The Color Teal

-
Friday's schedule included meeting Brian and his co-workers for their annual Christmas luncheon at Outback Steakhouse. Shortly after arriving, I noticed the teal shirt Brian's 4th grade partner was wearing and asked why he didn't have that color. And then I spotted more and more teal . . . it is the official Ovarian Cancer color, after all. Teal manages to stand out on its own, much less when nearly everyone present is wearing it.

And then I noticed that some of them said "Love for Lewis" on them, and I started to think this gathering might be a little more than a Christmas lunch.

Turns out one of Brian's co-workers was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and the subsequent treatment was fresh on her mind. When she heard about our family and started reading the blog, she organized the teal, collected money, gift cards (totally almost the exact amount we unexpectedly had to spend on Tamiflu and van repairs last week, by the way) and notes of encouragement. Even Brian's former school got in on the action. They were all so sweet, and I feel so undeserving.

Thank you isn't really enough, but it's what I have to offer.

One especially poignant note was from a teacher whose grandmother died as a result of ovarian cancer recently, and their family had decided to spend their Christmas money on an ovarian cancer-related cause.

To be honest, the teal show of support was enough. Everything else was just an incredible blessing for our family. Once again, we have been loved on in a special way during a difficult time, and I can only hope that our children especially will learn from this and pass on the love to others.

DSC_1926

Comments

MyEbella aka Kim said…
What a wonderful community you have!
You are soo deserving!
3:40 AM
Amanda said…
That is such an awesome story!!
10:23 AM
Christine @ 12,450miles said…
What a beautiful story! I'm so touched.
5:57 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Scoop

-
Our meeting with Dr. W today was fine. Not encouraging, but fine. I don't know why I expected better news, but I think it's hard not to hope that the bad news you hear is somehow wrong; that they've somehow made a mistake. Basically, the cancer is still the same as prior to chemo. Possibly a little larger, but he said it was hard to tell. He was glad that it had not returned to my bowel or colon (because that was a large part of my initial surgery), and my chest and lungs are still clear (apparently, this is the next place the cancer would go). It does not change my stage of cancer (still 3c), and remission is still a possibility, but he said that it would be very tough to get there.  There are several more drugs that we can try, which is good, but unfortunately they each have a success rate of only 25%. It's a little too early to be considering clinical trials because hospitals who hold the trials like for the patients to have tried the more main-stream drugs firs
Read more

Late Night Ramblings

-
Image
1. Thanks to Andrea for driving me to chemo today. I'm always a little anxious on the way in and the very few times I've had to drive myself, it's been a little lonely coming home. But not today. 2. A fellow chemo patient today thought I was in my 20's. Score.  ("score" would be a term I'm borrowing from Becky ) 3. I did not wear a scarf today to chemo, and all the nurses and doctors did a double take since they didn't recognize me. So wierd. I recognize me with hair, bald, and with a little puppy fluff. 4. Dr. W. is adding Avastin , a new drug which will help prevent cancer cells from growing, to my current Gemzar routine. Good news is that it won't make me feel any worse. Bad news is that in a small percentage of patients it causes severe side effects involving blood clots, kidney failure, ulcers, and holes in your bowel. Good times. 5. I've been instructed to head directly to my primary care doctor for blood pressure medic
Read more

Scenes from the Soccer Field

-
Image
So I may not have apologized yesterday about the number of pictures, but I am definitely going to today. Because  coughcough thirty coughcough just might be excessive. And probably my family will be the only ones who look at all of them. But I don't care. :) By the way, we completely lost and did not even score a goal yet again. Rory tried really, really hard. This team was head and shoulders bigger than we are, way more coordinated than 4 year olds should be and their coach kept their A team in the entire game. Even after scoring some 15 goals. Oh, well. Rory still enjoyed herself. Which way is the goal again? Notice her position in this picture. Notice how she passed the girl next to her? No, I am not competitive at all. Not sure where the other team is. Oh, wait. There they are. See how much bigger they are? You'll notice she almost always runs with her mouth open. Either that or her tongue hang
Read more