More reasons

My friend, Ellyn, had the same feelings that I did, and as soon as she got back on her blog from the walk, urged people to keep on fighting for a cure, and to be advocates for our own health.

Read it! She mentions two people she encountered during her Michigan 3-day experience, and their stories alone are enough to make me walk, and walk, and walk, and walk, and walk...I hope you will join me in 2009. I can promise lots of dance parties and laughter!

Reasons to do your self breast exam today

I wrote this back in March, as a reminder to people to do their breast self-exams. I'm just sending out another friendly reminder to the people I love. Be clever, people! (Did I ever mention that a radiologist at U of M told me that I was "very clever" to have found my own breast cancer by doing a self-exam? That's why I say, "be clever, people!")

So here are the reasons I have for you to do your self-exam today. Also use these as reasons to schedule your mammogram, or to follow up on one that showed something unusual 6 months ago:

• On the morning my breast surgeon did my bilateral mastectomy, she had already performed a mastectomy on a 20-year old. Breast cancer affects young people, too! Yes, I have a defect in my BRCA-1 gene, but only 5% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have a defect in their BRCA 1 or 2 genes. I have met quite a few women in their 20s and 30s who were diagnosed with breast cancer.

• Do it to get familiar with yourself. Do it monthly to check for changes.

• Do not be too intimidated by what you might find to even do your exam. Yes, I'm going to say this, breast cancer is NOT scarier than life is good. Use me as an example - yes, was afraid to be bald, to do chemo, to look at my scars - but I'm no wizard, angel, knight or magician and I have made it through quite happily so far!

• You should have seen the adorable survivors on the walk this weekend - glowing, and very spunky with their short haircuts!
  

So, be clever, people!

Do you think this dog is spoiled?

I'm not sure...

P.S.

My amazing mother-in-law, Sybil, walked the entire 60 miles this weekend. Take that, cancer!

Where do I start?

What a weekend! I'm still overwhelmed by the whirlwind that it was, and I can't figure out where to begin talking about it. Plus I'm just a teeny bit tired (can't imagine why), and that doesn't help me pull out thoughts in a lucid manner. So I'm just going to start rattling off the memories/thoughts, before I lose them all with this chemo brain of mine. But here goes!

• Everyone should do the 3-day walk. It's a beautiful event and a great cause (1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, but the research done for breast cancer has also been applied to other cancers). There is a palpable feeling that you are putting kindness out into the world, and you are receiving it back almost ten-fold.

• If you think you love your friends, walk the 3-day with them and you will find you can't live without them! To Therese, Sakura, Laurie, and Nicole - I will never forget our weekend and how hard we laughed! Wendy - I'm sorry I kept my darling tentmate up late talking about everything under the sun! Everyone else on Nancy's Naughty Nockers, I hope you know how much I adore you, too...and hope for more 3-day dance parties and conversations to come! I am missing the team like they were amputated from me.
  

• The walk was easier this year. I think everything is easier this year, after having gone through chemo! I had a small internal problem each time people asked me if I was able to make it, though. OF COURSE I WAS ABLE TO MAKE IT! Don't you know that I am a breast cancer survivor? After all I've been through this year, walking 20 miles a day was seriously like a walk in the park. I could have probably walked 40 miles a day if there was enough time. But I can't take the sympathy so well, apparently!
  

• I had two "moments" over the weekend. One happened when I walked into the shower truck and saw some fellow walkers partially naked. I had this thought, "Whoa! I don't have those boobs anymore, I can't just be in here with these people!" Let's just say that the liquid running down my face in the shower was NOT just the shower water.

• The second moment happened when I had to pick up my pink shirt. I thought I would be so proud to put that on, but instead I was angry! I told Laurie (as more liquid ran down my face) "I don't want the pink shirt!" and Laurie, bless her soul (with tears running down her face too) said, "You don't have to have the pink shirt if you don't want it! Go get a white shirt! You can do whatever you want!" As I explained to her, I am used to my bald-baseball-hat look, which is one of my cancer-patient identifiers (though the pictures in the paper freaked me out a bit) , but I wasn't used to the pink shirt. Aunt Joann told me it was better than the alternative "No shirt at all", and of course I agree. I put it on and walked with the survivors, but to be honest, I wish I could have walked with the team members who fundraised with me all spring and summer, walked with me all weekend, and slept on the ground and used outhouses, bleary-eyed, in the middle of the night, or joined me in impromptu dance parties at pit stops. I had amazing Ellyn next to me, and Aunt Joann (who flew in from Kansas and walked with oozing blisters next to me for that last survivor walk), and I knew I had Nancy Mc behind me (as she has been for the past 7 months)...but still. And now that I write this, I am embarassed, because I know that I was walking with people who had done that, so I guess I have to take it all back. If only you could walk RIGHT next to thousands of people all at the same time.
  

• I can't tell you the thrill it was to meet other survivors and their families, and to see how much people LOVE each other...just how far they would go to prove their love for someone. I'll write about some of these people soon in another post!

Mostly, it is so touching to see how far (literally and figuratively) people will go to make a difference in this world.

P.S. ( in my "rock star" yell, with rock star motions like Sherri, Kathy, or Shannon): I LOVE YOU, NANCY'S NAUGHTY NOCKERS 2008!

Sunday's Free Press

Hello to all my darling readers/friends out there...
Patty called me and told me I will be in this Sunday's Free Press, in the Life section. I'm a little nervous because of the way I tend to blather on about things and I probably did that in our interviews! Who knows what I might have said! But Patty was a nice person to speak with on the phone, and the photographer was also a wonderful person to spend an hour or two with yesterday.

Also who knows what the photo might be - I might be with someone in my menagerie (advertising "crazy pet lady" to the world), playing baseball with my darling boy (advertising that I have the worst baseball form in the world, though I'm sure it will improve with all of our practice every day as he is obsessed), or bald (advertising baldness, ha ha!).

BUT, I will be walking in the 3-day and won't be picking up a paper/too busy to worry about it!!!!!!!!!!! I CANNOT wait for the glory of the 3-day - 3 days of kindness and good will - wrapped up in a sea of pink!

3-day walk cheering stations

My fantastic tentmate and fellow internet sleuth, Wendy, found this online...a list of cheering stations WITH mile markers for the event. This is wonderful because we can better estimate what time we would be at a cheering station. So here it is!

If you want more information about what to do at a cheering station, who will be there (husbands and children), email me! I'm not sending this EXPECTING people out there cheering me or our team on (I am so thankful for the support I've already received!)...this is just such an efficient means of communicating it to people who might be reading! If you are looking to see this wonderful event, though, this information should help:

Day 1

Heartland Marketplace Shopping Plaza
"North East corner of Farmington Road and 12 Mile Road,
Farmington Hills"
4.5 mile
8am-10am (Would imagine NNN to be there earlier rather than later - 8:30-9ish?)

North Ridge Commons Shopping Plaza
8 Mile between Farmington Road and Gill Road, Livonia
15.9 miles
12pm- 5:30pm

Day 2

Downtown Plymouth
Penniman and Main Streets, Plymouth
12.0miles
10:00am - 3:00 pm

Frank's Nursery Lot
36630 5 Mile Rd. (for Frank's Nursery and CVS Pharmacy), Livonia
17.8 miles
1:00 PM - 6:00 PM (expecting a group for NNN here - we'll be there earlier rather than later - between 1:30-2:30pm)

Day 3

Mid 5 Center
South West corner of 5 Mile Road and Middlebelt Road, Livonia
2.5 miles
7:30 AM - 10:00 AM