My Kidnapping

I took part in the Wellspring Well Dressed for Spring Fashion Show last night at Holt Renfrew, and while I didn’t exactly own the runway, I perhaps borrowed it for a few minutes. This isn’t your run of the mill high-end fashion show; in order to take part, you have to have had cancer, or have a pretty close relationship with it. This is where I tell you about my cancer “journey”, as we are encouraged to call it, although sometimes I prefer to call it a kidnapping, since you don’t choose to take it, you don’t know where it’s going to take you, it’s pretty scary, your friends and family freak out, and you don’t always make it back.

I obviously did, although it was touch and go for a little while back then. It was 2005. I was working full time, going to graduate school part time, and raising Aidan and Ronan, who were 12 and 6. I was busy busy busy, so much so that I did not notice the first lump in my breast, although I did notice the second one, because it appeared in the skin. Turns out I had two different forms of cancer growing about 2 inches apart. (“Two kinds of cooties!” said my brother, almost admiringly.) Furthermore, I had an uncertain prognosis, since no one knew what to make of it. To make a long, frightening story short, I had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation – the slash, poison and burn solution to bad cooties. Then we all – friends, family, doctors and nurses – hunkered down to wait. We are still waiting, 11 years later, but, so far (knock wood) I remain in the clear.

Anyhoozles, that’s all I want or need to get into right now. In the years that have followed, I’ve spoken about the whole journey/kidnapping on several occasions, at luncheons and fundraisers and so on. I’ve supported far too many friends who have been down the same road. I take part in The Ride to Conquer Cancer, and I do what I can when I can to be a good survivor, but I don’t really dwell on it anymore. It doesn’t define me, or determine what I do, or how I feel. Go away, stupid cancer. You’re not the boss of me anymore.

Then I meet people, like I did last night, who are fresh out of the woods, or still wandering around in them, and they are brave, and shaky, and blinking in the light, and that is what Wellspring is all about. They help people with cancer and their families learn how to cope, emotionally, financially, and physically, and they do it for free, which is why they have these amazing fundraising events. They take survivors, and dress them up in beautiful clothes, and parade them in front of lovely generous people who use it as an excuse to go shopping, or go shopping as an excuse to give money, to help support the cause. You can too, if you’d like, by going here: https://wellspring.ca/donate-now

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