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breast cancer survivors foundation outed by kane in your korner
It started last October when I grew tired of the unwanted solicitation calls from Breast Cancer Survivors Foundation. I wrote about them on this blog and submitted a FOIA request to the State of New Jersey and did some research.
My research quickly led to this becoming one of the most popular posts on this breast cancer blog. I received comments from all over the country.
Then one day, I received a contact and comment request from a man named Glen Weisman. He had been contacted by this group as well, and the charity had raised his suspicions, so he had sent in a request for an investigative reporter named Walt Kane from News12 New Jersey to check this charity out. He asked if I minded if he passed my information along to Walt and his Kane in Your Korner team. I said sure, and a month ago Walt Kane interviewed me.
His story aired last night. I am thrilled. Walt Kane did an awesome job and so did Glen Weisman.
One of my favorite parts was Walt Kane calling Dee Dee Lowland, the “program director” at Breast Cancer Survivors Foundation. Now this is the woman who also left a comment on my blog in the “about” section that said:
Hi, I am program director for Breast Cancer Survivors Foundation and I wanted to tell you alittle bit about who we are. BCSF is a new organization focused on helping uninsured and underinsured women obtain mammograms and other breast diagnostic services. We do this by providing grants to clinics and agencies. So far we have provided over 400 mammograms through 14 free clinics and agencies. While it is easy to judge an organization based upon its financial efficiency, the real test is what the organization does with it’s resources. The organization was founded by a doctor who receives no compensation. The founder considered alternate ways to seek public support. Not having corporate or government funding a decision was made to do grassroots fundraising by telefunding. The advantage of telefunding contracts are numerous. First, no capital investment is required. Second, there is no risk loss. Third, the organization gets a guaranteed return regardless of the telefunding agency’s expenses. Our goal for BCSF is develop name recognition over a period of years that allow the organization to diversify its funding appeals. I ask that you not judge us on where we are,but rather on the good work we have done to date, and on the basis of where we are going. A woman whose life has been saved through an early detection program funded by BCSF is not likely concerned with the efficiency of the organizations fundraising. Finally, if you know of a clinic in your area that provides mammograms or breast diagnostic services to uninsured or under insured women please encourage them to email me for a grant application.
In her little chitty chatty with investigative journalist Walt Kane she was nervous and defended the charity’s telemarketing tactics by saying “We have no corporate sponsors, but that is how we have to get money…” – which as we all know is not the case. I have worked with several small non-profits over the course of my life as a volunteer and otherwise, and not one, NOT ONE used telemarketers or would have. When Walt asked Dee Dee if the people being called knew that 91 cents out of every dollar raised went to overhead like telemarketers, she verbally stumbled and said yes, that was part of what the telemarketers tell you about.
WRONG. That is an outright fib. I received more than one call from this purported charity and the telemarketers could never tell me ANYTHING about the charity or what percentage of monies raised went where. What they said was I could call a number to find out (that number led to an answering service in the midwest which could also tell me nothing) , or if I made a pledge I would get information. So NO, there was not any full disclosure going on, just an obnoxious push to close a sale.
I also will note (again) that I never got a call from this outfit until I had been diagnosed with breast cancer. They asked for me by name as a survivor so I was not part of any random computer generated numbers dialer. I still do not know who sold them my information. Whoever did sell it should also be outed as far as I am concerned.
I feel like a little bit of justice has been done. I hate phone solicitations as a general rule of thumb, but this particular solicitation hit a little too close to the breast, pardon the pun.
Walt Kane, thanks for raising awareness on this issue.
endings, beginnings, an anniversary
Today has been a crazy emotional day.
One year ago today, my breast surgeon called to tell me the needle biopsy came back positive for invasive lobular breast cancer.
Today, I moved. Out of where I called home the last almost 14 years, out of an area that has been home since I was 12.
I have moved in with my sweet man as we start the journey of the rest of our lives together.
As I type this, the rain is starting to gently patter down. And I sit at my dining room table clacking away and looking out the window every so often.
I am exhausted. Emotionally as much as anything else. I was long since ready to leave my former abode, but the bittersweet combination of happy, sad, and Malcolm in the Middle memories have made a whirl of my thoughts and emotions today.
Life is like a crazy patchwork quilt . I love my sweet man and am where I am supposed to be, with whom I am supposed to be with.
As I closed and locked the door to my former abode one last time, I also closed a door in a sense to a chapter in my life. Now I begin the next phase of my life.
Onward and upward, as they say.
I am home. And so is my heart.
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Tagged breast cancer, change, heart, home, life, patchwork quilt
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in training
PREFACE: A brief note about this essay. This was entered in the 2012 Note & Words Essay Contest. I was not chosen, so I am plopping my essay up for all to read.
It would have been cool had I placed because the event celebrating this year’s contest is on April 28th, the first anniversary of my diagnosis. However, it was a ton of fun to enter!
**********************************************************
I am a 47-year-old woman, who never had a child. As someone unable to bear children, as well as a recent breast cancer survivor who practically glowed in the dark after seven weeks of straight radiation, the U.S.S. Parenthood almost sailed. But fate stepped in, and it didn’t No, there was no immaculate conception to report, I am a stepmother in training.
It all started when I re-connected with someone from high school. We never dated way back when, he was just a pal. What we would have thought rather improbable (if not impossible) as teens happened: we fell in love.
He is a parent to a 12-year-old boy, making me a stepmother in training. Some days I am terrified. I say that mostly with humor, because I am playing life’s giant game of catch-up. I escaped dirty diapers, potty training, and teething to arrive on the scene just as puberty hits.
Oh boy. I was none too graceful myself at the onset of puberty, and now I am shaping a young mind? Or is he shaping me?
As far as children go I couldn’t order a better child. He is an amazing boy, truly his father’s son. He is bright, engaging, sweet, charming, and cute. I have been a little bit in love with this child since the first cup of hot chocolate.
Our mutual relationship has been a growth process, and I would really love it if I could just understand why teeth brushing and sometimes a shower is such a big deal. I am told that this is just typical boy, but to me, who only had a sister, it is just perplexing. Some days, I just don’t speak boy well and I dread the shower/teeth conversation.
Me: “A little bit later, I need you to take a shower and brush your teeth.”
Boy: “O.k.” (Goes back to iPad or whatever he is doing.)
Later occurs and I say brightly, (not like the menacing prison warden) “O.k. it’s time!”
“Time for what?” Boy replies genuinely puzzled.
“Shower and teeth brushing” I reply.
“Oh. That. Do I have to?” Boy replies hanging his head in dread.
Next a dance ensues, and it is often a match of wits. Sometimes there is humor, and other times we are both sent to our respective corners for a time out.
My friends are all amused. I think I have discovered a parallel universe, and they say, welcome to parenthood and boys. One of my best friends also has a son, and she too has tooth brushing drama. She’s threatened, cajoled, tried humor. She even told her son his teeth would fall out. His reply was “you can buy me new ones.”
Every day is a new adventure. I have never done this before. Some days I am just terrified I am going to screw it up. Lucky for me I can cook. Sometimes he wants to help.
Case in point, homemade applesauce.
“Can I help?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, “We need to start by peeling all those apples.”
He peels about one apple and then it’s off to hang out on the sofa with a dog or two.
Sometimes when I am cooking, he is glued to my side. I am always afraid I will burn him or something. And then I have to breathe and remember he won’t break.
Setting the table is also amusing. Especially when he chooses his glass to drink out of. He holds it up to the light, spinning it around looking for spots. Spotted glasses are immediately rejected.
Then we have the game of not sitting with your feet up and under you on the seat. This is where I scare myself. I hear my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth:
“Please sit the right way in your chair. You will break the chair down otherwise.”
Oh. My. God. Did I really just say that?
But then in spite of the little back and forth over teeth, showers, sitting in chairs properly, and spotted glasses, there are all the awesome things I have never experienced before since I am late to the parent party. The little hugs, a whisper in my ear that he loves me, little gifts he picked out for me himself that I will treasure forever, and text messages just for me.
This is a brave new world for me. To many this is just ordinary, but to me, who never expected to ever have a child, this new time is magical (when I’m not ripping out my hair learning to speak boy.) But I expect we will learn together, and, in the end, I will help raise a boy and a boy will help raise me.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged breast cancer, Kelly Corrigan, life, life moments, memoir, Notes & Words 2012, parenthood
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contrasts
Yesterday my friends fêted me. It was something I don’t really think I deserved, but love them for it none the less. There I was surrounded by friends from all stages of my life, wishing me and my sweet man well in our new life together.
I looked around the room at all the faces and really, I showed great restraint and didn’t bawl like a baby. Of course during part of it I definitely ruined my mascara because my gals had me laughing so hard.
Shocking as it sounds, I did not take photos, and I wish I had. But this is one of those cool experiences that your friends do for you that just lives in your heart forever. Like my Driving Miss Daisy Gals. But then again, the women who put this together were part of the Driving Miss Daisy Gals. They have seen me through so much.
So I am going to contrast it with a nasty little e-mail from a sitting elected official from where I am moving from, in Lower Merion Township.
There is this elected official, they call them commissioners, named Jane Dellheim. Suffice it to say, she is not the brightest bulb in the socket. However, as she has aged, she has morphed into a nasty late middle-aged woman. Ironically she has a very charming hubby and her daughters are lovely.
So I was watching this meeting last week and this guy gets up and basically harasses commissioners during a public comment portion. He is amazingly offensive, and truthfully gives of the whiff of a dangerously angry person. No one is saying the man isn’t entitled to his opinion, but what he does isn’t just freedom of speech. For example, in the past, people saw on Lower Merion’s cable channel where this guy attacked a private citizen verbally during a public comment portion of a meeting. It was this young mother, devoutly Jewish, who had inadvertently taken this guy’s photo while on a public street trying to capture some traffic issues to better make her point with the commissioners. This guy got up at a subsequent meeting and railed about a private citizen during public comment and said how he had called Homeland Security on this woman. I am sorry, but that is not normal.
What does this have to do with last week? Well what he said, how he said it, and the fact he was allowed to say it when many others have been “shushed” publicly for far less just hit a nerve. So I sent the President of the Commissioners an e-mail, and the others were cc’d. Well Madam President, never responded (I did not expect a response because dealing with some of these folks is like talking to a wall), but dear Jane did:
LOL “Good Riddance”? Wow nasty is as nasty does. How embarassing…for her.
I am sorry old Jane is obviously so unhappy. She is also utterly unprofessional as an elected official, not that I expected much, because generally speaking she has always been as insipid as she is underwhelming.
I remember a few years ago when I was the seconding photographer at the Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC) Butterfly Ball she was shocked to see me there as an event photographer. I was polite and professional and just kept doing what I was being paid to do (take photos) and she was a bit of a freak and made a stink that I was there photographing – mind you if I was her daughter who was running the event at that time for LBBC I would have been mortified. I actually felt sorry for her insecurity at the time. But on the other hand, I could not believe she was running around a fabulous event celebrating breast cancer survivors trying to make it all about her. (As a survivor now this has new meaning to me.)
But what a contrast, huh? Of course many said they could not believe she replied at all. One of her constituents remarked how she never gets back to her constituents and ignores most of them.
Ah yes, the contrast. There are nice people in this world and not so nice and unhappy people in this world.
Today is the 22nd of April. I am just six days off of the anniversary of my diagnosis.
What a difference a year makes.
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Tagged breast cancer, Jane Dellheim, life, Living Beyond Breast Cancer, petty people
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15 minutes
Well, yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reporter who called me about my old boss and former job called back. She wanted to go over what she had asked me previously. The article came out today. The reporter who called me was Jeannette Neumann.
As far as the article goes, what was said about me by name was factually accurate at least. I believe part of this whole thing stems from a SEC/OIG report from the 2009 era. I was a Compliance Officer of an NRSRO.
You see, when the recent financial crisis started, the SEC ramped it up. They were the regulators that were supposed to be looking out for the best interests of the citizens of the United States before the markets crashed, before Bernie Madoff, etc. (if you have been living under a rock and don’t know what I am talking about, check out the HBO movie Too Big to Fail, for example.) The second thing is my former boss in his analytical capacity downgraded the U.S. recently. And just for the record, where government is concerned I believe in a healthy amount of skepticism.
I have to admit I find it amusing that the Wall Street Journal found me of interest. I know I was just an avenue to get at or near my ex-boss, but I enjoyed chatting with Jeannette Neumann anyway. She’s kind of a big deal as far as reporting for the Wall Street Journal goes. Of course it was far more enjoyable speaking with her than the SEC folks who called me in a surprise gang conference call two weeks after I resigned. At the time I found it Big Brother is Watching You offensive – made me realize we really have no privacy anymore in this country. I also found it equal parts amusing when one regulator asked me if I remembered him. Like I had early onset Alzheimer’s instead of breast cancer. You know, I forgot to mention that to her, maybe I should have.
Whatever. This is all in my rear-view mirror. I hope. It’s like you can never leave this industry. Or have breast cancer and decide you want to do other things. There is also the question of our government today and how it behaves, but I will leave that to the conspiracy theorists.
People we live in a strange world. My life is changing for the better. Wouldn’t it be ironic in the end if a disease like breast cancer was in a sense a positive catalyst to change my life?
By JEANNETTE NEUMANN and JEAN EAGLESHAM
U.S. regulators gave approval for Egan-Jones Ratings Co. to rate bonds and other securities despite having serious concerns about the firm’s internal procedures and staffing levels, according to people familiar with the situation.
Egan-Jones, which made headlines late last year when a controversial ratings downgrade of Jefferies Group Inc. JEF +0.24% sent that firm’s stock price reeling, won approval as a credit-rating firm from the Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2007.
However, in 2009, the agency’s internal watchdog criticized the decision to approve the firm’s application…..report didn’t name the firm in question, but people familiar with the matter said Haverford, Pa.-based Egan-Jones was the subject of the criticism.
An SEC spokesman declined to comment. At the time, according to information included in the inspector-general report, the agency told Mr. Kotz that problems identified by the agency’s staff “did not provide a legally viable basis for denying the application.”
Egan-Jones President Sean Egan referred questions about the inspector-general report to the company’s lawyer, Alan S. Futerfas. “Assuming that Egan-Jones is one of the firms identified in the inspector general’s report, obviously the SEC decided to grant [credit-rating firm] status, and it’s extraordinarily in the public interest,” Mr. Futerfas said. He declined to comment whether the unnamed firm was Egan-Jones. “There’s not a single rating by Egan-Jones that the SEC has ever said or even suggested was not of the highest quality or accuracy or integrity,” he said.
….Egan-Jones is one of nine companies approved by the SEC as credit-rating firms…..Egan-Jones’s rating actions have had heightened market impact in recent months…..
Ms. Blakely was succeeded in 2008 by Carla J. Zambelli, who worked as a senior account administrator at what was then Wachovia Securities LLC in Conshohocken, Pa., before joining Egan-Jones, according to the rating firm’s regulatory filings.
Ms. Zambelli said in an interview that she resigned from Egan-Jones in February to focus on her recovery from breast cancer. She said Mr. Egan was surprised she had decided to leave.
Ok, 15 minutes over….we can all now go back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Final giggle? The comments on the article. Here’s one:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged breast cancer, breast cancer survivor, life, wall street journal
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oh give me a break
Apparently I just fell off the turnip truck.
I just received a comment to the wrong part of my blog. And oops sorry, I don’t do free PR for what I consider questionable charities as my Raison d’être. I do however, as a blogger take great enjoyment in pointing out spinny-spin-spin in the CYA or cover-your-ass category.
So….I am guessing that because I was interviewed by an Emmy award winning investigative journalist about my calls from Breast Cancer Survivors Foundation out of Roselle Park, NJ (and check out the documents released from the State of New Jersey HERE and judge for yourself), that I am getting outreach from the suddenly solicitious and helpful breast cancer “charity”? You know the place that as per it’s own filings gives back next to nothing to breast cancer patients and survivors? You know the place that calls you at dinner time and can give no info out about itself and what it does but if you give them money they will send you info? Yessss…those people….
When a non-profit is over 90% overhead as per its own filings and has professional fundraisers who are as aggressive as bill collectors calling people instead of being known by good deeds and quiet grace of doing is THAT who you want your hard-earned money to go to?
When they kept calling me, I could get NO information out of them. It was all make-a-pledge-and-then-we’ll-tell-all. When I did my FOIA to New Jersey and wrote about it and the topic took off like an airborne hot potato because so many people had the exact same experience, I still heard nothing from them. But miracles of miracles, talk to Walt Kane from Kane in Your Korner in New Jersey and all of a sudden they seek me out? Like they did not know the post was out there since October 2011? Why I tell you it’s a miracle!
Sorry not buying. Here is my lovely outreach:
For those who can’t read what this person ‘Dee Dee” (who must also be illegitimate poor thing as she is lacking a last name and if she is the program director, one would think she would wear it proud) wrote:
Hi, I am program director for Breast Cancer Survivors Foundation and I wanted to tell you alittle bit about who we are. BCSF is a new organization focused on helping uninsured and underinsured women obtain mammograms and other breast diagnostic services. We do this by providing grants to clinics and agencies. So far we have provided over 400 mammograms through 14 free clinics and agencies. While it is easy to judge an organization based upon its financial efficiency, the real test is what the organization does with it’s resources. The organization was founded by a doctor who receives no compensation. The founder considered alternate ways to seek public support. Not having corporate or government funding a decision was made to do grassroots fundraising by telefunding. The advantage of telefunding contracts are numerous. First, no capital investment is required. Second, there is no risk loss. Third, the organization gets a guaranteed return regardless of the telefunding agency’s expenses. Our goal for BCSF is develop name recognition over a period of years that allow the organization to diversify its funding appeals. I ask that you not judge us on where we are,but rather on the good work we have done to date, and on the basis of where we are going. A woman whose life has been saved through an early detection program funded by BCSF is not likely concerned with the efficiency of the organizations fundraising. Finally, if you know of a clinic in your area that provides mammograms or breast diagnostic services to uninsured or under insured women please encourage them to email me for a grant application.
In my opinion, legitimate breast cancer charities, even if small, do not solicit by phone. And guess what? When I started getting those calls to my unlisted phone number I asked around to other breast cancer charities large and small. None of them fundraise with cold-callers for hire that are so very “Boiler Room.”. The people I spoke with found it distasteful and remarked how it was a very large expense that they would not ever be able to even morally justify.
I also asked the reporter who interviewed me about the doctor who founded the charity – not a breast guy by any stretch of the imagination, not even an oncologist. Breast cancer is hard enough without wading through charity calls from people who can’t tell you where they got your full name and phone number. And oh yeah, one other thing. Look at GuideStar on them – not enough to make me donate, don’t know about you.
And when she the publicist/program director says:
While it is easy to judge an organization based upon its financial efficiency, the real test is what the organization does with it’s resources. The organization was founded by a doctor who receives no compensation. The founder considered alternate ways to seek public support. Not having corporate or government funding a decision was made to do grassroots fundraising by telefunding. The advantage of telefunding contracts are numerous. First, no capital investment is required. Second, there is no risk loss. Third, the organization gets a guaranteed return regardless of the telefunding agency’s expenses. Our goal for BCSF is develop name recognition over a period of years that allow the organization to diversify its funding appeals
Well heck, shucks, I guess I am just a bumpkin? Uhhh, not really. Lady, I know all about non-profits large and small, and none of the ones I know of, have volunteered for, or do the publicity for use kamikaze telemarketers (love, love, love the phrase “grassroots fundraising by telefunding”!) Legitimate charities (even small and new) get out there at community events, utilize social media and traditional media to get their message out there. In the world of breast cancer I give you Living Beyond Breast Cancer, breastcancer.org, and Save 2nd Base as but three fine examples of legitimate, hard-working breast cancer charities. Great Guys Group would be another.
So Dee Dee of no last name, I will indeed judge. Those on the up and up in my humble opinion do not behave like your charity did. Legitimate charities do not tell someone they can only have information if they make a donation. Legitimate charities do not gobble up the majority of their donations in corporate overhead and related expenses. Without government funding there are ways to raise money. Including from grants from like-minded foundations and corporations.
So don’t sing the breast cancer blues to me, lady. You people called me. But not until I became a survivor – that means you bought my good name from someone. And if you expect me to believe that somewhere along the line this doctor isn’t getting something financial out of it, well I might as well believe in the Easter Bunny.
The President of this non-profit is according to what is filed with NJ a guy named Yulius Poplyansky. According to HeathGrades website he went to med school in Latvia (“Riga Medical Academy”) . According to Vitals this guy speaks Latvian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Yiddish and the name of the med school he went to is Riga Stradins University (Rsu).
I can’t find anywhere how this guy ties to breast cancer or that it is his speciality. Hippaspace has this (click here.) And when you plug him into Pipl there is all sorts of stuff. What is The International Foundation of Innovative Medicine? (See Amazon review HERE and look for the name Yulius Poplyansky or look halfway down the page HERE) Is this guy a Master of the Universe or what? Is this the same guy HERE?
So I don’t know…this all seems weird to me…but what do I know? I am just a breast cancer survivor….if you are going to donate to a breast cancer charity CHECK them out. See what they have done. Are they on GuideStar and in good standing? How do Better Business Bureaus and state charity offices perceive them? Given ALL the comments about this charity under my original post am I really alone in my questioning this outfit and the founder?
Just sayin’
what is it people don’t understand about breast cancer changing a person?
Greetings faithful readers. As you all know a couple of months ago I decided my health was more important than a job in an industry that is incredibly stressful. I have never spoken about my job much, because face it, if you were not a compliance officer or worked in a compliance department it would probably bore the tears out of you. It’s not glamorous. There are no Hollywood-esque “Working Girl” moments with a Harrison Ford across the hall. In the end when compared to your life, it’s just a job, and as is the case with most women who have had breast cancer if they are honest with themselves, having breast cancer changes you. And those changes often include significant life changes.
After my diagnosis, surgery, and those seven delightful weeks of radiation I really began to think about what was important. And I also found I could no longer process the stress related to the job the way I used to. So I made a conscious decision to further change my life to ensure my life is long. I resigned my job. Not an easy decision. But I did it. And here I am almost two months later, and I know I made the right decision for me.
Once you have had breast cancer, or any kind of cancer, you find yourself looking at your own mortality. I was speaking to someone today who is a survivor and she said it made her realize when she was diagnosed that her life would have an eventual end point. Maybe to some of your ears that sounds awful or morbid, but it just is what it is.
So here I am trying to mind my own business and get on with my life, yet my old (work) life, doesn’t want to seem to leave me. I didn’t write about it before, but a couple of weeks after I resigned my job some of the regulators that were assigned to overseeing my branch of the financial services industry called me on my cell phone after I left my old company – when compliance officers leave, companies have to file about that – it is a material change to a company in the financial services industry. Therefore, in a sense, my decision to leave because of breast cancer became a public one of sorts. Good thing I decided from jump to be open about my breast cancer, right?
Anyway, I can’t say I didn’t expect the call, nor is it completely out of the realm of normal. It still irritated the crap out of me – one because my cell phone isn’t just out there with directory assistance, and secondly because government has this big brother aspect at times that I find incredibly intrusive and in a sense at times runs contrary to the freedoms our founding fathers bled for two hundred some odd years ago.
I told them yes, I really did have breast cancer, really was treated for breast cancer, and yes having breast cancer really did motivate me to look at my life and make changes. I thought that was the end of it.
Until today when a reporter called me on my cell phone. (Yes, my increasingly popular cell phone number.)
Now I know a lot of members of the media (mostly local and regional), but this is not someone with whom any of my contacts interact, nor is it someone I know or ever reached out to. It’s someone who I have read in the past, but that is about it.
This was a very pleasant voiced person, working on a story about my part of the financial services industry. They were calling to inquire into what it was like doing my job, why I left. And oh yes, I had kind of been backgrounded I think before the call was placed because they knew I was a blogger, etc. And remarked how I had never really talked about my job as a compliance officer, or my now former industry. Well wouldn’t that be like lawyers and doctors blogging about their patients/clients by name or something? Why would you do that?
So I went through the breast cancer of it all again.
Maybe leaving my job because of breast cancer took chutzpah, but you know what? I don’t want unmanageable stress levels. Stress kills. I want to live my life, my way. And I am not the first woman to do this.
At the end of the day, maybe it takes another survivor to understand the desire to change aspects of your life after a life altering disease that also disfigures your breasts, but I really wish more did understand. And respect it.
So I hope it’s all cleared up now, because I am tired of this. I want to live my life and enjoy it. I want to do something cool. If you are calling me to offer me a dream job like a gallery showing of my photographs or my own column in a magazine or newspaper, that’s wonderful. Otherwise, the reason I decided to change my life a couple of months ago isn’t going to change. I am a breast cancer survivor. I have had breast cancer. Once you utter either one of those sentences you are already different. It just is.
As an aside, April 28th is the 1st anniversary of my diagnosis.
Final note? According to snopes.com citrus fruits may potentially harbor anti-cancer properties. So maybe there is more truth than not to if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Over and out.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged breast cancer, breast cancer survivor, lemons, life, life after breast cancer, tamoxifen
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interviewed today….
So as you all know, I got a bee in my bonnet when the bogus breast cancer charities came calling. I wrote two posts on the topic on this blog and they have been rather popular.
Today I was interviewed by a television reporter from New Jersey named Walt Kane who has a show or news segment called Kane in Your Korner for News 12 New Jersey.
It was cool to do the interview, and when it airs I will put up a link. It is kind of awesome to know that people appreciate what I write about – Walt Kane was connected to me by another guy in the television industry who had also been solicited by bogus breast cancer charities and when he started to do his research, my blog posts on the topic came up. How cool is that?
In 25 days it is one year since my breast cancer diagnosis. What a long strange trip it’s been, huh?
Here are the posts:
getting solicitation calls from breast cancer survivors foundation?
and
breast cancer research society: nothing like a rude breast cancer charity phone solicitor
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged bogus breast cancer charities, Kane in Your Korner, paying it forward, Walt Kane
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thoughts
Along my journey with breast cancer I have been blessed with the company of some truly fabulous women. Some survivors of various cancers, others just fabulous and blessedly healthy.
One woman I am thinking about right now was amazing to me. She always just popped into my e-mail like the psychic friend network when I needed someone to keep me real.
It was this friend who told me it was o.k. to give myself permission to wallow a little on occasion and to feel the range of emotion I needed to keep myself emotionally whole and positive. She said it was o.k. to go to almost the dark side for lack of a better description so you could climb out the other side.
This friend is a survivor. And it is back. So I am asking all of you out there to send positive energy out into the world for my friend to feel. She is an amazing human being.
Life is short, we are constantly reminded of the very fragility of what we hold dear. I also know God never gives us more than we can handle, right?
Here’s to you my friend and kicking cancer’s ass…again.
xoxo
