Paying the Blessings Forward
As my diagnosis story and the first few days of my cancer experience were unfolding, two truths about my situation became very evident:
I had extensive connections. Not everyone is friends with their primary care doctor, not everyone has a spouse in the medical field, not everyone gets the expedited care I got, not everyone is connected with a group of physicians who is familiar with rare cancer diagnoses and its standard of care protocols, not everyone has best friends who are pharmacists and nurses who have also previously been diagnosed, and
I am in the first generation of women to survive Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC). Many have gone before me as the recipients of trial drugs and chemotherapy and radiation and surgery protocols prior to our modern knowledge of effectiveness and side effects and such that have made my journey profoundly easier and more effective.
These two reasons became primary drivers of why I wanted to tell everyone everything I could about my cancer in trusting hope that sharing details of its presentation and knowledge of the standard of care protocols may give someone better hope for a brighter outcome. They were why I wanted to participate in a clinical trial, even if I received no benefit. With Inflammatory Breast Cancer, in particular, too much is still unknown about the disease: why people get it and how do we end it. A generation ago, it was a certain death sentence and for many, it can still be today. IBC is fast-growing, aggressive and appears to be sudden onset Stage 3. I know I’m a lucky one. I know it’s a miracle I’m alive and a miracle I’m thriving.
I’ve been trying to pay the blessings forward as best as I can through sharing my story on Facebook or having conversations with others in the waiting room of doctors’ offices or while receiving treatment or buying groceries. I regularly get connected with women who have received a recent diagnosis and try my best to share the things that were shared with me. I’ve had a God-sized nudge for a while now to share my journey in bigger ways.
Today is the day it begins. This site, the free resources I’m gathering to add, the writings I’m planning to share, the products you’ll be able to buy to bless others (in multi-fold ways) are the result of prayer and love and hope and God-given talents that have been unfolding for years.
If this endeavor continues in a similar fashion it began, I trust you’ll be encouraged and likely entertained. I’m honored you’re here and humbled you’ve clicked on the extra buttons and read thousands of words to be reading this now. May you be blessed by this work as much as this journey has blessed me. Welcome to Lulu’s Fight.
Love First and Hope Always,
Laura Morrow