Giving back

On September 1st, I attended a speaker presentation about health in the Sun Valley inn. When it was over there was time to chat and socialize. My Friend Ellen introduced to a women. I immediately recognized her because she was carrying a pink 3 ring binder. That was me! Clutching my pink binder full of all my pathology reports, print offs about my doctors and description of my cancer, in hopes that knowledge would somehow cure me. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer 2 weeks prior. We talked at length and I got a sense that she was a lot like me, ready to handle most anything. Two days later we met for dinner and Lisa told me all about her journey but mostly she wanted to hear about mine. It felt so good to finally be on the other end, to talk about my past and not the horror of the present. During dinner I found out she changed her mind about reconstruction because of our prior meeting. She was not going to do it, she saw how well I was doing and changed her mind. Lisa’s closest friends was putting together a fundraiser for her. She asked me to speak in her behalf because she would be recovering form the mastectomy at the time.
On Sept 21st a estimated 700 people showed up at the Sun Valley river run lodge for a live and silent auction, Michael Murphy comedy show, and dancing with a live band all night long. Lisa’s mother and brother Larry was there. Larry got to speak in behalf of the family and I was able to speak in behalf of Lisa. I silenced the whole house to tell them how much Lisa adored this community how blessed she and I felt to be a part of it. I called on all the breast cancer survivors to come on the stage as well as all of Lisa’s friends who helped put the event on. Lisa’s mom passed out beautiful pink roses to all the women. About 7 survivors showed up. It was great! We began to dance the night away.
My date, Janet Evans, was so great! We wore pink feather boas and boogied like we didn’t care. Lisa told me later that many attendees felt my speech was the highlight of the evening. I’m just grateful that the message was received. Lisa and I are survivors; this is just the beginning of the battle and there is a lot more liven to do. We feel blessed that we have friends and family to support us on the journey.