Garden tour to help grow cancer rehab program

Four major surgeries, six months of chemotherapy, countless hours of nausea, and for Laura Friedman Lemoine, the effects of her March 2006 breast cancer diagnosis are still being felt.

Her seemingly constant state of medical crisis over the past two years has, even for this self-assured civic volunteer, taken its toll.

“You’re never free of it, ever,” she says in her modest mid-century living room overlooking Glendale.

But as chairwoman of Design Review Board No. 2, Friedman Lemoine trudged through the invasive medical procedures and side effects while serving on one of the most laborious city commissions.

She accomplished this in part with pain killers — she recalled grabbing a handful of Vicodin just a day after surgery to attend a joint meeting with the City Council — and free, fitness-based rehabilitation classes at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena and at Glendale Memorial Hospital.

But the classes in Glendale were suddenly dropped for funding reasons, and the rush hour commute to Pasadena grew too burdensome. That’s when she resolved to bring the free rehab program back to the Glendale area.

Friedman Lemoine and her husband, landscape architect Guillaume Lemoine, conceptualized a garden tour as a fundraising tool and broached the idea with the Glendale Historical Society, which in turn worked with Glendale Adventist Medical Center to put together the logistics.

On Sunday, the chain reaction comes to fruition with “The Glendale Garden Tour,” the proceeds of which will be used to establish a fitness rehabilitation program for cancer patients through Glendale Adventist at its satellite campus in Eagle Rock.

Ticket holders will be guided through 15 distinct northwest Glendale gardens, from tropical to topiary, and in the process help resurrect an important recovery tool for cancer patients, organizers said.

“This is a different type of venture for us,” said Arlene Vidor, president of the Glendale Historical Society, which usually focuses on structures, not plants.

And when raising funds, the money is usually directed to coincide with the society’s mission of preservation, not cancer treatment programs, “but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do it, or shouldn’t do it,” Vidor added.