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"My Life on the DD List"
New! --
"An Underground Guide To The
Breast Cancer Walk"
This guide was written by Larry
Roshfeld; a multi-event participant who has so much
passion for the cause. We're glad to have had the chance
to meet him on an event and now call him friend. The
2010 guide is hot off the presses and will help with any
questions you might have when you register to do a
multiple day/long distance walking event!
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Lori Adelfio - President
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At The
Breast Cancer 3 Day |
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Lori Adelfio & Chris Resnick |
Lori Adelfio & Michele Miley |
Where do I begin?
I guess I’ll begin at the beginning.
In August of 2000, my sister, Christine, was diagnosed
with breast cancer at the age of 35 years old. I will
never forget, days after the lumpectomy, receiving the
call from my sister saying “It’s cancer”. I felt as
though someone punched me in the stomach because I lost
the air to speak. I recovered enough to respond and say,
“Ok, so how do we fight this?” because there was no
other option other than fighting it. I have often
thought many times, as I look back on those months at
the beginning of all of this, that perhaps my sister had
a strength that had never been shown to anyone before;
including herself. I hung up the phone and all that was
running through my head was “Oh my God, my sister has
cancer. She is my 35 year old sister with a husband and
two little girls and she has breast cancer.” It scared
me. It scared me because the only other experience I’ve
ever had with breast cancer was with my friend Michele’s
mother, Susan. I remember Susan as a kind and wonderful
woman with a terrific sense of humor who seemed as
though her mastectomy didn’t faze her. I’m sure it did,
but she never let on. She was my friend’s mom. She was
my friend’s really COOL mom who was a beautiful spirit
on this earth. She succumbed to the disease in October
30, 1984 and became a beautiful spirit not of this
earth. It was 21.5 years ago in October - Breast Cancer
Awareness Month - but I don’t think there was such a
thing back then.
When Christine was diagnosed, my parents were there for
a visit and subsequently stayed through the months
afterward. She had her mastectomy,
reconstruction and was gearing up for her first
rounds of chemotherapy, but nothing was going to get her
down. She planned and attended her
daughters 6th birthday party and walked five miles, yes
FIVE miles, participating in her first “Making Strides
Against Breast Cancer” event
benefiting The American Cancer Society. A pretty
courageous venture considering she was post-operative
for only a few weeks. With my parents help, my sister
recovered from the surgical portion of her treatment and
was undergoing chemotherapy. She shopped for Christmas
gifts, put up her Christmas tree and it seemed as if she
prepared for the holidays as though the preceding months
had never happened. She shaved her head, bought a
beautiful wig and plenty of eyebrow pencils.
When Spring arrived, so did several weeks of radiation
therapy combined with her chemotherapy. Then a
recurrence. Her original diagnosis was Infiltrating
Intraductal Carcinoma. In the Spring/Summer of 2001, she
was diagnosed I.B.C. Inflammatory Breast Cancer. It was
a hard blow and quite frightening considering she “had
done everything right.”
Through out the past 5+ years, I’ve tried to be a
comfort and be the source for a laugh when she’s “sick
and tired of being sick and tired.” To be her
cheerleader when her arm, swollen from Lymphadema, hurts
her so much she doesn’t know what to do with herself.
Let me tell you why she never ceases to amaze me though.
For the past five years, she has been confronted with
her own mortality and yet she moves through her life as
though it isn’t really happening. She works so hard not
to let her illness affect her daughters. She takes them
to Girl Scouts, piano lessons, soccer, swim lessons,
basketball, drama club and the list exhaustingly goes
on. She bakes classroom birthday cupcakes for each of
her daughters’ birthdays, makes their Halloween costumes
and helps to make costumes needed for drama club. She
makes sure that each of her girls has two birthday
parties; one to invite all of their friends and another
one for the family. She volunteers for a program at the
elementary school called “Project Bookworm” which helps
children who are having a harder time learning to read.
I guess all of the above helps
ME
to move through
MY
life as though she doesn’t have breast cancer.
It took about a year before I started asking questions
of myself. Do I get tested for the genetic markers for
breast cancer? What does it mean if I have the markers?
Since the markers being present doesn’t necessarily mean
I will get breast cancer, do I want to know if I have
these genes running through my body? At first, I felt
guilty that I was thinking of myself while my sister was
fighting the disease, almost selfish. However, as I read
all that I possibly could process about this disease, I
did have to wonder, what about my predication? To this
day, I still wrestle with that question. Currently, I
have an unexplained lump that has been labeled “nothing”
by doctors, so I’m asking myself the question again.
What about my predication? I suppose even 5 years later,
the feelings of selfishness arise, but now, reality
overrules the idea that someone could be selfish in such
matters as health. I needed to channel my anxiety and I
wanted to take a stand against breast cancer, but how? I
remembered talking to my sister about the breast cancer
resource center she went to in New Jersey and I wondered
why there wasn’t one here in St. Augustine, FL. I
thought if I couldn’t affect change in New Jersey, why
not affect change in St. Augustine? In August of 2003,
my sister and I formed a foundation called “Committed To
A Cure, ‘partners in hope’ ”. We are hoping that this
foundation can reach out into the community and help
those who are affected by breast cancer as well as
affecting the medical community and health insurance
companies to cover new tests that will aid in early
detection. We have goals for this foundation and our
hope is that we achieve those goals and soar ever higher
working toward a cure for this devastating disease. We
are a Non-Profit organization and we will keep our
supporters informed of the progress of this foundation.
Wishes for good health,
Lori Adelfio
Christine
Resnick - Vice President
May David -
Treasurer
John David -
Special Events Coordinator
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