The story behind The Climb

Many people are wondering about "The Climb" that I am trying to raise funds to go to Conference with.  Here's the story from none other than the executive director of YACC, Geoff Eaton.

"Climb 2011

It started 12 years ago. The first Climb wasn’t really a climb at all. In fact it was a walk from my hospital bed where I stayed to the couch, in the temporary bedroom that was my mom’s family room. It was five steps—and they were giant.

After my first transplant (from my dad) in April 1999, I stayed in Toronto for three months. Finally in early July I returned home to Newfoundland to continue my recovery. The idea to create YACC (formerly RealTime Cancer) was born many months prior to this but as I came home from Toronto I really started to think about my well documented, but private goal, to start YACC by June 2000.

I woke up late night one Saturday night—July 25, 1999 to be exact—with the rygers and a temp. I went straight to the ER where my temp continued to rise. After five hours of the worst pain I’d had in my life, I got three hits of morphine. That is the last thing I remember for a month.

I went to the ICU later that day where I continued to lose ground. My Hickman catheter, my best friend for nine months saving so many needles, had developed an infection. Unknowingly I flushed that infection into my central line earlier that Saturday night when cleaning my Hickman before bed.

It was a week before I was put on life-support and placed in a drug-induced coma. That week, I shared my plans for my funeral with my parents, which I had planned privately earlier in my journey (and yes, Sinatra’s “My Way” was on the playlist). I gave my last wishes to my parents for the few precious possessions I had in my life to that point.

My docs explained to my family that “transplant patients don’t do well on life-support but at this point it’s Geoff’s best chance to battle this infection.” Under I went.

I was on life-support for three and a half weeks, I went into septic shock, had dozens of blood transfusions, my family was called in several times as my docs confirmed “it could be any hour now.” Ultimately my chances were less than 2 per cent. Good thing for me, 1 per cent is not 0 per cent. On August 23, 1999, my docs started to wake me from my coma.

Confused and simple, I had no idea what had happened. It took over a month for me to begin to get the slightest grasp what I had experienced. I was forced to rebuild in a manner I had never imagined, and while the physical rebuild was massive it was compounded by the fact that for the first time in my journey my mind wasn’t strong. I was unsure and scared.

I did manage to get a handle on next challenge: learning to walk again. When I woke, I couldn’t do anything for myself, except breathe—a major accomplish, I realize. My body was wasted from its efforts to fight the infections.

I wanted to get back on my feet and so my simple mind focused on a not-so-simple task. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to walk, it was that I had no strength. My mom’s family room became my gym. On September 20, 1999, after two and half weeks of “work-outs,” I took those massive tiny first steps—five of them—from my hospital bed to my couch. The Climb was born that day.

The next year, after nailing my goal of starting YACC in June 2000, I wanted to mark the first anniversary of my first steps after ICU. There was no better place than to climb Signal Hill, a place I have frequented my whole life to hike, hang-out, and often reflect, especially during times of trial and throughout my journey.

It was a family/friend affair the first year; 170 of us went up the hill. We’ve done it every year since, but the event has evolved as the years have come and gone. There have been Climbs all over the world, literally: across Canada, Ireland, and Japan. For the past two years, we have brought it into the Survivor Conference. That is where it will stay for the foreseeable future.

The evolution of The Climb hasn’t just been in numbers and locations, but in purpose. It is now much less about my personal milestone and much more about beating the odds—something I know all of you know all about.

This year’s Climb will see us tackle a 5 km walk that will end on Parliament Hill as a part of the program on Saturday November 6.

In addition to the celebration of beating the odds, The Climb serves as a fundraiser to help pay for your travel to the Conference.

Raising money is totally up to you, but any money you fundraise will help offset the cost of your personal travel or that of other survivors to get the conference. The money is great, don’t get me wrong, but The Climb was always more about the message than the money. It’s just another option we provide for anyone who requires travel assistance.

Can’t wait to bring The Climb to Ottawa; hope you are up for it.

Always…

Live life. Love life.

Geoff"

That much closer

After meeting with my plastic surgeon, I am happy to say he agreed to the type of surgery I wanted.  I want to avoid scars elsewhere on my body so getting expanders and implants was my preferred method.  My preference is also to have the other side done and overwith at the same time so this brings one complication into the works: scheduling.  My surgeon and plastic surgeon need to co-ordinate the time that they can both work on me.  I'm hoping that it's sooner than later.  The faerytale ending is in sight, but there's still a lot of ground to cover before I can finally say I'm there.  Wish me luck!

Waiting on a Faerytale...

Cinderella got away from trudging around for her evil step-family, Rapunzel got out of her tower and found her future, Sleeping Beauty woke up to her happily-ever-after, Snow White never had to hide again, Beauty got to find her soul mate through all the lies...  I'm waiting to wake up to the final chapter of my horror story so I can start my forever-after-faerytale.

I get a lot of support and a lot of grief for wanting my reconstruction now, not later.  What people don't seem to realize is I am not able to emotionally put my ordeal with cancer behind me until I can finally say to people, "I'm done with treatment."  Like it or not, reconstruction is a treatment.  It helps to restore the woman bereft of her figure to something close to her once hour glass body.  Face it, the basis for a woman's body is hair, boobs, hips, and legs by most person's perceptions.  Don't try to give me that "it's just a breast" crap.  I want you to have something lopped off and be told, it's just a body part.  See how badly you want to rip that person's eyes out... then say "they're just eyes"...

The faerytale ending doesn't have to be perfect.  It doesn't need to be the signifier that no troubles shall ever again this way come.  It just needs to close the book on the terror that slipped into my life through my body and betrayed my being to the hands of the medical teams in town, requiring me to sacrifice my hair, my body, my independence, and, at times, my sanity.

Give me my chapter's last sentence:  With her new body, both beaten and renewed, but her soul not broken, Julie looked to the horizon; the sun was rising and with its light her future looked all the more bright.

Not the body of a model, but it was Me

♥

Quote for October

"The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it." -Colin Wilson

Skirting the issue

I attended the BRA (Breast Reconstruction Awareness) seminar in Halifax, yesterday.  It was well done, but the time it was held was horrible, and having to go find parking in Halifax is always fun.  It was good to put faces to some of the plastic surgeons in the QEII, but there wasn't enough of something that they seem to trying to improve: communication.

It was a flood-the-room-with-information session.  They even had to speed things along so that anyone that was trying to take notes was pressed to write things down and would miss the next sentence trying to scribble down the last topic the surgeon/presenter last said.  They also started talking about mastectomy vs lumpectomy and treatment.  Newsflash! This is supposed to be about reconstruction not the choice we made about our surgery.  That's a different (all be it integrated) topic altogether.  We were there to talk about new/repaired breasts, not the options that come with removing the cancer.

One thing they brushed but did not go in detail is the wait times.  I wanted to know (and got to ask) what is being done to help decrease the wait times for consultations.  Not the surgeries, the consultations.  (Aim low but dream big).  The answer is they are looking into it, they were having trouble with lack-of-staff... yehyehyeh, but what NOW?

We need to get it out in the public? FINE, tell us that, we'll get it in the public.  There's news, papers, radio, billboards, the web - it'll get out there!  What next?  We need funding?  Have you seen what a bunch of determined women can do if they really, really want something?  No?  Well watch us!!

We want answers, and if you don't have them, we'll go for what you have and go from there.  Next pls!  This isn't something we need to ask a question and then say "oh, well if that's just the way it is, that's all we can do" about it.  Hardly!  We're going to find out what's realistic and then go for what we really need.  Quiet women are not the ones that are remembered, and we're not going to let the health care system forget about us!

Lemons

When life gives you lemons...

A. Make Lemonade
B. Ask for a refund
C. What's a lemon?
D. Draw a happy face on them so when you throw them in life's face the bitch learns to smile for once.

Isolation

Since I got to see the movie 50/50 (thanks to YACC), the word "Isolation" has been stuck in my head on repeat.  Kind of like when you're in a bad relationship and someone on the outside just mentioned that you don't look like you're feeling well.  Even though they didn't bring up the relationship, you start thinking about why you don't feel good.  Your mind starts evaluating everything, and if you're lucky, you'll notice that your relationship isn't a co-dependent love based one.  But that's a different story.

My jogger was when someone mentioned I looked tired.  I realized today that I am tired.  I'm tired of trying to be strong all the time, I'm tired of looking at the piles of boxes that need to be dealt with, I'm tired of getting frustrated, and I'm tired of having to justify myself all the time.  But worse than that, I'm tired of feeling alone.

Now, I'm not truly alone, I have a great husband that I love and he loves me just as much, we have our wonderful son, I have family close by, that's more than a lot of people have.  I'm lonely because I feel set apart from my friends.  I've had several situations drive wedges between us and cancer was a biggie.

My good friends are few and far between, as it is with most people.  And because of life changing constantly I rarely see them.  And if I do there's one thing that we cannot relate about, there's an elephant always reading the paper behind me.  That elephant has "The One That Had Cancer" tattooed on it's forehead and sides, always visible.  And it's not like it's easy for people to forget right now.  I am missing a breast (and the one that's left isn't the smallest breast one could have), my hair is short and wild, and I'm still scheduling around appointments.

People think I'm selfish for wanting reconstruction now, not years later, because I'm "healthy" now, and should just be grateful for that.  Well guess what.  I am selfish.  I want to look at myself and feel like the elephant behind me is starting to fade away.  I want to close the book and feel I can relate more to my friends, especially since I'm having a hard time finding other young adults in my area that have had cancer, especially my type...

I want to restart my life and I'm stuck on hold with Michael Bolton instrumental elevator music on the other end, repeating the same freaking song every time! >_<  I need tech support, not taunting!!

I guess I've slightly digressed from my point, but what I'm trying to say is my loneliness is making me tired.  I'm trying to be tough but I'm losing that battle right now.  I want to be strong but my weakness is getting in the way.  Right now I just need a hug.