Marengo couple donate bell to CMH’s Anna Purna Ghosh Cancer Center

The tradition of ringing the bell to signify the end of treatment at Compass Memorial Healthcare’s Anna Purna Ghosh Cancer Center in Marengo became a reality April 27 when cancer patient Michelle Gaffield Geary and her husband Bill donated a bell to the center.

Geary, who had been diagnosed with lymphoma, started treatments at the CMH Cancer Center in October of 2022.

“This place, these people mean the world to me,” she stated. “They have helped me through this and provided wonderful care. Coming to the completion of my treatment I asked Bridget Lucas Werling, RN, where the bell was that I was ringing when I was done with treatments, and she responded that they didn’t have one yet.”

The couple went home and made plans. Geary was going to ring a bell at the completion of her treatment, along with fellow cancer patients at CMH.

“I wanted to surprise the team with the bell,” Geary said. “The only person that knew it was coming was nurse Bridget and best friend, Penny Mikesell, who works at Compass.”

She picked out the bell and her husband told her to get it ordered, taking on the cost himself.

Geary is no stranger to cancer, having had two rounds of breast cancer. Her surgeon recommended her to Compass and Dr. Chirantan Ghosh, oncologist. With tears in her eyes at the presentation, Geary said, “I don’t think I could have had better treatment anywhere.”

The bell was installed immediately and Geary was given the privilege of being the first one to ring it.

The inscription on the bell reads: “Ring this bell three times well, To celebrate this day, This course is run, My treatment done, Now I am on my way.”

For those battling cancer, the bell-ringing tradition signifies the end of a chapter of chemotherapy and/or radiation and the beginning of a new start. It began in 1996 at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, when Irve Le Moyne, rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, was undergoing radiation therapy for head and neck cancer. He told his doctor he planned to follow the Navy tradition of ringing a bell to signify “when the job was done.” He brought a brass bell to his last treatment, rang it at the conclusion and donated it to the hospital.