About Cards for Cancer - Marcia's story
Cards for Cancer is an outreach project to provide cancer patients and their caregivers with cards of inspiration, support and celebration. I began making cards as hobby and soon it became a passion. I have a fulltime job and cardmaking became a way to unwind at the end of a long day. I commute two hours a day from the suburbs to downtown Chicago. I have a lot of time to read, meet new people and think. When I have time to think, I get dangerous!
For me, the Spring is a time of reflection. While most people are watching for robins, and enjoying the first blooms of crocus and daffodils, I am thinking back to March of 2004 when I began a series of medical tests that ended with hearing the the surreal words, "Marcia, it was cancer". I think about the pain. The physical pain of the surgeries and chemotherapy, radiation and ultimately a double mastectomy. The emotional pain of baldness and disfigurement. The pain that my husband, father, brother and children endured while they watched their wife, daughter, sister and mother fight to save her life, and the pain they felt when they realized there was nothing they could do to make it go away. I reflect on this - but only for a moment because I remember what I found when I thought all things had been lost. I found family and friends who stood beside me during the decisions that I had to make. They stood behind me and pushed me on through the treatments, and held up me when I didn't think I could stand anymore. I found my faith rekindled into a fire that burned with the love and peace that only God could bring to my soul. I found the awe of the depth of my marriage vows as my husband loved me through "sickness and health". I found that I had been blessed to a degree that could not be measured. What I found obliterated the pain into a distant memory.
One of the ways that this support and love was manifested during this time was through all the cards that I received. I received cards that inspired me to keep going, cards that really were "hugs" from loved ones far away, cards that made me laugh when I didn't think anything in life was funny, cards that reminded me of the promises of God, and cards that just let me know that I wasn't alone. I kept every one. How blessed I was to have this support through my cancer journey.
I reflect on the cards; those words of hope, inspiration and celebration and then I know what I need to do. I can reach out and do what I can to make sure that everyone has the kind of support that I had during my battle with cancer. I can take my cardmaking hobby and give it a purpose. I can make cards for cancer.
Marcia