June is a Special Month. We get to Celebrate Cancer Survivorship Month! Our world is in the process of transformation, I am sure that you have noticed and can feel it too!! There is so much energy on this planet now. It is in transition so not all of it feels comfortable but it is changing and is moving towards a new Paradigm that is even better! We are developing newer treatments to help people to live with cancer better and longer as well as ways to prevent some cancers. So this month, I wanted to share with all of you someone who I have admired as an Amazing Role Model for Being their Best, Doing their Best and Surviving Well as a Cancer Survivorship Champion!
I wanted to share with you my cousin and Most Amazing Role Model that I know for being a Cancer Survivorship All Star!! Kathy is a beautiful, bright, humorous and fun loving cousin. She has a gift for fashion and design with a mindset for Dreambuilding! Kathy was originally diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in the summer of 1969 at the age of 15. At the time, we never spoke about cancers, especially Pediatric cancers. Kathy went thru 21 Cobalt-60 treatments at Mass General Hospital. As her aunt had recently died of breast cancer, Kathy was never told that she had Hodgkin’s until her early 20’s just before her wedding day because, at that time, it was common in our culture not to tell kids and it was felt better not to worry them about their diagnoses, as many of them would die of their disease! We have come a long way since then with improved survival and being more open and honest with people’s diagnoses! Kathy went on to become one of the few at that time who would survive her cancer! That was her first miracle!
Kathy got married and she and her husband created a great life together….and having 3 beautiful children. Since then Kathy has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer and had triple bypass surgery for heart disease that was a long term complication of her treatment. She has survived them all with a full life, humor and grace. It hasn’t always been easy but Kathy always spins some humor into every situation and these events have been no different! She and her husband live a charmed life on Cape Cod, overlooking Cape Cod Bay and are now enjoying their grandchildren! She believes that “environmental exposures that damage DNA” contributed to her Hodgkin’s and that the radiation therapy that she received along with great doctors, nursing staff, family, friends and faith helped her with her healing and her ability to Live for the last 50 years with her 3 other miracle’s. She is an Amazing Champion Cancer Survivor!!
I think that you will agree that Kathy is a Great Role Model of W.E.L.L.N.E.S.S. for herself as well as for her family. As Kathy said, “there are many family members who support you along the way” so they also, in essence, become Survivors. We honor Kathy and her family this month for her Example as a True Champion of Health and Wish both she and her family the Best for Cancer Survivorship Month! Let us honor and treasure all the Courageous and Brave Cancer Survivors in the US today, their family members and all those Living Every Day to be their Best!