Aim For Cancer

Last night was Forsyth County's American Cancer Society "Relay for Life".  I entered the relay in support of my neighbor, Kelly, who lost her husband, Allan, last year to cancer.  He was 37... Actually, not quite... they buried him on his 37th birthday.  Allan was a soft spoken, big bear of a man, a computer geek, and he and Kelly complimented each other perfectly... I knew him mainly as "Wilson", you know the neighbor from Tim Allen's show... the last year of his life, I spent many hours talking to him over the fence... giving him advice on what to do through each stage of cancer... I know too much about this sadly, because of my own experience fighting it, and my own experience being a care giver.

Kelly put together a team of 19 friends, together we raised somewhere around $7500... Our team sign says we are a 'silver team', but ACS made the signs a while back... by last night we were a 'gold team' in fundraising... Items were donated for raffles, for bake sales, for a bbq that we sold to other walkers.  Throughout the night, as some of us walked, my other team mates talked people to our camp site to sell those tickets, and baked goods, etc...  This is why I can't give you an exact number yet... money was still rolling in as I rolled out after walking six hours non stop... I walked until I literally couldn't stand anymore... my muscles were tightening up... I was fueled by the fight against this disease, and Monster energy drinks....

The night was full of emotional land mines... Walking into the fair grounds I was overwhelmed with emotion... As a survivor, I was in the first group to walk... The very first lap is only for survivors and care givers...  I had Kleenex in my pocket... I kept it together... barely... I saw one gal crying in the side lines, so I handed her some of my Kleenex... then as I got to my team tent I noticed Kelly still there... I ran into the tent and dragged her out... girl friend was doing this walk with me as she was a care giver.  She walked with me and said she didn't know she should be doing it as she didn't have a survivor... Really? Ok girlfriend, I divorced my care giver, so we're doing this lap together... because YOU belong in this lap as much as I do...  Handed her my last piece of Kleenex and we finished it together.

Shortly after the survivor and care giver lap, is a team lap, "a parade of teams"...

Where the survivor lap is charged with tears... the team lap is one of pride... We did this.  We got here and we raised money for this cause....  The smiles on peoples faces were infectious.  These teams raised over $255k last night.  Hell to the YES!

The walking continues through the night.  I walked pretty much non stop from 7pm til 1am.  I say 'pretty much' because I'm guilty of stopping periodically by the stage... A couple of times they where playing songs I couldn't resist...  Electric Slide and Do You Dance... yeah I DO dance... so I'd break off from the laps and dance my ass off for 5 minutes and then go back to my walk...  But that's part of of the night isn't it?  Remember.  Celebrate.  Fight Back.  The dance IS a celebration.  I'm alive.  I'm a survivor and yes I'm going to dance if there's music that makes my tail feathers shake.  :)

Let me show you what remembering AND fighting back looks like to people of this county....

It's quilts... it's team spirit....  In the themes of tents, the bake sales, the donations received...


Kissing booths  and other creative booths made... cute and silly gestures for people to be part of... wishing wells...
 
My favorite booth of all last night... Tell me this one isn't creative... I think I'd like the person who designed it... They have my sense of humor...  It was a ping pong ball toss... ROFLMAO!


To whoever designed it... Thank you for a good chuckle!  You get "most creative" award... :)





It's more sobering moments of reflection too... When you walk these laps you are walking next to nearly 1000 luminary bags.  Each bag is 'in honor' or 'in memory' of... each bag has a name on it... that's nearly 1000 people that have fought this battle... and each of those people had caregivers... family members that had to go through and survive their own personal battles of fear, sadness, and overwhelming grief.

Everywhere you look, these bags are around you... around the track, in the "Garden of Hope", near the barn... You look... you remember... you grieve... you celebrate their lives and your own... you become incredibly THANKFUL for another day.

One of the most moving parts of the event is the when these bags are lit for the night.  The luminary ceremony.  It's an hour where the lights go out in the track.  All 1000 bags were lit... All of the participants holding a candle... a list of names scrolls on the stage... a bag piper plays "Amazing Grace" as you walk silently around the lap and pray.  I prayed for a newer friend of mine during this lap... Her father is currently in hospice today... When I purchased a bag this week... I didn't purchase it for those I've lost in the past year... they were on my team banners... This was a new candle that needed to be lit... a new person I needed to send positive juju to... 

Something also came to me during this hour...  Let me let you in on a little secret.  Are you ready for it?  Ok, here it goes...

I can be an idiot at times...

Yes I know that's surprising to you all... But it's true... I have a tendency to downplay what experiences I have gone through.  I don't give myself the credit for what I have survived.  For example:  I was in a domestic violence relationship in my early 20's.  I freely admitted that after I left.  I knew I had been.  I didn't think it had been 'all that bad' because I left when he hit me.  It took me many years to realize the emotional trauma I'd gone through TIL that moment.  Waking up to the smelling of my private areas in the middle of the night to insure I hadn't been with someone else... the shaking until I had finger print bruises on my arms and no will to argue... the dictating of what I could and couldn't wear (nothing too sexy, nothing too short)... the total wear down of my ego until I became a mild mouse... the anger and removal of love if someone looked at him or me wrong... the friends he shut out of my life... etc...  One day I had an epiphany and realized that I had given less credit to the damage that man did to me for the year leading UP to the day he hit me... that somehow I had minimalized it, and made it OK for the emotional warfare he put me through.  It took me years to get back to the strong independent spirit I am... and I still have PTSD from parts of it...

Last night I had another epiphany...  I have downplayed my own experience of being a cancer survivor.  I have felt guilty admitting to being a survivor because I didn't have to go through chemo or lose my hair... that I didn't go through the same amount of horror my fellow survivors did.  During the luminary ceremony, a couple got up and described their experience of what they went through when they found out the husband had Leukemia 9 years ago.  In listening to that experience, I had so many similar memories I thought... WTF... I DESERVE to be happy and proud I survived...  The damn t shirt I'm wearing I EARNED.  So what if I didn't go through chemo and lose my hair... I spent weeks crawling on the floor to get through my house as I prepared to go through the radioactive treatments I DID go through.  For three years in a row, I left my children for a week... the first time they were 1 and 3... how do you explain to children this young, that the mommy that stays home with them 24/7 has to leave for a week because she can't hold you or be near you FOR YOUR SAFETY, because she's going to literally be radioactive?  As a mommy who IS home 24/7 with two babies that are her life, how do you TEAR YOURSELF AWAY from your babies and not hold them for a week?  And then worry when you do return home that you might have enough radioactivity left in your body that you might still do them damage?  I didn't taste the taste of chemo, but I DID taste the taste of radioactive iodine... I had the nausea... the metallic horrid taste in my mouth for a week... the exhaustion... the isolation... I had two operations...  I had to be told I had cancer... I KNOW that moment... how I survived the doctors visit and managed to get through it and outside before I puked by my car... Three years later, when I was told I had to go through the radioactivity one more time, I remember sobbing quietly in my dining room, not having the strength to put on the happy face because all I just wanted to do was be healthy and done with this all...  I remember being told after that last radioactive treatment that I couldn't do it again... because I had nearly my lifetime supply of radioactivity and I was in danger of getting Leukemia in the future.

To "cure" a person's cancer you have to nearly kill them.  They are left fighting this near death experience in hope of coming out of it and being a better and healthier you.  I came through it 9 years ago.  I AM better... in so many ways... I am a better person.  I am less bitchy, and complain less.... I have had my lesson on respecting my daily life... I know each day is a gift.

I walked six hours last night...  in memory of all the people I have lost... in memory of my own battle and the battle that my fellow survivors went through... I walked in gratitude of the friends and family who donated to this cause.  I know that until the 1940s there were no 'cures', no extended percentages of survival... with the money we have raised over the last 70 years we have funded research, extended peoples lives, made their quality of lives better while fighting cancer - my mother was a FDA lab rat during her own battle... she was one of the first humans to take Emend, an anti nausea drug now common to cancer patients today... Your money let my mother never be nauseas...  your money gave me a normal life expectancy... and god willing, your money WILL find a cure, so we don't have to have "memorial" walks, only walks of honor...

I AM HOPE damn it!  You all create HOPE.

Thank you, and god bless each and every one of you that supported this walk, and my walk last October... and who will support future walks I do...   Until there's a cure.

RIP