October is breast cancer awareness month and what a busy time it is for me. My birthday is in October, and this year, to my astonishment I celebrated my birthday with a surprise I was not expecting in the least! I received a letter in the mail on the Friday before my birthday to say I had been nominated for the Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest Rogers Women of the Year 2005 Award in the category of Health & Wellness. To be acknowledged for this tribute is one of the highest honours that a woman in the Region of Waterloo can achieve — wow! I have watched these awards on the TV for the past couple of years and the thought never crossed my mind that I would be nominated for such an award. My feelings of surprise, trepidation and excitement overpowered me for a couple of seconds before I came down to earth and realised that I was much too busy to dwell on the awards and would worry about my nerves on the actual evening of this event.

On 2nd October I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, along with my husband, youngest son and daughter in order that we could drive to RIM Park, Waterloo and set up the Pink Ribbon Tent and the Survivor Tent ready for the CIBC Run For The Cure. Last year I was the keynote speaker for the Run at RIM Park and this year I was the coordinator for this entirely new concept of Pink Ribbon Tent. Breast Cancer Awareness month, I believe, is one of the most well known months and everyone seems to know that PINK and AWARENESS about breast cancer is widely advertised and talked about in the month of October. Our vision of a world without breast cancer is getting closer to a reality with all the money raised all over Canada with the CIBC Run For The Cure and other initiatives such as “THINK PINK WEEK” where everyone is encouraged to find ways to promote breast cancer awareness by arranging activities and awareness events to spread the important message about breast cancer awareness. This year the RIM Park CIBC Run For the Cure raised an amazing $314,423 towards breast cancer research. Every year at such organized events as the CIBC Run For the Cure I shed a little tear, and I shiver slightly; not only do I feel so incredibly blessed to be the survivor of breast cancer twice, my heart skips a beat when I realise just how many people do care about finding a cure for breast cancer. On the other hand how many women and men have, sadly, died from breast cancer. Such events to raise awareness about breast cancer and the important message that

… really does go a long way to making sure more people are survivors of this terrible disease. It was a gorgeous sunny day on 2nd October, everyone who attended the event had a lovely day, and when my family and I finally drove away around 12:30pm after the event we were all physically and emotionally tired and ready for a good rest. Once again I realised what a fantastic, loving close family I have who are always there to share with me my challenges, triumphs and life and without my family I know my life would be so much different!