Lisa & her sister
Age 39
Beverly, MA

In October of 2005, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have a sister who is a 10-year breast cancer survivor, and because of her I’ve been getting mammograms since I was 29. There is no history of cancer anywhere in our family prior to my sister and both of us getting it at the age of 39 was very surprising to the doctors.

Once my annual mammogram came back questionable, I told my local doctors that if it turned out to be cancer I was going to my sister’s doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Sure enough, once the pathology was done on my biopsy, it was cancer. Small amounts, up high on my breast, near my chest wall but cancer nonetheless. I called my sister’s doctors at MGH and was in their offices within one week.

Our initial meeting and review of my mammograms indicated that I would need a lumpectomy with a sentinel node biopsy. To me, that sounded manageable. Then my doctor requested I come into MGH for a digital mammogram. She wasn’t crazy about the quality of the traditional film mammogram I had done. Sure enough, the area was bigger than they originally thought and she suggested I have a full mastectomy with reconstructive surgery at the same time. This sounded a heck of a lot more difficult! This would require two major surgeries (done at the same time), 4 days in the hospital and 6 – 8 weeks recovering at home. Not to mention the possibility of chemotherapy and radiation afterwards!

I am a positive person. To me, the glass is always half full. I’m also very active and physically fit. All of these things were factors my decision to go ahead with the mastectomy. Besides, I knew there is life after breast cancer: my sister is living proof of that. I had a great surgical team at MGH (the exact same surgeons my sister had save her life 10 years before), a great home-support team (my husband and daughter plus my extended family all living in the area), and a truly worldwide-spirit team. So I went forward with the operation the day before Thanksgiving.

It turned out perfectly. My body reacted exactly the way the doctors hoped it would and I was out of the hospital in 4 days as planned. My at home recovery went very well. I called this phase “being home for the holidays” as it was now December. I was back to work within 6 weeks; the beginning of January.

The cancer had spread to 3 of the 19 lymph nodes that were removed so chemotherapy and radiation were a must. I had 8 rounds of chemo, every 2 weeks, followed by 5 weeks of radiation. All of my hair fell out. Thanks to the advances in breast cancer research and medicines, the anti-nausea and anti-vomiting drugs worked for me. I never once felt either of them. I suffered what I called my “chemo crash day” usually 6 days after my chemo where I’d wake up and just not be able to get out of bed. I’d sleep all day and back to work the next day. Radiation didn’t affect me nearly as much as the chemo.

I’m a hiker so I told myself that 16 weeks of chemo and 5 weeks of radiation was going to be like hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. There will be cold, rainy, viewless days on the trail. And there will be sunny, warm days with spectacular views. Luckily, I had lots of sunny days and the views were great!

While going though chemo, I decided I needed something more positive to focus on so I signed up for the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk. I trained all winter on a treadmill and hit the pavement once the weather warmed-up. I’m happy to say the training all paid off and I finished the walk with ease. My sister the survivor was there to cheer me on at the finish! We have a cousin who calls us both warrior princesses so our t-shirts are very appropriate.

I never questioned “why me”. I know there is no real answer to that question. Instead I put more effort into the fight and I’m happy to say I won. I beat breast cancer. Just like my sister.

A cancer diagnosis, of any kind, isn’t always fatal. It can be beaten. You just have to be willing to get into the fight.

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Liz,
age 43
Newburport, MA
Writing Your Own Happy Ending
Step One: Guatemala

In June 2006, after a long and painful battle with scleroderma, my mother died. In the same month, a little over two years after I discovered my husband’s affair and left him, it became official: I was a divorced, single parent. A week later, an on-again off-again boyfriend broke up with me. Oh, and my Jeep with almost 150,000 miles was overheating, so my 7 year old daughter and I had to drive around with the windows open and the heat on full blast just so it wouldn’t breakdown. It was one bad June. And I went numb.

During her life, my mom always believed that everything happens for a reason and that it is up to us to keep our hearts open and to find our own happiness even in the middle of difficult times. Keeping your heart open, and taking just one small step forward, in almost any direction, can create profound change. That is what she believed. So when a substitute teacher at my school, a small private school in Newburyport where I work as the Administrative Director, stopped by my office and mentioned she was going on a work trip to Guatemala sponsored by a local non-profit organization, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had just joked to my sister that with everything going on in my life, I needed to either get a shrink or go to Guatemala. I’m not kidding. This was weird.

I took a step. That night, I looked up the organization on the internet, Partners in Development (www.pidonline.org). I learned that Gale Hull, general manager of Tender Crops Farm right here in Newbury, was the President and Founder of this 26-year-old nondenominational, non-profit organization. Partners in Development (“PID”) was working directly with people living in extreme poverty (less than $1 per day per person) in Haiti and Guatemala, the two poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.

I took another step. I wrote two emails. The first to Gale asking her if there were any openings in the upcoming work trips to Guatemala. The second was to Jen Hoffman, a parent at my school and the founder of her own non-profit organization, Emotional Armor. I told Jen that I was hoping to go on this work trip – that I felt I needed to go on this work trip – and why. I wrote that PID was in need of donations – and asked if she would be willing to donate some of her t-shirts for the children Gale worked with in Guatemala. The answers to both emails were resounding yes’s. Not only would Jen donate as many t-shirts as were needed, she offered her personal financial assistance, too.

The night before my trip, as my daughter and I lay in bed together holding hands and talking about the week to come, she started to cry and asked me not to go. She said, ”Mom, you don’t have to go. Just tell them you changed and mind and you don’t want to go.” I wanted to cry, return the dozens of t-shirts to Jen with apologies for inconveniencing her, call Gale and cancel my trip and tell her the time just wasn’t right. Instead, I took a step. I said, “You know, Nell, I made a commitment to go on this trip and I think it is important to keep my word. You have all sorts of fun things planned this week with your Auntie Sue and Grampa – and you will have such a great adventure. And the adventure I am going to have in Guatemala is one I need to go on, too. I’ll come back a better person, a better daughter, a better friend and a better mom.” I hoped I was right. Nell didn’t seem all to convinced either.

On July 14th, I left for Guatemala on a 4:30 a.m. bus to Logan Airport. I met Gale for the first time at the terminal and after a day of traveling by bus, airplane and van, we arrived in the township of San Antonia that evening. It was then I learned I was bunking with five sixteen year old girls. Given my age I could have given birth to all of them. By that point, I was hoping for and, quite frankly, expecting all sorts of revelations on this trip. The concept of my aging, however, wasn’t on the agenda. I went to bed. Several hours later, the girls came into the bedroom, put on the overhead light, turned on a radio and talked in “outside” voices until after midnight. I lay there pretending to sleep. I practiced a speech in my head. “Gale, I am really sorry. It is my fault I never asked who else was going on this trip. No offense to anyone, my five roommates are lovely girls, but if I could just pay someone to get me back to Guatemala City, I think I’d just like to rent a car and explore the country by myself.” I practiced that speech in my head for a good half hour before falling asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I took a step. I said to myself, “Liz, just give it a try – just stay for today. Go to the village and see what there is to experience. If you feel the same way tonight you can still give your speech and leave tomorrow morning.” So, on that very first morning, all fourteen volunteers rode in a van to the small Mayan Village of Concepcion where approximately 400 families lived. Some of us worked clearing rubbish and digging trenches. Some of us taught English to children. Some of us worked in a medical clinic. After I worked clearing rubbish and digging trenches all day, I decided to stay. I never gave my speech.

The next day, and on each remaining work day, I worked with Gale in the makeshift medical clinic set up in one of the homes in the village, a small structure built with mismatched pieces of wood covered by tin scraps and garbage bags nailed in place as a roof. The floor was cold hard dirt. We would set up the medicines that Gale had received as donations from home, mostly ibuprofen, children’s Tylenol, vitamins, cough medicine, anti-fungal and antibiotic creams, cough drops, and pepto bismol. These medicines, I learned - the very medicines we have stacked in our own medicine cabinets at home and take for granted when we have a mild headache or backache, were literally saving lives. Gale would also stop at a pharmacy in San Antonio each morning before the trek to the village to purchase whatever antibiotics and worm medicines were available.

We would arrive at the medical clinic each morning to lines already outside the building and down the road. We would hand out pieces of paper numbered 1-25 and take information on each of the first 25 families. We’d begin by taking their names, ages, temperatures and weight. Through a translator who also worked as a social worker for PID, we would write down symptoms on an intake sheet. Almost every family consisted of a mother and at least 3-4 children – and those were just the children she brought with her to the clinic. Typically, there were between 8-12 members in each village family.

Gale would examine each member of a family, prescribe necessary medicines and make referrals to a doctor she had found in San Antonio who had agreed to take the more complicated cases for free. The vast majority of children had worms and parasites manifested by distended bellies, open wounds and sores on their bodies and imbedded in their scalps. By the middle of the last day, we had all but run out of all the medicines and vitamins. We examined people but then had to ask them to come back in August because we had no more medicine to give them.

I learned that most of the villagers eat only once a day and their diet consists mainly of corn and tortillas. We would give the children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the clinic. They were very literally starving. Most families have no running water or toilets and the water is unclean. Most of the children do not have shoes and because of this they pick up parasites through their feet. Gale is raising money for community wells with filtration systems that will provide clean water to the village. When someone sponsors a child through PID for $22.00 a month, that child and his or her family is given food and nutritional support, medical care, school supplies and a voucher to receive a brand new pair of sneakers. Many of the children now have new t-shirts thanks to Jen.

It was at the medical clinic that I met Esperanza – which means “hope” in Spanish. She is five years old and lives with her mother, sister and grandparents. Her father is dead. Her family lives on less than fifty cents a day. Gale told me to put on gloves and feel her head. Her entire scalp was covered in scabs and open infected wounds. Like most of the children, she had worms. Before I left, I made the commitment to sponsor Esperanza. There was no way I couldn’t. Everything about my experience in Guatemala was amazing, but it was the moment that I laid my hands on that child’s head and looked into her eyes, and she grabbed onto my shirt, that I knew how much life and love I still had inside me to give – and I felt whole and at peace in a way I hadn’t in a very long time. My mom’s presence came back to me at that moment, too. I also couldn’t help but realize that had I given my speech and left before giving it a try, I would never have met Esperanza.

I’ve been home from Guatemala for over a month. The Director of the school I work at has wholeheartedly embraced the idea of our becoming “sister schools” to the village school in Concepcion. Many of our teachers have already made plans to incorporate this relationship into their own cultural studies programs for the upcoming school year. Gale is back in Guatemala – again. Talk about the “power of one”. Jen continues to touch the lives of so many of us with her passion and convictions. Nell, a “strong warrior princess” if there ever was one, is just happy that her mom is home. She tells me I don’t ever have to go away again to be a better mom– I am already the world’s best. As for me, I am still working on “writing my own happy ending” – taking one small step at a time. And I am no longer numb.

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Sue
New Hampshire

Hi - Good for you! I'm really interested in when these tees will be available...my ten year old daughter needs an infusion of peace and self confidence. I've been critically ill the past four years, and it is now coming out in my oldest, and my seven year old daughter, as sheer anxiety and panic. As a psychotherapist, I've put the tools in place, but pulled in a really skilled other therapist because I need to be the girls mama. My youngest, a four year old boy, is just mad. So, all three could use some humor. Thank you...and Good Luck!! Sue

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Rachel
Age 34
Massachusetts

Growing up I always believed that my Prince Charming would come along and marry me. I knew I’d go to college but, I wouldn’t need that education because I’d have a husband to take care of me. I was impressionable and believed everything media threw at me. I believed that if I didn’t find the “love of my life”, I was nothing. I gazed at pictures in glossy magazines of pretty girls with perfect skin and hair, and a guy holding their hand. If I was prettier, I could get a boyfriend and then I would be happy. I went off to college believing all of this. So, when I met Jay, I thought if a boy liked me then I must be pretty! I also thought I had been saved. I would get married after graduation and be happy. What I wasn’t prepared for were the harsh words, mind games, and fear that would come with that relationship.

I could write pages about the details of my relationship with Jay. The years of off and on relationship, yelling, name calling, belittling, and controlling. I was young and my poor self esteem wasn’t enough to stand up to him and say no. I constantly felt like I had to be what he wanted or he would get angry. He would tell me I was fat so I ate almost nothing. Crackers for dinner sometimes. I remember having dinner with his parents one time. His mom passed me a dish and I looked at him. She said “You don’t need his permission.” If only she knew. I got an earful from him that night: I shouldn’t have eaten so much! I lost weight but he still wasn’t happy. He used his smooth talking and controlling to tell me I also needed breast implants. It would enhance “our” sex life he tried to convince me. Thank god I never went through with it. I can’t believe I even considered it. But, that’s how he was…so smooth. He would also twist things around to always be my fault. I was the one hurting him. It finally got to the point where he was telling me how evil I was. He turned me against my family and got rid of all my friends. If you know me, you know that my family and friends mean the world to me. I was lost without them but it gave him more control over me. My career also seemed to fall apart. When I didn’t do well enough in my student teaching to get a teacher’s license, I was very upset. He didn’t even support me then. He put me down for getting upset. He also criticized the other passion in my life. He said that all that theatre stuff was “bunk”. He wouldn’t come to see me perform and made fun of me for doing it. That was one of my college majors! Something I loved to do and thrived on was taken away so I was becoming less and less me. Things got even worse once we moved in together. He could watch over me then. At our first apartment I saw his anger turn physical. We were having an argument in the kitchen and he backed me up against a wall. I saw the fist coming at me then slam into the wall next to my head. I should have left then but was too afraid to admit that my family had been right about him. And, he was always telling me that, if I left, I would never find anyone else. I wasn’t good enough for anyone. By then he had me brainwashed enough to believe it and I didn’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. So, I stayed. Things continued as is and it was wearing on me. At our new apartment, we had separate bedrooms even though we were still together. He had a bed but wouldn’t share it. I slept on the floor in the other room. I started crying myself to sleep every night. I can’t say that there was some magical turning point but I finally realized that I couldn’t go on like this. I just didn’t like feeling like a nothing. I had lost “me”. Telling him that I was leaving was one of the scariest things I have ever had to do. I was afraid of his anger and how he would react. I told him there would be a chance we could get back together even though I knew in my heart it wasn’t true. I just wanted to get out of there as quick as possible.

I moved back home with my parents and they were loving and supportive. I hated myself for a long time after that and they were patient while I tried to find the old me. I still had a hard time believing in myself. It has been 11 years since I walked away from the abuse and it has taken a lot to rebuild myself. But, I’ve rebuilt myself better. I am a strong self-advocate and never tell myself I can’t do something. I can say with confidence that I love who I am. I went back to school and got my master’s degree in 2005. I am now a School Guidance Counselor and I love using this job to help adolescent girls. I want them to know what I went through so they won’t make the same mistake. I teach them to respect themselves and believe in themselves. It’s important for them to know they are important in a world full of things telling them they aren’t unless they are pretty, popular, or have a boyfriend. We need to build their self-esteem.

People I meet today can’t believe I was ever in an abusive relationship because I am so self-assured. Not that I am ashamed of it. I am comfortable talking about it. It’s just that I have learned from it. I learned to stop playing the victim and turned it around to make myself stronger. I am a survivor and I know I can make it in this world even if I don’t have a “Prince Charming”. I know that it is better to be alone for the right reasons then to be with someone for the wrong ones. I believe that you have to “write your own happy ending”! This is mine…

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The vision of this company is to act as a canvas for the lives of extraordinary people to be painted. Our society has an overwhelming need to recognize ordinary men, women and children who are battling and conquering challenging struggles while attempting to find a true life balance. It is my belief that these stories of reality-based heroes will resonate and inspire each of us. In this light, we invite each of you to share your own stories of personal inspiration.

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