If you haven't had a chance to read our April newsletter you would have missed three stories answering the question: What will you run for? We have posted them below.
When my family moved to Richland from Portland in 1985, we were in the midst of one terrible winter, filled with snow and ice. I was a kindergartner, lucky that my parents had chosen a neighborhood full of families with children around my age. The snow and ice had made it difficult to get out and meet new friends, though. When a little boy in a snowsuit showed up in our backyard peering through our patio, amidst piles of snow, I found my first friend in the Tri-Cities. Nick was in kindergarten, just like me, and lived right next door. We became fast friends, riding bikes, playing in our neighborhood park, walking to school together.
As we grew older and he and his family moved to Tacoma, we still kept in touch, discussing our shared love of music and the trials and tribulations of junior high and high school. Then the shocking news came that Nick had cancer . . . it was all so hard to comprehend. I had never known someone with cancer, especially not someone my age, my friend. He faced this challenge with the same wise-cracking spirit that had made him one of the most fun people I had ever met. Even with all of his spirit, he lost his battle with leukemia on October 29, 1997, one month and a few days after his eighteenth birthday.
When I started working at the Cancer Center, naturally, I was reminded of Nick often. When we began the Run for Ribbons, I thought often about our tagline, “What will you run for?” It reminded me of the things he missed, like graduations, college, weddings and birthdays and how losing him made the world a little less bright. But it also reminds me of that same little boy looking through our patio door and how he lived every day with energy, spirit and a zest for life and how lucky I was to know him.
~ Elizabeth McLaughlin, Foundation Director
After our beautiful May wedding, where tons of family shared lots of laughs and memories, my new husband and I flew away to a romantic getaway in Maui to spend our honeymoon together. When we got home, my first phone call was to my Mom to ask her when I could come over to tell her all about it and show her our hundreds of pictures we took throughout our vacation. I was surprised when my Dad answered the phone and said she was having kidney pain and was napping. I was bummed, but understood that she just needed her rest. The next morning my Mom called me, she sounded exhausted and said she needed to go to the emergency room. I immediately went and picked her up and took her to the emergency room to see what was going on with her. They found a tumor in her kidney. My Mom was not the type to jump to any type of conclusion that something was wrong with her, and was a very normal, basic, everyday person with no significant issues with her health. So you can imagine my family’s surprise when the doctor came in to tell us that the tumor in her kidney was in fact cancer. The word no one wants to hear: Cancer. We had to wrap our brains around what exactly that meant for us, for her, and for our family.
My family knew the following months after her diagnosis was going to be difficult, but we had no idea how short of time we were going to have with her. After the removal of her kidney, chemotherapy treatments, multiple hospital visits and scans to determine each stage she was at, at five months after her diagnosis, we again heard words that no one wants to hear: It’s terminal cancer. November 21, 2011, my Mom lost her battle with kidney cancer. At that moment, naturally, I thought of every single memory I’ve had with my Mom. I thought of my Dad and how he was going to be without his wife of 32 years. I thought of my nephew that had only 2 years with her, yet worshiped the ground she walked on. I thought of my siblings and how much we looked up to her, and how we were going to keep our family together, like she did. I thought of my future unborn children and how they will never get the opportunity to know their amazing, loving grandmother. I thought about how nothing was ever going to be the same without her.
The Run for Ribbons event has been something I knew I had to get involved in. It doesn’t discriminate any type of cancer; it’s your choice on who, what and why you support. I know it has been said many times, but cancer affects everyone in one way or another. I run for my mother Jackie Richelieu.
~ Nicole Prince, Foundation Board Member
After 7th grade basketball practice one February evening in 1997, I took a peek at my team pictures. I saw my individual photo and ran to my mom “what’s this lump under my jaw?” I was mortified, I hadn’t noticed it until I saw the photo. She replied with, “when you get sick, your lymph nodes swell up. You’re probably just getting sick.” A month went by and nothing. Same active me. Our family doctor sent us to a specialist. He performed a biopsy which came back inconclusive, so surgery was my only option. They removed a lymph node and a saliva gland from the left side of my neck. In April 1997, my results came back, I had cancer. I was only 13 years old, I still had my entire life left to live.
My whirlwind had already began and I hadn’t even realized it. My mom and I moved to Seattle for treatment at Children’s hospital. I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I received a port line for chemo and my first round was at the end of May 1997. I received two, three day rounds of chemotherapy, 21 days of radiation and in total I’ve had five surgeries. It was the longest summer of my life. All I wanted was to be a kid. Between all the rounds of chemo there were handfuls of pills and shots to help keep me from getting sick. At the end of August 1997, my mom and I finally moved back home to Prosser. I am blessed beyond words for the family I was given and for all of their support. Today I am proud to say I’m a 15 and a half year survivor! Long term and short term side effects still affect my life today, nothing unbearable, but a constant reminder of my battle. Forever grateful. I run so more and more people can say, “I’m a survivor.”
~ Ashlee Rubon
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