My Journey With[out] Cancer

*December 31, 2016 Update Below Original Post*

Let me start off by clarifying something, I do not have cancer. I am not literally fighting the fight, and I am not in remission. I am however living with cancer in my life, in the capacity that it has taken friends and family from me and those close to me, and also that its existence has changed my life for the better.

When I was in high school I spent a significant amount of time with someone who's mum had recurring bouts of cancer. During these vulnerable years as a teen girl in suburbia, she became like a second mother to me, and I loved her dearly. She was in remission for the time that we spent together, but had fought recently before then, and again thereafter multiple times. Other than losing a great aunt with whom I wasn't close, when I was 8 or 9 years old, this was my first experience with cancer. A few years back I spoke with her regularly via Facebook as she struggled with another occurrence of cancer, and watched her family suffer greatly. It was not a good prognosis and though she remained positive and joyful throughout it all, I could tell by the words of wisdom she was bestowing on me that she was trying to share with me all she could before it was too late. Not long after this her son-in-law was diagnosed with leukemia.

How horrifically unfair, for one family to have two battles with cancer at one time. Things were touch and go for both for a while, and in January 2012 they lost the mum, and then eight months later the son-in-law. Can you imagine the grief being piled on this family in such a short period of time? I was devastated for their loss (and mine). This is when it really became clear to me that I wanted to make a difference in the fight against cancer.

After spending the last 12 years of my life listening to (and hanging off every word of) Andrew McMahon's music, in the form of both Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin, I was very familiar with his journey with cancer. However now I was finally motivated to hunt down the hard to find Dear Jack DVD in which he documents his fight in 2005. If you are a fan and haven't experienced this documentary yet, be sure you do so, it is so heart-wrenching - if I didn't know it had a happy ending I'm not sure I could have sat through it all. Unless you have watched someone very close to you suffer, you don't know about the trials, heart-break, and small miracles that occur every day for a cancer patient. Losing my friends motivated me, but the documentary of this person I looked up to fighting this fight, made me determined to make a difference.

It was then that I began speaking with Andrew's charity, the Dear Jack Foundation, and sorting out exactly what I could do to help. I started the first ever Dear Jack Foundation Light The Night team in Canada, and am proud to say that with only six weeks left to fundraise before the event, we raised just over $1000, making our goal for 2012. With many months to prepare, I started thinking about 2013. I handed out flyers at Andrew's show in Toronto, I spammed the crap out of his followers on Twitter, I posted incessantly about my team and making my 2013 goal of $2000.

It wasn't until I had the idea to have a tattoo fundraiser that I really became engrossed in this fight. I'm talking brainstorming every day, harassing friends and family for donations, trying to grow my army. When my friends at Next of Skin in Pickering agreed to do the Ink for a Cure fundraiser for us, I couldn't believe the possibilities that laid before me. After months of planning the event arrived, and the amazing artists completed 42 tattoos in one day - cancer ribbons, hearts, and moustaches. It's amazing how many young people wanted to memorialize their friends and family member's journeys with cancer, or just support a great cause, by putting a permanent reminder on their skin. They take after my own heart for sure! We raised $2339 in one day, and I couldn't believe the overwhelming feeling of accomplishment and pride that I carried with me for days afterward. This was better than graduating college (with two pieces of paper while 8 months pregnant no-less), landing a job I was unqualified for but convinced them I'd excel at, and anything else I could think of that would be an accomplishment. I didn't need anyone's approval, but having Andrew McMahon tell me he was proud made me feel even more accomplished. I was fighting his fight, and he was proud of my efforts.

I can't wait to grow this team to be bigger and better, year after year. I've already set my sights on a $3000 goal for next year, and I am confident we'll crush that too. Cancer has the capacity to tear lives apart, take loved ones from you, but it also has the ability to give hope, create friendships, rediscover love, and make you a better person... at least it did for me. Cancer made my life better, by making me CARE, making me proactive, giving me friends I wouldn't have made otherwise, connecting me to other like-minded people, and giving me something to love about myself, and be proud of myself for.

I hope my story might inspire you to take that journey with[out] cancer too. It has opened my eyes to a whole world of possibilities, and I am the best version of me now thanks to it.

reLLy* ...


*Update*

2014: We raised $5039 as a team, $3003 of that coming from Ink for a Cure at the Black Rose Tattoo Parlour in Pickering, Ontario. I also raised $550 separately for the Dear Jack Foundation.
2015: We raised $7895 as a team, $4830 of that coming from Ink for a Cure at the BRTP in Pickering, and I raised a few hundred separately for DJF. I also officially launched MFEO Matches - a volunteer organization promoting cancer awareness and hosting bone marrow donor drives at music events across Canada. You will find us at Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness's future Canadian tour dates, be sure to come by and get registered!
2016: We raised $8008 as a team, $5620 of that coming from Ink for a Cure at BRTP in Pickering. I also raised $725 in startup costs for MFEO Matches, which registered 91 potential new donors this year!


To learn more:
MFEO Matches
Dear Jack Foundation
Light The Night
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada




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