Amidst the recipe planning, RSVP tracking, and list-making some of us did last week to prepare for Thanksgiving, we all undoubtedly jumped head-first into the holiday season and entered a time of reflection as 2014 comes to a close. Whether your plans for the holidays are large or small, we will all collectively do one similar thing this holiday season, we will all take a moment and ask ourselves the same question: “What am I thankful for?”
In April of 2007, weeks shy of my 20th birthday, my Mom, Karen Presswood, called me one afternoon to let me know she recently had a mammogram and a lump had been found in her breast. I was attending college in South Carolina at the time and was blissfully unaware of how my life was about to change. After final exams, an 8 hour drive home and a small birthday celebration came a stage IV breast cancer diagnosis, a mastectomy, multiple tests and procedures, time spent patiently waiting for results, and those difficult thoughts and conversations centered around questions like, “How serious is this?” and, “Should I move home?” Much to my Mom’s convincing, I continued to pursue a college degree in South Carolina while she endured chemotherapy and radiation and all the while continued to work 60 hours a week as a pharmacist at CVS. While the days were long, my favorite part of our routine was the phone calls that were made to catch each other up on life: my grades, her tumor markers, my college friends, her patients, my job and internship and her friendships found in three women she met along the way of her cancer journey who quickly turned from friends to family. These women, Dian “CJ” Corneliussen-James, Avis Halberstadt and Rhonda Rhodes, along with my Mom, would later found the organization we all are very familiar with: METAvivor.
In August of 2009, weeks after my college graduation and days before I was scheduled to move home to Annapolis, my Dad called me early one morning to let me know my Mom had taken a turn for the worse and the doctors were saying she had hours to live. Necessary belongings were thrown in the back of my car and an 8 hour drive later, I made it to the hospital just in time to see my Mom open her eyes for the last time. In the middle of the night, nearly 24 hours after the doctors said she had merely hours to live, my Dad, my Sister, and my two cousins and I sat with my Mom in the hospital as she took her last breath and bid farewell to her battle with metastatic breast cancer. While we were left heartbroken and alone, we were also left with a gift, and that gift is METAvivor.
Since my Mom’s passing, our holidays look and feel quite different and while the list of things I am thankful for changes year to year, there are two things that have remained and will remain constant: I am thankful for my Mom and I am thankful for METAvivor. I am thankful for my Mom’s positive attitude, for her undeniable strength and for her courage to fight metastatic breast cancer until the end. I am thankful for the nation-wide community METAvivor has created, for the money METAvivor has raised and donated 100% to research, and for the voice METAvivor has given to so many.
As we begin this holiday season filled with traditions, Michael Bublé Christmas songs, twinkling lights and Starbucks red cups, I hope you find a moment, whether it be a moment spent with family and friends or a quiet moment alone, to ask yourself, “What am I thankful for?” And I encourage you today, on #GivingTuesday, to donate to METAvivor, an organization that we are all so thankful and so grateful for.
