Mother's Day Weekend

The other day, someone said something to me about May being Breast Cancer Awareness month.....to which I responded that it isn't....October is.  The person I was speaking with wondered then, why there was so much emphasis on breast cancer events in May....The reason? Mother's Day.

For years, my daughter, my husband  and I participated in the Susan G. Komen run in New Britain, Connecticut, and then also soon thereafter, the Relay for Life in Meriden, Connecticut.  In 1998, I was sort of the poster child for these events.....someone who could string two sentences together, didn't mind speaking with people, who was young (only 38) and who had an adorable daughter...yep....just the right fodder to pull out the hankies and get people interested.

Those years are long gone.   I don't participate in Komen anymore...I can't run and I can barely walk...and I feel that we should be aware already, and it is time to tackle the harder aspect of finding something that works for all of us who are stage IV.....as Komen pretty much sweeps us under the rug.

Today, that little girl above is now 20 and is in Barcelona.  Just before this picture was taken, I miscarried twins.....and given the way I have felt all weekend, I don't know how I could have handled a pair of 15 year olds.  I can barely function on my own.  Halaven (eribulin) has knocked my red blood cells so low that I have been doing little other than sleep.

It makes me a little sad as I am having a hard time keeping up with my regular chores and it leaves no energy left for blogging or for quiilting.  Sticking a spade in the soil leaves me heaving for breath.

But I'm still drawing breath, and my tumor markers, the proteins which cancer expresses, are dropping...which is a good thing.  Hopefully, I will be able to get my energy back....

I post this and think how lucky I am to have a daughter, even one with whom I butt heads.  She is a delight.  Hopefully, she will avoid the horrors I have lived through in fighting this disease, but I also know that she will have her own struggles....I know few people who are able to get through their lives without some trauma.

I hope that somehow we will better fund the NIH and provide research into all the horrible diseases and make strides in at least making them more easy to handle and not ones which bankrupt us...I am always embarrassed that so much has been raised for breast cancer while other areas, such as ovarian and pancreatic cancers are stuck and make no progress forward.  And that doesn't even bring into play diseases such as ALS, MS and Parkinson's.....and the myriad others.

So while you are celebrating your mothers, or your motherhood, I suggest that perhaps you donate even just $10 to any of the foundations of your choice...and help families stay together....and thrive...and defeat disease or what other horror someone you know or who is close to you faces...and if you're lucky enough not to know anyone with any problems..just make a donation at random.  Enough little donations will make a huge impact.

If you can't do that...well, then just practice a random act of kindness....it will come back on your many fold.