Barbara Yamashiro’s friends use words like “valiant” and “courageous” to describe her, and comment on her kindness and generosity to those in need.
“Barbara’s a gallant and gracious lady. She’s always very giving. When anyone needs help, she’s there,” said close friend and neighbor V Kessler.
Now the 37-year resident of Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs is reaching out to friends and community residents, asking for their support of a fund-raiser she has organized to benefit the LAM Foundation.
The foundation funds research into Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), an extremely rare, progressive and terminal lung disease. It attacks only women and there is currently no effective treatment and no cure. Yamashiro was diagnosed with LAM in 1995.
The “Breath of Hope” wine dinner and silent auction will be held on Tuesday, May 23, at Azul La Jolla Restaurant, 1260 Prospect St., starting with a reception at 6 p.m. Tickets for the event are $75 per person, of which $60 is tax-deductible.
Yamashiro and daughter Alicia, assistant general manager of Azul, have planned a festive evening showcasing many of the La Jolla restaurant’s specialties as well as fine wines paired with each course.
While the menu was not final at press time, Alicia explained that the evening will start with a reception offering hors d’oeuvres, including crab and artichoke pastries and ahi tartare.
Guests can mingle as they stroll from station to station, where chefs will prepare dishes such as pear and walnut salad, halibut and loin of lamb. Among the desserts will be mini crème brulées and “something chocolate.” Wines will include a sparkling wine, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.
“Azul has been so generous about providing the facility and the food and arranging for all the wines to be donated,” Barbara said.
She has worked extremely hard to secure a tantalizing array of items for the silent auction. Highlights include hotel stays, cooking and aquatic lessons, and tickets for Disneyland, the zoo, museums, the ballet, harbor cruise and Gulls and Padres, as well as a baseball signed by Ryan Klesko. There will also be a raffle with appealing prizes.
Barbara was co-chairing the annual MADCAPS show in Point Loma when she was stricken with a debilitating illness and couldn’t breathe.
“My doctor at the time had never seen a case of LAM. The American Lung Association had never heard of it,” she said.
The LAM Foundation was founded only in 1995, when the founder’s then-teenaged daughter was diagnosed with LAM. Both Sue Byrnes, the founder, from Cincinnati, Ohio, and daughter Andrea, who now lives in Pacific Beach, will attend the May 23 event.
LAM is considered an “orphan” disease, which afflicts too few people to attract significant funding from the pharmaceutical industry or government, although the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has conducted a study, in which Barbara has participated for the last six or seven years, she explained.
“It’s very rare. Only about 1,000 cases are known worldwide, but there may be as many as 250,000 undiagnosed,” she said.
The illness is often mistaken for emphysema or asthma and tends to manifest and progress differently in different women, but usually strikes women in the prime of life and is invariably fatal.
“When [a disease] is that rare it’s hard to find funding,” Barbara said. “So it falls upon the patients and their friends to raise the money for research and support.”
This wine dinner is one of a series of fund-raisers around the country that volunteers are staging to raise the last $700,000 for the foundation’s multi-site trial of the existing FDA-approved drug Rapamycin, which has shown promise in treating LAM.
Barbara will not be able to participate in the drug trial because it is limited to women who have not had a lung transplant, which she received in 2003. A lung transplant is the only treatment now known to prolong life.
A native of the Los Angeles area, Barbara came to San Diego in 1967 as a junior at San Diego State University, where she met her husband, Carl, a teacher at Sweetwater High School in National City. They moved to Ocean Beach in 1969, loved it and stayed to raise their four children ” son Andy and triplets Alicia, Brenna and Cathy. While raising their children, Barbara volunteered with the schools and many community organizations.
She is particularly excited about the March 26 birth of their first grandchild, Kate.
“I didn’t think I’d live to see her. She’s very special to me,” she said.
For more information about the fund-raiser, please visit the local volunteers’ Web site, www.sandiegofriendsoflam.com. To purchase tickets, call (619) 223-2552.