Knee Deep in the Hooah!

Suzanne Marie Myers
May 18, 1952 - December 15, 2006

April 29th through May 5th is National Brain Cancer Awareness Week. This year the week set aside to enhance awareness, educate about, and put faces with the disease has a deeper and more special meaning to me. Many of you are aware that at one point in my career I worked at a National foundation that funds pediatric brain tumor research and programs. Brain tumor patients will always hold a special place in my heart, and especially those young patients who are in for the fight of their lives!

This year I want to focus on two women who are special to me. One is a woman, Sue, who lost her battle to brain cancer in December of 2006, and the other is her daughter, Amy, who is walking a path of sadness and grief after her mother‘s death.

I had mentioned in a previous blog about the beauty of the Internet and how it has transformed the notion we have of “community,” and how we are now afforded the opportunity to know and care for people we may never meet face to face. Amy and I met on a message board for moms while I was pregnant with Emma three and a half years ago. Most of us had children around the same age, and/or we were pregnant together. We have never met, but we have done everything from throwing a surprise baby shower for a friend on our board (everyone purchased items and sent them to her on the same day), to having holiday gift exchanges, and some of us talking on the phone from time to time.

I get up every morning and start my day off with a “good morning” chat with my girlfriends on Amy and Jolene’s board. They are like my next door neighbors that I sip coffee with, talk about motherhood with, and lean on when I am discouraged. We have a great time together swapping stories, recipes, and pictures.

I will never forget the day on the board when Amy got the news that her beloved mom was going to be in for a fight for her life — a fight, unbeknown to any of us, that she would eventually lose at the age of 54.

Amy and her mother were very close. I remember when Amy told us that her mother had just recently started to build a new house near Amy’s so that she could be close to her and her three children. Amy was thrilled. Amy went over to the house while it was being framed and even inscribed sweet messages to her mom in the woodwork of the home. We all giggled at the pictures and enjoyed watching the progress of the house as the building continued.

Not long after Sue and her husband moved into their new home, Sue had a horrible headache — a headache that led her to the emergency room. Eventually the diagnosis came back. Sue had a stage IV glioblastoma, which is one of the more aggressive forms of brain cancer. Glioblastomas do not normally spread to (metastasize) other parts of the body, but the damage they wreak on the brain is tremendous, fast and irreparable. Sue died 11 months after diagnosis; and my dear friend has been left to try and come to terms with losing her mother, her best friend, and her supporter to a sudden, tragic and painful killer.

So, in honor of Sue and Amy I wanted to post this blog entry with some links of interest.

If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and you are looking for support and information, please visit the National Brain Tumor Foundation.

For pediatric brain tumor information and support, please visit the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

If you would like to give a memorial donation to Hospice to honor Sue please visit : Riverview Health Care Hospice Facility, and give a memorial contribution in memory of Suzanne Marie Myers.

Tags: disease awareness //