Relay for Life...

Friday night was the Scotland County Relay for Life. This event is really important for my family because my mother, grandmother, and Great Aunt are all breast cancer survivors. We have a team called "All in the Family and Then Some" because our team consists of our family and friends. Our theme this year was "Rockin' for a Cure". My uncle made 30 bird houses to sell, we had rocking chairs everywhere, and had two rocking chairs to give away. For our lip sync my mom and her two sisters "sang" Rockin' Robin while my niece, nephews, cousins, and daughter danced. The boys wore relay shirts, shorts, feather boas, and pretended to play blow up guitars. The girls wore relay shirts, pink poodle skirts, feather boas, and wore feather clips in their hair. I tried to get pictures of this, but wasn't that successful. This happened at 10:00 p.m. and Lydia's normal bedtime is 7:30 so she was WILD!!! Instead of dancing out there with everyone else she just ran around - EVERYWHERE. The audience loved it. She even went out into the audience and to pet people's dogs. She is such an animal lover. Hayden really got into playing his guitar. Towards the end of the song I think he pretended to have a solo because he ran up front and really started going. It was really funny. Their spectacular performance won out team the Best Lip Sync award.

The highlight of my night was the award my mom won. They always give out a Hero of Hope award to cancer victims who have shown great courage throughout the year. This is voted on at the Relay for Life meeting throughout the year by those people who are cancer survivors or are still fighting. This year they gave out two Hero of Hope awards. One is to a lady (I can't remember her name) who had been through cancer like no one I've ever known. She lost her husband a few years ago to cancer. After the Relay for Life in 2008 she was diagnosed with cancer. I believe they only gave her 2 years to live. They have twin daughters who are eleven. I can't imagine going through that. My mom received the second award. She fought breast cancer back in the fall of 2006 and found out she had it again in the fall of 2008. The second time it was found in her brain which is really scary because that means it had been spreading. As of now the tumor has stopped growing and she continues to take chemo pills. They won't do surgery because it greatly increases the chance of it spreading. Instead they will just leave it there and monitor it. The side effects of her medication is really hard on her body. The combination of the two chemo pills causes skin irritation. The skin on her hands and feet has basically all peeled off. Her hands and feet are bright red, really sensitive, and she has HUGE cracks all over. She can hardly eat, get herself dressed, or do common everyday things. It greatly pains her to walk because of the sensitive skin and cracks. She has band aids and gauze all over. She is just not it very good shape. However, even though she is constantly in pain from everything going on, she is still very positive, caring, loving, and strong. Mom is the strongest person I know. She continues to work, care for her family, and not feel sorry for herself. She is my HERO OF HOPE! I love you. Mom.