Nurse who survived cancer turns to skin care to aid others

STAGECOACH - Five bouts with cancer became a gift in disguise for a Stagecoach woman, who turned her difficulties into hope for other cancer patients.

It also led her to help save their skin.

Lana Gabree, once a New York City kindergarten teacher, now manufactures a line of all-natural skin-care products that were first intended for cancer patients, but are becoming popular with the general population as well.

Gabree's company, Hummingbird, is very much a family business, with Lana and husband, Charlie Dupre, operating the company out of their home since they moved to Stagecoach from Oregon about a year ago.

Daughter Clarissa provides Web design and graphic arts assistance, while daughter Kristin offers constructive criticism.

"The first time I had melanoma, I was told to go home, write a will and find someone to raise my children," said Gabree, then a single parent.

She studied nursing after winning her first battle with melanoma about 20 years ago.

"I felt if I had this disease, I needed to learn about the enemy," she said.

Gabree fought melanoma four more times after the first diagnosis, and won each battle, though she always refused chemotherapy and radiation. She credits her survival to the surgery, a macrobiotic diet, all-natural skin products and moving away from New York City.

She has been cancer-free for seven years.

After moving to New Jersey, Gabree did the New York commuter routine, teaching kindergarten in the city by day and attending nursing school at New York State University nights and weekends. It took her nine years to become a registered nurse with oncology certification.

Gabree worked for 11 years at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York, specializing in leukemia patients.

Her own struggles gave her a rare understanding of her patients, she said.

"I can walk into a patient's room and know exactly where they're coming from, because I've been there," she said.

Gabree has come around to value her fight with cancer. "In retrospect, I look upon it all as a gift," she said. "But it took awhile to get there."

She eventually moved to Oregon and was a cancer instructor for Rogue Valley Medical Center for four years.

Gabree also spent four years in Saudi Arabia and said it was the most challenging experience in nursing because of the culture.

"But it is also where I did my finest work as a cancer nurse," she said.

Gabree said cancer in Saudi women was often discovered when they came to the hospital for treatment after being beaten by their husbands.

"During blood tests the cancer was found and the women would be sent to us at the cancer section," she said. "They never let patients go home because if they went home, they wouldn't come back."

Fluent in Arabic, Gabree tried to offer comfort to Saudis through support groups for women with cancer at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. About half, she said, were women who had to sneak out of their homes so their husbands would not know they were going to a meeting with Western women.

"To get close to those people was very special," she said. "Because to them, we're the enemy. It's what they're taught all their lives."

She later moved back to Oregon, where she began making her skin-care products.

"I was tired of hearing cancer patients complain there was nothing out there for them," she said.

So she began making all-natural, unscented soaps and lotions geared to cancer patients, and eventually expanded to all-natural products with natural scents.

"I started out making products just for cancer patients, but found the products were good for people with eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, burns and scarring, as well as those with allergies," she said.

Gabree said she has had customers tell her they are allergic to lavender, but in fact, the products they were using had no lavender, just fragrance oil.

"I don't use fragrance oil and I don't use mineral oil," she said.

What she does use in all her products are natural oils - coconut oil, olive oil and even emu oil. A list of all ingredients in Hummingbird products is available on the Web site, hummingbirdsoap.com.

"In Australia, aborigines used emu oil for centuries for rashes," Gabree said. "It's fabulous for all kinds of skin problems."

Hummingbird now makes 14 kinds of soap, seven kinds of lotions, two types of shampoo, lip balm and brown sugar facial scrubs. Gabree will ship products anywhere in the world. Hummingbird currently ships to five foreign countries.

Gabree offers her products at the Carson City Farmer's Market in the Pony Express Pavilion on Highway 50 east on Wednesdays and at the Dayton Farmer's Market at Dayton Valley Floral and Nursery, Dayton Valley Road, Dayton. Customers can also purchase online at hummingbirdsoap.com.

Although cancer patients were her first customers, Gabree said she is now seeing more healthy people who want to stay that way.

"People are starting to read labels and know what the ingredients mean," she said. "That means they are taking control over their life and their health and their skin."

n Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111 ext. 351.