Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Ovarian Cancer Walk and Good Deed Doing

Well, I meant to write about this before now, but lately Life prevents me from writing as often as I wish.
Last Saturday morning, the boys and I went downtown to participate in the Ovarian Cancer Walk. They changed it up a bit this year. A. We could register the kids. So we did. They weren't supposed to get T-shirts, just bibs, but they gave us a couple anyway, and so of course, we put Chris's on him. (It got covered in cocoa during the course of the race.) And since they gave us the same size shirt (kids Small) for Sam that already was swimming on Chris, we opted not to let Sam wear his. But just set it in his bucket. That made him just happy as a clam, since he could just Chew on it. So he did for about half the Walk, then he conked out.

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We didn't do a proper "Team" this year, because they wouldn't let us unless we had 8 people. But if we would have, we would've been Team Willman. Here's my Mother-in-law wrangling both boys before the start of the race. She brought Teal Bandanas for us girls to wear, but Chris wanted to wear it, and I must say, he was pretty stinky adorable wearing it.



We did the Walk. I had been really nervous that all my recent back pain would have impeded my ability to Finish. But it didn't! Woo hoo! I was actually able to do the whole 3.1 miles, in about an hour. Hard to tell for sure what my time was, since they only timed the runners, and I wasn't paying attention to the clock when we crossed the start line. By about 2 miles I was feeling it, so I passed the stroller off to Mom. I felt like we had been going uphill (and with 80 pounds of children and stroller I was over that); turns out we WERE going uphill. Good, I wasn't crazy. My feet started hurting about 1/4 mile from the finish, but I didn't have any bad after effects.
So after the race, Mom and I were talking. You know, "what'chyu wanna do?"
I don't know, what'chyu wanna do? That sort of thing. Then she mentioned that Kohl's was doing this mass Bone Marrow Registering fest, hosting people to come register to help a kid with leukemia (amongst others) for Free. Sounded good. I'm all about the Free, and all our other possible schemes cost money, and I liked this one best because it was a way for me to Help.
I've been blessed to have my health (mostly), compared to other less fortunate people, and I want to use the things I've been gifted with, and share them. That's why I'm signing up to donate to the Milk Bank, have given to Locks of Love. This Bone Marrow Registry thing sounded like right up my alley.
Except for the pain.
But Mom said they were doing it with Cheek swabs, not blood. I love Scientific breakthroughs, they can get my DNA from cheek cells and match me. That was Super!
Apparently, that was just a rumor. It doesn't hurt. Even if I match with someone, they'll be Knocking me out for that, so I'll just be a bit achy afterwards, not that I haven't dealt with that. I actually find myself HOPING that some kid can use some of my bone marrow.
So, we go, and we're sitting in the Kohl's parking lot, filling out paperwork, juggling kids, when I get tapped on the shoulder. It was a gal from our local news station. And she wanted to interview me.
Yeah. I was on TV! WISH TV ran the story, check it out. The back of Chris's head in his Turquoise Ovarian Cancer shirt on my lap is visible in the first scene where a guy in a blue shirt is demonstrating proper swab technique. Then I sound like an idiot. They asked me Why was I here today? In my head, all I could think of was well, we were out and about and decided to go Good Deed Doing. But THAT sounded stupid. And in my mind, as long as I didn't say Good Deed Doing, I was OK. Naaaa. I sounded even stupider.
However, the point was made. We were out, and it was Easy to register to be a blood marrow donor. What made the whole process great was that it was painless. I'm kind of wussy when it comes to needles. And that was definitely my favorite part.
It was only After she'd left I looked up and realized that this thing was also helping Riley Kids, as well as the young boy with Leukemia. Heck! Riley Kids! I could've gone on all day about Riley...and NOT sounded like an idiot.

Oh well.

At least we did some 'double did our day', and some Good Deed Doing.

2 comments:

SuperSillyAunt said...

You know, it's really not fair that the older our MIL gets the younger she looks.

Cathy said...

Eric's ex told me that if Eric ended up aging like his Grandpa (grandpa Chamber) that'd be OK, he was so cute. That's where they get it. Chris is doomed--he's built like Lisa who gets carded everywhere, and Eric's DNA.