B4B Upgrates

We have alot to update you on since December. Whilst you might not have seen much going on by way of the blog, like Santa's little elves, we've been busy behind the scenes to make it Christmas by providing essential gifts (food and shelter) for the single mums during treatment and recovery throughout the year.

I had in my schedule to update the blog. UPDATE....hmmm. Simply to update you wouldn't do justice all the gratitude we feel for accomplishing so much in a short period of time. Simply to update wouldn't reflect the amount of heart and love that goes on behind the scenes from the board and the people of the community. So from now on, we will give you upgrates instead of updates.

A summary of celebrations...

• We are NOW OFFICIALLY as an Incorporated Association in South Australia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• HUGE THANKS to our lawyer, Christine Jankus, who volunteered her time, her talents and love for the cause.
• Thanks also to Ray Wood of ANZ Castle Plaza for his help in setting up our non profit business account.
• Thanks to Mark Craig, Head Mentor and Steering Committee member for his ongoing support from the very beginning...2 years ago!
• Thanks to Margaret Irving and Sue Jones to your time on the biz and development plans.
• Thanks to Geeta and the B4B family around the world.
• Thanks to the mentors that are coming on board to be Family mentors!
• Thanks to my darling husband, Christoph for your love, support, vision, talents, flexibility, mentoring, bouncing, patience and commitment to helping me help others in the world in similar situations Kathleen found herself in 2 years ago.
• Thanks to Kathleen for continuing her sisterly support for the cause and mostly, for continuing to look after herself into full recovery.
• Thanks to Helen Zander for your book idea, inspired by the blog of the first 100 day campaign for Kathleen. Stay tuned...it will be published in the near future! More on that later.
• Thanks to all who have donated to the cause, by way of bouncing, money or talents. (ANZ BLUE WEEK success to be updated later).
• Because of all this and more, INSPIRES ME and keeps me growing and moving b4b forward. I am committed to this for the rest of MY LIFE. It's a legacy that I've chosen....or it's chosen me.
• Also, we are grateful to be in a position to now help more single mums that need our help. Justina, is a recent mum we met. She is a beautiful soul and I've asked her to share her journey with us on the blog, whilst she gets her website together....Below is in an introduction to Justina and her journey...

GRATEFUL - by Justina Colon (one of our mums)

Not many people can find a reason to be grateful for cancer. Not many people are diagnosed at the age of 28 with stage I invasive ducal carcinoma. And then are re-diagnosed at 31 with stage IV metastasized breast cancer. I am all of them. I am also a mom to a beautiful 8 year old daughter. Most importantly, I am a survivor…regardless of the statistics.

I am now 33 and I live with tumors throughout my skeleton system and a nice sized one in my liver. I go for chemotherapy once a week. It’s a 132 mile roundtrip for me, but I find something new every time I make that drive. A house up on a hill hiding between the trees, a new car out of some high tech magazine, or just an interesting shaped cloud floating across the blue sky. This is all regardless of how miserable I feel or how badly my bones are aching. I have to because I am alive. I have a chance to appreciate those things even though I have no true understanding of why I have this disease.

Over the coarse of the two and a half years of dealing with this I went from a successful wife and mother with a promising bright career to leaving an abusive marriage, my daughter tightly in tow to a much better place…as she calls it, “Our happily ever after.” I went from making $40,000 a year to barely $11,000 and having to fight for my SSD benefits. I’ve now had to learn how to be humble and how to reach out for help. I have found my voice down inside of not only physical pain, but emotional pain that runs deeper than any abyss. I have also had to decide between groceries and the prescriptions that I need in order to just get out of bed on some days. I have had to decide between paying a bill or making sure that I have the gas money to get to my doctors appointments.

But I’m grateful. I no longer look at the trivial things in life and let them swiftly pass me by. I embrace them. I hold them close to me and inhale the aroma of another moment that thankfully I am here to have. And yes, the larger problems of life, like the bills, the buying of groceries, the prescriptions co-pays, and just being sick and tired of being sick and tired do hit me. They hit me like the ball a baseball player hits to get that game winning homerun. Those are the days I curl up and retreat. I wrap myself tightly in my favorite blanket and block out the world…once my little girl is off to school. And by that evening, desperate to be mom, desperate to be myself…I pull it all together.

So, I bake brownies or banana bread or these really tasty thumbprint cookies. Just a little something to remind my daughter how special she is to me. Also, to remind myself how I am blessed to have her, my only one, the only one I’ll ever have in my life. Just like seeing the sun reflecting off of the mountains in my back yard remind me that I am blessed with so many things. Things that I should and am grateful for.

This would not be my tale if it wasn’t for the cancer. I learned of cancer and the evil ways of it at only 18 when my mom was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Then she had her own battle with breast cancer and a few others until it finally took her when I was 25. Too long before she could see the beautiful granddaughter I would have that every day reminds me of her. Two years after that, cancer once again came pounding on my door. My father was diagnosed with breast cancer as well. Then at the same time I was diagnosed, he was going in to have most of his stomach removed from metastasized cancer. I lost him shortly before my own re-diagnosis.
Having seen both parents through it, the ups and downs, the remissions and chemotherapy, I learned much. But not until my own cancer did my eyes truly open wide. Then with my re-diagnosis they have been glued open, taking it all in. I am going through indefinite chemotherapy now. There is no end date in site…but I’m okay with that on most days. I know my pain level has decreased, my markers have gone down, and I am here another day with my daughter and loved ones. I take in all of the good, all of the bad and all of it in between.

They say God only hands you what he thinks you can handle…I myself think that he thinks I have pretty darn big shoulders. My name is Justina Colon and I live with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Just like the thousands of other women and men who also live with it, everyday. I am a survivor just like they are and I am grateful and appreciative for it all.