Hi. I’m Kate. Turn ons include IV drips, PETscans, and organic fig newtons. Turn offs include whining, hospital gowns, and artificial sugar.
Let’s see how much life I can squeeze in between work, chemo, sleep, and scans.
Ugly Shoes Team Report
It’s 2:28pm on Sunday, October 7, 2007 and I’m starting to think that Al Gore may be right about this whole global warming thing. The temperature is in the mid-80s and the sun is beating down on me. We just left the air conditioned showroom and immediately encountered this unbelievably steep hill on Belair Road (Bel Air is a lovely town, by the way). Sweat is already starting to show through my purple shirt. Someone made the comment that they should change pc’s color from purple to white so we wouldn’t get overheated.
We reached the crest of the hill and joked that the hard part was behind us. We crossed traffic, took a right towards the playground, and spent the better part of half a mile leisurely walking downhill in the shade. I was more than happy to let gravity do its part. But then I saw them - four people jogging towards us. Just random joggers, right? Just random joggers in purple shirts? Oh crap, they’re part of the race and I have to climb back up this brutal hill. We kept joking about it, but my laughed had a nervous edge to it. We reached the base and, as a tribute to my days of suicide sprints, I touched the ground and turned to face the hill.
It was a long, slow climb, but made very sweet when Maddie asked to hold my hand. (Her first choice was a piggy-back ride… yeah, right.) A woman asked if I was Kate and was interested in hearing the story behind the Ugly Shoes Team. She asked if I had to have the Whipple surgery and I didn’t correct her when she said I was lucky that I didn’t need it. I know she meant well, and I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was diagnosed too late to have the surgery.
The rest of the race went by very fast and, before I knew it, we were back in the showroom, surrounded by other sweaty purple shirts. It was a fantastic walk and I still feel blessed to have been able to participate in it. I expected a few weepy moments, but had only one - at the opening ceremonies when my name was called out as a survivor. I joined four other survivors in front of the crowd and it felt elated by the experience. I’d like to make the Ugly Shoes Team a tradition, and hope that I have the privilege to stand in front of the crowd as a survivor for many years to come.
A huge thank you to everyone who supported me, both financially and emotionally.
The Bel Air TeamHOPE Walk raised more than $70,000 and I’m very proud to report that the Ugly Shoes Team was responsible for raising $8,000 (correction - make that $9,000)! On behalf of the purple community, I’d like to send a very special thank you to Ken and his team for organizing the race to support PanCAN’s efforts.
Thinking about this post after having read it a few times, I’m still amazed at the emotional impact it has on me. To describe it to someone, I’d say that it was a narrative of your PanCAN walk last week - and that you have a gift for avoiding the obvious way to tell a story.
In this case, for example, you could have written about the walk as an emotionally-charged metaphor for the journey of your life, or as an everyday challenge made poignant by the stories of the people taking the steps. Instead, though, you chose simply to narrate what you saw and did, and with a few simple and very powerful lines, let us take our own meanings from your words instead of forcing meaning upon us. Each of us who knows and loves you probably takes something slightly different away from this.
I hope so, too.
I hope.
Congratulations on completing the Walk, Kate. Your description of the event was terrific.
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