Thanks
Thanks
With less than one week to go until Barb’s 3-Day, 60 mile breast cancer walk, she has officially “gone over the top” in her effort to raise $2000 to fight the disease. Although the link to her donation web page shows $1855 raised to date, a few of you have sent checks directly to Barb which she will bring with her Thursday night to the official start of the 3-day. Barb will be sending everyone who helped a personal note of thanks but since we have talked about and wrote about it here, we wanted to offer our sincere thanks and gratitude to all who have helped for the whole world wide web to see. Needless to say, she could not have done it without you, her dearest friends and family. We do not ever really ask any of our friends and family for this type of help and have felt funny doing so, but this was such a special occasion with Barb celebrating 10 years of being cancer free, we knew we could count on you to help, and you did. You really did. With the money raising behind her, she can now focus on the walk. I’ll post related information about places you can go and cheer her on, and the end of walk celebration at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Sunday later. God Bless each and every one of you. As Barb is walking, she will be thinking about all of you and how you have been there for her. Not just for the walk, but always.
Hard to believe that Barb is a 10 year breast cancer survivor. In some ways it all seems like some sort of bad dream, like it really didn’t even happen to us, to Barb. But it did. In 1994, a routine exam revealed a tumor in Barb’s right breast. A needle biopsy revealed that it was malignant. Only 38 at the time and with two young kids, its not the news you want to hear from the doctor. Although Barb had the cancer, our whole family was affected by it and had to deal with it. It turned into our battle. Kelly and Kate were only 6 and 7 years old at the time. Babies who had to deal with their mom being sick. Not fun. After weighing several options, Barb had a lumpectomy followed by several rounds of radiation treatments. After her treatments and during recovery is when Barb really made a commitment to her health. Eating healthy and routine exercise, now a big part of our life, are due in large part to Barb wanting to the beat cancer, and beat it badly. And she has! Barb kicked cancer’s ass!!
We stopped by after sunset to watch and participate in the evening ceremony. During the day and into the evening, participants made paper bag “lanterns” decorated with the names of either cancer survivors or people who have been lost to cancer. Very moving experience as the entire track around the footbal field was lined with lit lanterns. The bleachers on the visitors side of the football field had lanterns lined up to spell “HOPE.” Barb even had a lantern out there since she is now a 10 year cancer free breast cancer survivor. When they turned off the lights, the thousands of bags around the field and in the stands was moving. They had a ceremony with words and music for people who had been lost to cancer and for people who have survived cancer. One lady had been a breast cancer survivor for 23 years. That’s great for us to hear! It was very cool and nicely done. After the ceremony, many cancer survivors led a candle light prosession around the track to the tune of some upbeat, inspirational music. GLoria Gaynor’s “I will survive” was a good one. It was both beautiful and haunting to see all these lights, knowing that many of them represented someone who was loved, now lost. We took off after that and let the girls get about their business of sitting around, visiting, and occasionally walk around the track. Here is the photo album with most photo credits given to Kelly