Few missions are without a dedication and mine is to my mother,
Loray Jenkins Repp, who lost her battle to Breast Cancer in 1974.
Long before the days of
mammograms
and
self examinations she
awoke one morning to find something present on her breast. A few
hours later she was in her doctor's office and a few hours after
that she was admitted to the hospital. What was meant to be a biopsy
the following morning wound up as a mastectomy, for which my father
had to make the decision while my mother lay asleep on the
operating table. This began what would become a nearly 10 year
battle with breast cancer. My mother fought this dreaded
disease so valiantly through most of my childhood but finally lost
in 1974.
The truth be told we were not close ~ she was tough and
neurotic and I resented her for that. I resented
her not being around and always seeming stressed out when she was.
But fast forward decades later and I now have an appreciation for
the personal struggles she encountered as a woman and dealt with as
a victim of Breast Cancer. I shared much of the journey with
her ~ venturing to Mexico in the early 1970s for her Laetrile
treatments in an effort to stave off chemotherapy and being there
with tweezers in hand, plucking each whisker from her chin as her
hair began to return, once her eventual date with chemo did come and
go.
In the end this disease robbed us both of an opportunity to truly
know each other. Would she have been any different? Kinder, more
patience, or less stressed? Would she have liked the woman I
was to become? It's hard to say, but we should have been given
the chance to find out. So this journey of pink if for her and
for all of you who've faced the loss of time with a loved one.
The truth is we have better choices now. With regular
mammograms and
self examinations we can
ensure that our mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, and friends are
around to share life's experiences and blessings with us all.
For me, this website is about just that ~ passing on knowledge.
It's about learning, growing, and sharing what we know about breast
cancer and how we can help others too. What is my dream? To
turn the entire internet pink for October. It's a big dream, I
know, and my mother didn't teach me about dreams, she probably just
didn't have the time, but it's mine and I hope you will share it
with me. I hope you'll join me in this journey to go Pink for
October. It's so easy to do ~ whether you have a website,
blog, shop, or social networking profile it's as easy as posting a
photo, badge, background, or sporting a new pink look for the month
of October.
Over the coming months new information will be added to this
website; ways to join in, help out, and resources to help you go
pink. Whether you are interested in helping out by
volunteering or just here to learn more and grab a pink button, we're
happy you've found us. So grab a cup of your favorite beverage and
stay for awhile, read some of the stories or share your own.
Let the website and cause move you in your own direction and then
embrace it. Whatever the reason you found yourself here today,
we're happy you're here ~ Welcome♥
~Sharon Henry |
