Ellen Schafer wants to be out of a job. She cares for patients in the oncology department at St. Alexius Medical Center, where she is a nurse.

It would take a cure to lose her job. She helps raise money for this purpose through volunteer work with the American Cancer Society.

"To find a cure for cancer would be so wonderful, so no other family would have to go through this," she said.

She's been a nurse in oncology since 1984, and volunteered at the cancer society for 15 years.

Outside of work, cancer had not touched her life until last year, when her mother, Betty Lou Ost, was diagnosed with lung cancer. Her mother died in September, five days before Schafer headed to Washington, D.C., to meet with North Dakota's congressional delegation and ask for more funding for cancer research.

"I take care of cancer patients every day, but I didn't understand until I walked through it with my mom" what it was like, she said.

The thought of her mother brings tears and a smile. Her mother also worked at St. Alexius, delivering linens. Everyone knew her, respected her and now misses her, Schafer said.

"From October until the day of her death, there were flowers on her dining room table; not just one bouquet, but seven or eight," from people at the hospital, she said.

Her mother was spunky and outspoken. Schafer owes her work ethic to her mother, and her sense of caring. Ost worked until she died.

She could see in her mother, as she sees in the patients she cares for, a desire to keep living. Treatment for cancer patients has changed during Schafer's career. There are new drugs to manage pain and control nausea from treatments.

More people are finding their cancer earlier, as well. Mammograms, for example, are helping in earlier detection of breast cancer, she said.

Schafer advocated with American Cancer Society ambassadors from other states to increase funding for breast cancer and cervical cancer research. Part of this included getting the congressional delegation to support additional funding for breast and cervical cancer detection screenings. They asked for $2.5 million more to screen 130,000 more people.

The local chapter raises money through a variety of fundraisers.

A recent fundraiser involving the Bismarck Bobcats raised $6,000, and a portion of general admission tickets purchased through December from Relay for Life teams will go to the American Cancer Society.

The Relay for Life is one of the larger fundraising events. Teams walk a track overnight, and activities are done to remember cancer victims and survivors. It has raised more than $200,000 in the past, said Schafer, who has chaired the event in previously.

For more information about the American Cancer Society, contact the local chapter at 250-1022.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)