on the website www.thestatus.com. The site offers a secure way to keep family and friends informed of someone’s health status. This would alleviate Wayne from having to answer questions she didn’t have the energy to respond to.

Instead of directing people how to send flowers, meals or carepackages, they wrote “please hug the people you love and do an act of kindness.” Additionally, they asked that people write about their acts on the guest book.

The response was overwhelming. A group of children had set up a lemonade stand in her honor and raised $1,500 for Quarters For Kids, which feeds hungry children. Another group of adults had volunteered time mulching trees along the Kern River Trail. And another – her friend McCabe – funded a student band’s trip to Disneyland for a competition.

“One woman wrote that she went up to someone and said, ‘Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’ The person said ‘No.’ Then she said, ‘But this is for my friend who is dying of cancer. Won’t you let me buy you a cup of coffee?’ ‘OK, sure,’” Wayne recounted, laughing.

Wayne says she tries to give back as much as she can, whether it’s picking up her neighbors’ newspaper for them, or buying the person in line behind her a drink to go with his or her meal.

“If you’ve never done that before, you should. It’s amazing how they respond,” Wayne told the audience.

WWW No. 2: Tell somebody today what they mean to you. Don’t wait … So rarely do we tell the people that mean the most to us how we feel about them.

After her cancer went into remission in September 2008, four months later Wayne drove by herself to Los Angeles to explore a consulting job, have dinner with a friend and go to her check up appointment at Cedars-Sinai.

“The doctor shook his head and said, ‘Sorry, Wendy. It’s back. You’ve relapsed and in fact we can’t treat you anymore. If you are going to survive you are going to have to get a stem cell transplant,” Wayne said.

She was by herself and had to muster the strength to come home and face the next step. But she was not alone. Once again her family gave her a gift that would get her through the journey.

“They handed me a box and said ‘The people who love you the most have written why we are happy you are doing the stem cell transplant,’” she said.

She opened the box and inside were hundreds of little white pieces of paper rolled up, each with a different quote. Many had to do with her new role as grandmother; her first grandchild was then 6 months old and another was on its way.

“You send great care packages,” one paper said.

“Who will make pancakes?” another stated.

“You still need to eradicate polio.”

“And, my favorite,” Wayne said, “Bakersfield can’t afford to lose one of their precious few Democrats.”

During her stay at City of Hope in Los Angeles, where her stem cells were harvested and replaced, Wayne would open the little blue box when she was alone.

“I realized I had so much to live for, to hang in there. It was amazing how these thoughts made a difference,” she said.

Continuing her career in public health and childcare, today Wayne is working part-time for the Kern County Department of Public Health setting up H1N1 clinics and is also doing some out-of-town consulting in early childhood education. Her cancer is in remission and she, of course, is continuing her acts of kindness.

“She’s been doing random acts of kindness all her life,” said her good friend McCabe, a consultant from Oregon who works with Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance. “She’s been an awesome role model for us.”