An Honor That I Wish I Hadn't Gotten

Although I don't talk about it often, I have received dozens of emails and phone calls from cancer patients around the country who have read my blog or heard about Spin4Survival. When Dave and I were in Redbook this past December, a number of people reached out to me who had had similar experiences with cancer or were just grateful to hear about someone who was living with the disease and refused to become a victim of it.

I received an email this past January from a woman my age who was also suffering from sarcoma. She was a private person and did not care to share her cancer with many people. She joked to me that "Unfortunately, we have this pesky ‘sarcoma’ thing in common."

She shared wth me her experiences and her frustrations. "Everything is just different now and will be for the rest of my life. I still wake up some mornings, feel my bald head and go, “IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING????? TO ME???” And each morning I am sobered by the sad reality that yes, it is."

Although I was sad to hear about her diagnosis, I was flattered to hear that reading about my journey had helped her. She wrote, "It is kind of a fluke that I learned about your story. I was waiting at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and a Redbook magazine was sitting out of place on the counter. I have never looked at a Redbook magazine before in my life. I picked up the magazine to pass the time and turned directly to the “How She Does It” expose featuring you and your husband. The word Sarcoma leaped off the page at me. I purchased the magazine and started visiting your website. As you know, Sarcoma’s are relatively rare and I have found comfort in the fact that another young, vibrant, type-A, ‘world on a string kind of a person’ is also going through this.Thanks again for sharing your story so openly, Jen. As I said earlier, you have truly helped (and inspired) me. "

Although we only communicated once in a while, I was glad to hear that my words were reaching her and helping her.

I received a voice message about 2 weeks ago from a man whose name I did not recognize. However, something in the tone of the call made me immediately call back. This man was the husband of the woman I had been communicating with. He called to let me know that unfortunately she had passed away earlier that week. The tumors had spread to her lungs and there was nothing that the doctors could do.

I was so upset to hear this news. I often choose to forget that 50% of patients who have sarcoma die which makes it all the more difficult to process when someone I know passes away. One of the wonderful things about cancer is meeting so many amazing people...and one of the most challenging things about cancer is that you are constantly reminded that this disease kills so many.

The man told me that because his wife found so much strength in my words, she had requested that any donations that family and friends wanted to make be sent to Spin4Survival. He told me that she took great comfort in the fact that Dave and I were aggressively raising money to stamp out this disease. Wow...what a tribute!

I promised him that I would continue to fight and raise money for this disease in the hopes that more people can survive.

It seems fitting that this week the Spin4Survival plaque was put up in the chemotherapy clinic at MSKCC. Although the plaque thanks Dave and me for all of our work on Spin4Survival, it truly is a reminder of the thousands of people who donate funds and join together every January to fight for a cure. When I visit that plaque every Friday when I get chemo, I am reminded about all of the people who died because the medicines and drugs could not treat the disease. It propels me to keep fighting my own battle and to continue to donate my time and energy putting an end to sarcoma.

A Fantastic Week

I am sorry that I have not written a while but I have been very busy doing lots of fun things! The first week of May was very special as I got the chance to see my college girlfriends. 6 of us met in Austin, Tx for the weekend and it was so much fun. I was marveling at the fact that we have all known each other since our Freshman year at Duke...19 years ago! Despite the fact that we live in 6 different cities (Austin, Boston, San Francisco, New York, Nashville and Atlanta) and have 5 husbands and 13 kids between us, we still all manage to get together at least once every year or 18 months. This year was particularly fun. We spent a day at the Lake Austin Spa laying out at the pool and getting massages and facials. We all joked around that we can tell we are getting older when we would rather spend our money on a nice dinner and a spa treatment than going dancing all hours of the night at a fancy club!

I went straight from Austin to celebrate a special friend's wedding in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Meg is a very good friend whom I met through cancer. She went to business school with Dave and introduced herself to me when I was going through treatments. Meg was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma about 12 years ago and went through a series of treatments in addition to a stem cell transplant. She is an amazing woman who taught me a lot about how to handle cancer. She also has introduced me to a wonderful group of girlfriends who have also battled cancer. We call ourselves the "Cancer Chicks" and some of us were fortunate enough to be able to toast Meg and Wes at the rehearsal dinner. Each one of us spoke about our experiences with cancer and how Meg helped us and continues to help us deal with the situation. Although words could never truly express how much Meg has meant to me, I was appreciative that I was given the chance to at least try to express my gratitude. I spoke about the fact that I truly do believe people enter your life for a reason and that Meg has truly been a life saver to me.
Another wonderful thing about Meg's wedding is that, in addition to getting married at a gorgeous hotel in Mexico, she married a good friend of Dave's and mine from business school. We love it when 2 of our friends marry each other. The wedding was beautiful! In fact, the entire week at the hotel was great - the weather was gorgeous and Meg and Wes had so many great friends and family that traveled the distance to see them married. Dave and I had a great, great time! I went for the entire week and combined the wedding with some R&R. Dave came out for the weekend as he is headed to Scotland next week for 10 days to play golf with our friends Vishal, Brett and Sam.

It is nice to know that my cancer and the weekly chemotherapy treatments have gotten pretty predictable and "mundane". I truly appreciate the fact that my Doctor lets me travel to places like Mexico and that Dave is comfortable enough with my status that he feels OK leaving the country on a vacation with the guys.
Again, I am truly grateful that cancer has not overly disrupted our lives. Of course there are some things in our life that we have postponed or rescheduled but, on the whole, we are living life just as we would like to live it.