By Owen Boss
Staff Writer
SOUTH HADLEY - In the days before web-based social networking and medical sites changed the way people interacted, the concept of creating an online chat room for people diagnosed with breast cancer was a novel one.
When longtime resident Susan Frisius was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994, she realized that such a virtual place - capable of bringing people across the world together to comfort one another, exchange ideas and treatment methods - simply didn't exist.
So, in 1997, Frisius went about creating BCForum, a popular website that features chat rooms aimed at helping people with breast cancer cope with the diagnosis and providing an open forum where they can talk one-on-one with experts and survivors.
Frisius died Thursday at the age of 63 from a stroke associated with ovarian cancer.
In an interview with the Gazette just 2½ years after her breast cancer diagnosis, Frisius said that shortly after finding out about her disease she rarely left her home and found herself too weak to attend local support group meetings.
"When you get breast cancer, you enter a world you know nothing about," Frisius said. "When you have cancer, a lot of times people abandon you. I was so needy, and people did help me out, but not enough."
During that tough time, Frisius said she turned for help to her family and friends, many of whom lived far away and didn't truly understand what she was going through.
Soon her energy, she said, was fully focused on recruiting members for her forum, sending out email messages to people affiliated with breast cancer groups and sitting for hours in front of her computer, waiting for someone to log on.
Frisius' daughter, Rachel Frisius-Henderson, who now lives in Colorado, said it wasn't long before the website was visited by hundreds of people from places including Canada, California and Costa Rica and began touching the lives of countless breast cancer patients.
Soon every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 p.m., members would enter the chat room and update each other their progress, share encouraging words and swap stories.
"She felt the need was there for people to share their stories and help each other cope," said Frisius' sister-in-law, Randi Henderson. "I know it's hard to imagine it now but, back then, there just wasn't a really easy way go about doing that. Thankfully, she had the imagination and the ingenuity to do it."
Soon after the site was created, Frisius' forum spawned numerous meet-and-greets among users and guided thousands through the steps that immediately follow a breast cancer diagnosis, like finding the right doctor, choosing medications and making healthy lifestyle choices.
Frisius was also well-known for helping those who needed it most, including one of her many foster daughters, Beverly Poynter, 18, who lived for two years in Frisius' South Hadley home before moving to Springfield a year ago.
"My mother passed away from cancer when I was 10, and Susan was always there for me and really helped me cope with my mother's death," Poynter said.
"She was a good person and was very inspirational. It always seemed like she was so busy, but she was always willing to take time out of her day to help someone else."
Frisius' online breast cancer support group, her daughter said, was also open to the family members of breast cancer patients and led to the formation of many lifelong friendships.
"The site helped a lot of people," she said. "I went to a couple of get-togethers and got to see it firsthand."
Frisius' friends and family members are invited to attend a memorial service Tuesday at Tower Theatres on College Street from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Anyone interested in viewing Frisius' website can visit www.bcforum.org.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.
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