By Andrea Lampros

Something in the childhood magic of Winnie the Pooh has kept Cindy Russell alive.

During the weeks she spent in bed recovering from surgery to remove cancerous tumors, Cindy spent hours watching Winnie the Pooh videos. She identified strongly with Piglet fear, Tiger’s invincibility, Rabbit anxiety, Eeyores depression and Poohs intuitive ability to care for everyone.

In the Hundred Acer Wood, there was no medullary carcinoma of the thyroid, no wrenching pain, no fear of falling asleep.

Although she drew on the strength of her husband and three sons and on the community of her Christian church in Livermore, the world of AA Milne’s Pooh and Walt Disney has kept Cindy afloat emotionally during her more than decade-long battle with cancer.

“It was where I could hide” said Russell, whose hair conjures Snow White. “Disney was somewhere I could find a safe place. I know it sounds crazy”.

Crazy or not, the Russell’s have channeled Cindy’s Disney passion into a way of life. Three years ago -eight years after her first cancer diagnosis and long after her first cancer diagnosis and long after she was expected to die - Cindy and her husband Rick opened “Where the Magic Begins” a Disney collectables shop on the edge of downtown Livermore.

Today a giant blow-up Tigger and Red Camero with Mickey Mouse decals beckon shoppers to the store in a non-descript strip mall. Inside, porcelain Tinkerbells. Cinderella and Show Whites curtsy from behind glass cases. Little girls walk around with big eyes and grandmothers buy them treasures to keep on high shelves.

Starting at a painting of Cinderella inside the shops art gallery (a gallery built by customers who gave free labor because the loved Cindy), Cindy’s eyes will up with tears. She’s full of joy about this dream come alive, but the journey hasn’t followed a fairytale storyline.

Although Cindy felt something was wrong in her body from a young age, nobody pinpointed the problem for years. Sometimes she would get chest pains and her left arm would turn blue and husband Rick would rush her to the hospital. She says doctors labeled her “over -anxious” and sent her home with Valium.

While at work in a Lucks store bakery in 1992, Cindy fell and hit her head on the cookie counter. She took some time off but didn’t get better and felt she couldn’t go back to work. When Luckys investigated her for workers compensation fraud, doctors finally ordered CAT Scans and MRIs.

Cindy recalls being at home with her younger son and twins boys - then ages six and nine- when doctors called to tell her she had a fast moving type of thyroid cancer called medullary carcinoma, similar to the kind that kills U.S Supreme Court Chief Justis William Rehnquist last year. Surgery was only option.

When they operated, doctors found her body riddled with tumors that had metastasized. By 1994 she needed surgery, a standard protocol for this type of cancer, did not yield any cancer but devastated Cindy’s body. Still, blood test showed levels of calcitonin -- a hormone found in the blood that’s produced by C cell of the thyroid indicating more cancer.

At that stage, she turned to Dr. Orlo Clark. Chief of Surgery at UCSF/Mt. Zion Medical Center in San Francisco. Dr Clark removed five lumps on her trachea, two on her lower lymph nodes and three on her upper lymph nodes but he wasn’t able to remove the other spots of cancer in her chest.

“You get to a point when you just can’t be cut on anymore,” says Cindy. “You feel like your body is being taken apart piece by piece.”

Cindy’s battle with cancer has had a profound impact on her life. Although the Russell’s have health insurance, they’ve had to mortgage the house three times to survive these uncertain years.

“Do you know what it was like when I looked at my kids” she says, her eyes wrinkled in pain.

Now her twins, Travis and Tyler are 21 and her youngest son Ryan is 18 and filled with anxiety. Sometimes Ryan has trouble sleeping at night because he’s afraid he’ll die in the night, say Cindy.

Although the kids have had opportunities to go to college or into the military, they’ve chosen to stay at home in Livermore, near their mom.

Cindy says her boys don’t really understand her identification with Disney, but her husband does. She smiles as she watches him from the store gallery while he helps a customer, noting that he used to be nervous about talking to people.

Rick credits Disney with saving his wife’s life. He says she was so depressed that at times he couldn’t get her out of bed. Though he was making good money last year, the Russell’s went to Disneyland to celebrate Disneyland’s 50th anniversary and received VIP treatment.

Though Cindy felt ill and had to go to the infirmary, Mickey and Minnie came to cheer her up. Cindy says that trip will likely be her last unless her ultimate fantasy comes true/ Shed like to have a Cinderella - style wedding in Disneyland and don the beautiful grown and slippers as Rick rides in on a white house.

“I really want to finish the story with the ending “, she says. “want to be Cinderella.”