Gotta love this...

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everyminute
everyminute Member Posts: 1,805
edited June 2014 in Stage III Breast Cancer

As many of you know I do an exercise program for cancer survivors once a week at a local gym.  The gym pays for it and it is free to survivors. Great right?

Well my local YMCA wanted to do it too and applied for a PEPSI grant which we got! Great right?

And I do a 5k training group with 12 cancer survivors.  ( they do have to pay , though I found one scholarship) once a week.

So I am on a personal mission to get survivors moving and grooving.  It does take a lot of time on top of my own full time job and kids and exercise/training schedule.  I am a busy girl but I do love it.  Sometimes it is sad, because as you all know not everyone survives.  I have lost 2 of my "peeps" in the year or so I have been doing this - which almost broke me but I tell myself thier life was better because they had hope and some feeling of control while exercising.  Sometimes I ask myself why I do this - maybe I should take a break and focus on me and my family,etc....

and then...

My first day of my Saturday group, I am starting my "new" members out and spending a little one on one time with each of them...One of the women tells me she is a survivor of 32-33 years (she can't remember), She had a year of chemo and a radical mastectomy.  I, frankly, assumed she was early stage but know that docs back then didn't tell patients much.  I was asking her if she ever  had issues with lymphedema and she said.....

"I have never had a problem with lymphedema, though I had a lot of nodes removed and five of them were malignant, I have never had another problem at all"

Girls - that makes her Stage 3, like us. 33 years!  wow. 

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