Since I run with the lightening speed of a turtle, I usually queue up at the back of the pack. Somewhere between the slow runners and the sea of walkers. Last year was no different. I found my place among the throng of participants and next to a rather large group of walkers all decked out in hot pink and wearing a sense of purpose. Surrounded by this pepto-pink doused group was a women. The most incredible woman I have ever met.
Clad in pink fuzzy slipper, pink leopard print pajamas, a tiara baseball cap on a hairless head, and a feather boa that would have made Liberace proud was the shell of a woman. She sat in a silver and pink sequins wheelchair equipped with IV bag and rims. Her name was Sarah* and she had end stage triple negative breast cancer and was running her race for the last time.
As the race started and we began to slinky our way across the starting line, my desire to be a lone runner died. I walked along side her entourage talking to a woman who had been part of Sarah's care team at M. D. Anderson. I learned that Sarah had been a part of the Komen Race for a Cure for over 10 years. She had never missed a race. During chemotherapy, she walked. Weeks after a double mastectomy, she walked. During recovery, she walked. Now, with time racing against her and life showing it's last days, she would once again walk. This time in a tricked out wheelchair surrounded by friends, family, care takers and clergy; she would make one last stand against a disease that cares little about race, religion or ethnicity. She would show cancer that it may have claimed her body, but it would never kill her spirit.
I walked half that race with her and her team. Each step learning more about what it means to live, survive, fight and love. I don't know what happened to Sarah. I assume that cancer finally claimed her body. I doubt it ever got never her soul. This year, I ran with more purpose. I asked people to donate. I was no longer a lone runner. Despite a hip injury that sent shooting pain down my leg with every step, I refused to stop. I couldn't stop. Sarah never stopped. And if she could do it, so could I.
* In respect of her privacy, I have not used her real name; although, I somehow think she wouldn't have minded.
** "I walk for those who walked before me and those who walk beside me"
4 comments:
Well-done, Lisa. I'd stay here and sing your praises for your determination, but somehow that doesn't seem right, and I doubt you'd really want that.
Just believe when I say that it's tough to like and admire you more than I already did, but I found a way to do it. I applaud you in ways that words will never be able to capture.
As you know, I just made a donation to Komen in honor of my friend Amy who is a triple negative survivor. She's in her late 30's, so any woman who thinks they're too young for it to happen to them, they are wrong. Hopefully not dead wrong.
Mjenks: Thank you, your words mean the world to me.
Scope: Amy is the real hero. They all are and it still amazes me how many people think BC can't happen to them.
First off, I just today found that the alien kidnapers found out that feeding you was way more cost than youyr worth, so they returned you to this earth and your back blogging.
Secondly, cancer affects many people in many ways. My wife is now facing her second bout of cancer, this time in her lung. Since she has lymphoma couple of years ago, they have been doing scans on her for followup, so they have cuaght this one in stahe one. So the prognosis is good, but she is on the horn of a dilemia. It is small, its growing and has been steady at it, but its only the size of a grape. Its location makes it tough to hit with a biopsy, so she has two options. One is to remove the lobe of the lung, then determine the type of C. If its typical lung C, then that is what the treatment plan would call for, removal of the lung lobe. BUT if its another type, then that would still need chemo and radiation, plus now she has reduced lung capacity. So does she cut it out and hope its the former, or let in grow some more to wait until they can hit it with better assurance to determine if the lobe can be saved, or what?
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