Field Of Pink (take 2)

Recently a friend of mine put on Facebook a picture taken in his hometown of a Field Of Pink. In short this was a picture of a field full of little pink flags. Statistically 1 in every 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer so these flags represented 1 out of every 8 women in his town. After seeing this picture I wondered, could something like this be done here in my town.

Turns out that yes, it can. I brought the picture to my local community center and showed it to Cathy who is in charge of these kinds of things, and who is a breast cancer survivor herself. My thought was that even tho this is Breast Cancer Awareness month we could maybe throw this together and plant our field in the spring, when everything is starting to bloom. Cathy had another idea tho and within 8 hours she had put it together so that it could be done this month. As a matter of fact, she put it together so the field could be planted on Oct 21, so that I could participate in the planting and not be in a chemo coma as my LAST chemo is scheduled for Oct 23. To make things even more exciting for me the field in which all the little pink flags will be planted is a field I can see from my back windows.

625 flags will be planted. That number came based on the number of women in my township. So…if 1 in 8 women in my township were diagnosed with breast cancer, 625 women would have breast cancer. Scary number.

Cathy and I have shamelessly been promoting this fundraiser for the last few days and already we have raised over $300. All money will go to my new BFF Jane’s (remember Jane? I love Jane) pet charity The Pink Ribbon Fund. This fund thru LVH helps women AND men being treated for breast cancer pay household bills. All money in this fund goes directly to families in need, and all money that Cathy and I raise will go to this fund. No gimmicks. We are giving. We don’t need 50,000 “likes” to donate this money, we aren’t giving a “portion of the proceeds”, we are giving it all. All you have to do is donate $1 to sponsor a flag.

This feels good. This is doing my soul good. This has given me something to think about other then my own damn self.

Which surprises me because I have been telling myself since April 20 “Leah, just get thru this. Do what you gotta do and then get on with your life. Without looking back. You don’t need to be any different then you were.”

How could I not be different? How could I move on and forget this time period of my life? For the rest of my life every ache I have is going to cause me to think “is it back?” This is HER2+ breast cancer, it is scary and it is ugly and chances are if I were to be diagnosed with cancer anywhere else in my body at any time in my life it will be HER2+. And then I will be stage 4. And my back aches…

I won’t be “cured” until I die of something else.

So how can I just “move on” and give no thought to research? No thought to other (wo)men who are diagnosed? No thought to raising awareness? No thought to raising money? No thought to anything but me? I have been only thinking about myself for long enough now.