ANN ARBOR, Mich. – No one fights cancer alone. My mother is a 20-year breast cancer survivor. To my family and me, she is so much more than a statistic.
Your loved ones are more than just a statistic, too. Cancer truly touches all of us, and it’s up to us to continue to fight for a cure.
Over the past 20 years, I have been involved with several events that raise awareness of breast cancer. It’s a way I can honor my mom and other loves ones who have had to fight this terrible disease.
So, when legendary Michigan softball coach Carol Hutchins reached out to me about being the Honorary Chair for their 14th Annual Michigan Softball Academy benefiting the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, I didn’t have to give it a second thought. The honor would be mine!
To give you our back story. My mother was diagnosed at the young age of 43. She had an aunt who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 43 and a cousin at 43. Ten years before my mother’s diagnosis, her cousin passed away from the exact same form of breast cancer that my mom beat. That’s because events like the Michigan Softball Academy raised money to fund research that helped discover a treatment that saved my mom’s life.
She was truly given a second chance at life. Most of all, she was given the chance to become a grandmother. It’s not lost on me that I’ve been given 20 more years with my best friend, and my children now get to know and love their Mimi.
My mom underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation. I recall anxiously sitting in the waiting room with my dad for the doctor to come out to tell us we could go back and see my mom post-op.
I was 18 years old, struggling to wrap my mind around it and make sense of it all. My dad, who is a man of few words, knew exactly what to say. The first words he told my mom after her mastectomy were how beautiful she was. Let me tell you, not even the nurses in the room had a dry eye.
It was at that moment that I realized what true love really was. He continued to be our rock, but our comic relief came from an unexpected source: my mom, the patient and warrior.
When her hair started to fall out from chemo, she decided it was time to shave it. She let me have the honor, and instead of crying, she sat on our deck joking that this was going to be the only time my dad would have more hair than her. At Halloween, she joked about being Mr. Clean with her newly sported bald head. The hardest year turned into some of the most beautiful and cherished moments for our family.
But sadly, not everyone has the same happy outcome that our family does. We know the dark side, too. A dear friend of ours, who was like a second mother to me, lost her battle with breast cancer a few years ago. My 1-year-old daughter is named after her. I think we all know there is more work that needs to be done. I surely hope that before my daughter is my age, breast cancer will be eradicated.
We fundraise because every dollar counts. It might sound cliché, but it’s true. It could be the dollar bill in your pocket that is that last buck it takes to fund the next advancement in research and treatment to save countless more lives. How powerful it is to think that we have the opportunity to make that kind of difference.
But as much as it is about the money raised, it’s also about awareness. My mom had a clear mammogram just seven months before she discovered a lump in the shower. She could have brushed it off or waited until her next yearly visit, but it was awareness through her family experiences that made her get checked.
Thank God she did -- she had not only one, but two tumors. They were as young as three months, no more than six months, and the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. Her doctor said that if she had waited until her next yearly appointment, it would have been too late.
If you ever need a reason to do a self-exam or get a yearly mammogram, let this be it. This event touched my heart last night. I got to meet the real MVPs: the fundraisers and participants.
You can still help them by clicking here to donate.
The silent auction goes until 8 p.m. Sunday.
Go Blue! Go Pink!