Wendy Scherrer: More than a survivor

BELLINGHAM, Wash. - Sitting beneath a placard honoring her as the newest member of the Wild Salmon Hall of Fame, Wendy Scherrer runs a hand through the stubble atop her head, laughs gently and says, "I have no hair!"

After four months of high-dose radiation and a rigorous stem-cell transplant, Wendy, 52, has been returned to good health after a battle with Stage 4 mantle cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Her temporary hairdo is of small consequence, however, compared with what she learned about life as she fought to save her own.

As soon as she absorbed the diagnosis - a rare cancer of white blood cells that can form lumps and block vital organs - Wendy got up and got going. Despite her fatigue, she called upon the skills she developed through decades of environmental work, most recently as executive director of the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association in Whatcom County.

Build a team. Find expert advice. Create trust and be open to the skills and wisdom of the local community.

Wendy's outlook now includes a better future for herself and wild salmon.

Thousands of wild salmon have a future because of Wendy's work, which relies on what she calls the "hundred cups of coffee" theory of patiently sitting in landowners' kitchens to build trust and collaboration instead of hovering overhead in a helicopter waving a heavy fine.

The single mother of three has also helped with local schools and strengthened her neighborhood. She is always ready to mobilize when energy is needed. Perhaps that's why so many people came running when Wendy needed help.

"Another one?" officials at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance kept asking, as they signed up 20 of Wendy's friends and family members to take care-giving classes and learn how to run her IV pump and sanitize her house. Her two sons - Ben, 25, and Peter, 22 - moved back home to share duties so her daughter, Katy, 17, could continue high school.

Neighbors and community members brought Wendy hot soup, filled her freezer with food, did yard work and pitched in regularly to a house-cleaning fund.

The community outreach was an eye-opener for her children, who suddenly had dozens of "parents." But for Wendy, it was simply proof of her philosophy of life. "For every problem, there is a solution," she says in gentle tones. Whether it's protecting salmon or fighting for your own life, you can't do it by yourself. "You have to work together."

Think of what that collaborative approach means to farmers and loggers who for generations believed they were doing good work. In a relatively short turnaround, they were labeled the enemy when it became clear that common practices were seriously degrading natural resources - and a strong adversarial relationship was born.

A Merriman client since 2005, Wendy loves the woods and is particularly drawn to streams. She is an avid hiker and fly fisher. After being reared in New York and California, she moved to Bellingham in 1973 to start work on a degree in environmental planning from Western Washington University's Huxley College of the Environment.

She doesn't literally build fish passageways or clear streams, but she contributes to the cause as an administrator, building bridges of a different sort. "I feel so lucky that I can spend my working hours doing what I feel passionate about," she says.

While undergoing cancer treatment, Wendy was named to the Pacific Northwest Wild Salmon Hall of Fame.

She treasures the award, her eighth for environmental achievements.

Wendy describes herself as a pragmatist, and she quickly saw that the problem of protecting salmon called for cooperation instead of black-and-white views of right and wrong. "We try not to blame people for past practices but try to move people ahead by giving incentives for solving the problems."

In other words, keep coming back to the kitchen table for another cup of coffee until you reach a generation that will listen to the science behind better land stewardship. Then go back again with the message: "We still have a problem. How can we solve it?"

One of the fastest and best incentives is to be able to say, "Don't worry, we'll help pay for it." The NSEA has established a nearly $1 million endowment, with investments managed by Merriman Capital Management. Wendy said the fund is designed to "support salmon recovery in Whatcom County in perpetuity."

Wendy's view of time has changed enormously since January 2005, when she went to the doctor with fatigue and a swollen lymph node, which proved to be Stage 4 mantle cell lymphoma.

She marshaled her resources. One friend who was also successfully battling cancer told her to seek the best expert she could find and then let that person be her guru. Another friend with a medical background told her to create a team and be its leader. Some of the team members were assigned to her by the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance; others she recruited.

She didn't dictate what helpers needed to do, but she supported them and gave them structure, as she would the teams of volunteers who sometimes fill up the old farmhouse that is NSEA headquarters near Whatcom Creek.

Learning from her work experience, she welcomed all visitors to her home and made them feel useful with specific requests, such as: "I want to take a walk with you every Tuesday."

Her son Ben has been a professional cyclist, so Lance Armstrong became a particular inspiration and role model. Wendy followed his lead, giving up some of her privacy to allow a local newspaper to chronicle her treatment with the goal of helping to change the image of cancer from death to life.

She went back to work in January 2006, continuing her quick recovery from small strokes suffered as she underwent the successful stem-cell treatment. Each day, she slowly exposes her baby-clean immune system to life's germs.

With health as with the natural environment, it would be easy to focus on the doom and gloom, Wendy says, but she focuses on victories instead.

She watched as dairy farmers in Whatcom County volunteered to change their livestock waste-management practices. In the past two years, those changes revived a multi-million dollar shellfish industry for the Lummi Indian Tribe.

Every year "fish bridges" are being installed in more miles of impassible streams that have been blocked by culverts and human-made structures. The result: More habitat is open for spawning.

Wendy is focusing her personal life on what she calls "healthy survivorship," cultivating habits that give her the right balance of nutrition, exercise, work and recreation while she maintains a positive attitude and reduces stress.

She describes this approach as "all the things we're supposed to do to make ourselves happy but don't until we're forced to do it. Now everything has new meaning for me. I try to make everything I do be important."

Don't get muddled in the past, she says. Always build hope. Her biggest wish is that her children have learned from this to see life's challenges as opportunities.

"Not what is the problem," she says, "but what is the opportunity to move forward."