Sharing Hope

This weekend Kim and I attended an American Brain Tumor Association Patient event in Chicago. The event was called Sharing Hope..for 35 Years. It was held all day Saturday, so Kim went in Friday night to keep from having to get up at the crack of dawn.

The first breakout session at this conference was a meet and greet in which they broke the participants in 2 groups...those in treatment and those after treatment.

Kim and I obviously went to the in treatment session. The room had about 40-50 people, patients and caregiver/support person.

Each person was given the mike to introduce themselves and tell a little bit about themselves and their story. The purpose was for people to be able to connect later throughout the day with people of similar interests. Needless to say, it was a pretty amazing and emotional hour.

The first person to speak was probably in his mid 40's, and he has had a Glioblastoma (what I have) for 21 years!! He has tried alot of the medications and treatments over the years and is currently doing Temodar, which is what I am doing. He has had 8 reoccurrences and surgeries over the years, and his advice to everyone was to keep humor in your life! WOW!

We continued around the room some people celebrating one year, 2 years or more, having dealt with reoccurences and multiple rounds of treatment.

One 23 year old kid told his story of having a GBM removed and going through treatment. Treatment seems to be going well, and he is looking forward to living out one of his dreams of doing a triathalon this summer.

The one thing other than Brain Tumors that each and every person in that room had in common was HOPE. It was pretty neat to see that many people in the same room in the same situation.

We went from that session right into the general session which combined both groups and equaled around 150-200 people. The general session was comprised of a series of speakers on topics from treatments, after treatment care, "The New Normal", to Diet, and a Q&A session. It was very informative and I especially appreciated the session on "The New Normal". It was aptly named and reinforced alot for me.

It doesn't take long to cheer yourself up at an event like this. Everyone around is so full of life and hope.

I am so happy that I went to this event. It gave me even more reason to continue on my path and continue to LIVE AND LAUGH!! HOPE is a pretty beautiful word!

For some pretty amazing stories about people with Brain Tumors who chose LIFE... Check out this page from the American Brain Tumor Assoc. Site... http://hope.abta.org/sharinghopestories

I would advise Kleenex or Puffs. :) But Tears are Cleansing Right? :)

PEACE OUT!