On friday afternoon I got an email form the president of our local American Cancer Society office asking if I would mind stopping by on Monday to speak at their \u201cpep rally\u201d. I didnt really have much to do yesterday morning so I agreed.<\/p>\n
Making Strides Monday<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I somehow procrastinating writing my speech for the American Cancer Society. \u00a0We have all been sick with some pre-k crud and my brain has been in a fog. \u00a0So I finally sat down on Monday morning while Maddie was eating breakfast and wrote my speech. \u00a0I started out about my cancer diagnosis the date and how it felt. \u00a0My world stopped for a moment however, \u00a0the craziest thing was while mine was stopped others went on. \u00a0Its crazy to think about. \u00a0I was getting a diagnosis of one of the most feared words in our vocabulary \u201cCANCER\u201d. \u00a0<\/em>At that very same time I bet someone was getting a promotion, or having a baby, or just having a great day! \u00a0While my life took an awful spin others where celebrating. \u00a0Crazy right?<\/p>\n Should be Leaps and Bounds<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The American Cancer Society has a low admin cost and funnel most of their donations to research and programs for cancer patients. \u00a0I think that is wonderful!! \u00a0I did not find out about all the programs until my 4th of 16 chemo treatments. \u00a0I met my first two volunteers (for the American Cancer Society) when I changed Oncologist. \u00a0I did not have a great experience at my first choice so I switched. \u00a0That is when I met two ladies who, though much older had been through almost what I have been through. \u00a0They took me under their wings and I saw them often over the next few months. \u00a0They always put a smile on my face, asked relevant questions (people ask a lot of dumb cancer questions), as well as asked about Maddie. \u00a0They made me feel good about my bald head and one made me a cap. \u00a0I wish I knew more about what was available and what the American Cancer Society offered earlier on\u2026<\/p>\n Why are you WALKING<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n One of the main questions that the area president (of the American Cancer Society) asked me was why am I walking? \u00a0The actual act of walking doesnt matter, really. \u00a0You can show up and \u201cwalk\u201d but its more about raising funds. \u00a0To me its a trickle down. \u00a0The more I walk, the more money I raise, the more programs and research there are. \u00a0My reasons for walking and pushing are completely selfish. \u00a0Yup, I said it selfish!! I never ever want Maddie\u2019s world to stop for a moment due to fear or Cancer. \u00a0I want her to be aware of my cancer and advocate for cancer however thats it. \u00a0I will gladly do this all again as long as she does not have to. \u00a0I will yell from the roof top and walk, jog, or run as long as she does not have to endure what I did.<\/p>\n So my wish for you, for all is to have a life with more birthdays, more celebrations, more babies, and promotions, more good days than bad and for a life with out that dreaded word CANCER<\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On friday afternoon I got an email form the president of our local American Cancer Society office asking if I would mind stopping by on Monday to speak at their \u201cpep rally\u201d. I didnt really have much to do yesterday morning so I agreed. Making Strides Monday I somehow procrastinating writing my speech for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1879,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,2,5,6,7],"tags":[8,9,10,11,12],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-before-cancer","category-cancer","category-empower-network","category-greyhound","category-motivational","category-stupid-cancer","tag-american-cancer-society","tag-blogging","tag-breast-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-happiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kkaritis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}