Please support Hats Unto Others!

The first time Mike ever saw me cry was on June 1, 2009, the day I found out my Beautiful Aunt Joyce died of breast cancer. The second time he saw me cry was last Labor Day weekend when I learned my dear friend Lisa McGlaun had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

You know how I feel about that f*cking disease (and my regular readers know what it can suck).  Fortunately, Lisa has completed her chemo and is doing well.  So well that, true to her character, she's not thinking of herself but is helping others.  I'll let her tell her story.

When I went to my oncologist's office for the first time back in August I distracted myself by reading all of the signs posted on the walls. That way I didn't have to think about what was coming down the pipe....chemo, surgery, radiation....lots of stuff that scared the shit out of me but all of it out of my control. So one of the signs said, "Do you want to be a happy hooker?" Well, that caught my attention! Turns out it was for the next meeting of the "happy hookers", a group my doctor started. They get together once a month and crochet hats and blankets for the chemo patients that receive treatment at her office...which I was about to be one of!

So I went to the meeting and loved it so much that I started spending all my down time (time on the couch because I didn't have the energy to get up) crocheting hats. I'd learned to crochet from a family friend when I was eleven but hadn't made anything in years so making the hats ignited my creativity again. It also gave me a way to keep my mind off myself and on something positive like giving back to the community...my new community of loved ones on "Planet Cancer"...:)

Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada has several offices around the valley. I went to an appointment at a different office one day and realized that they didn't have a program to provide hats for their patients. I began to donate my hats there instead. Yarn got expensive! Ideas began to roll around in my head for how to keep these donations going. I'd go to sleep thinking about it and then I'd wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Always at 4 a.m. because cancer patients who are on steroids never get a good night's sleep..lol..that is my new wake up time!..arrggg.

So I settled on a buy one/share one program and my husband Todd came up with the name "Hats Unto Others," like "Do Unto Others as you'd have them do unto you." :) Very clever, that man of mine!

Beautiful Lisa

I've had a great response. I think that is because it is a win/win situation for everyone involved. I get to make hats to give to people who need them and now have funding to buy the yarn. Also, I get to be really creative in making the custom hats that people order. The buyer gets a cool hat for themselves and the satisfaction of having another hat donated in their name. Now they are able to help a cancer patient too! The cancer patient gets a hat, which is a very good thing because until you've experienced a bald head you don't realize just how cold it can be! LOL

When I am at home in the evening I almost always have on a hat...my head just gets very cold. I know other women who've lost their hair feel like I do. There have been nights when I've slept with one on because even though I'm nestled under the covers my shiny bald head is not! It's helped a great deal.

I've had 30 orders so far. I'm very pleased with that and I'll continue making the donation hats even if no one else ever orders. As long as I have yarn, I'll keep going. I've set a goal of donating 1000 hats and I intend to reach it

If you've ever known someone with breast cancer--and at this point who doesn't?-- you know how helpless you feel.  You want to do something.  Well. here's something you can do.  If you can, please help Lisa reach her goal.  You can find out more or place an order by emailing her at hatsuntoothers@gmail.com. 

How I wish my aunt were still here on earth with us; I would have loved to buy her a couple of hats.  Although she did manage to find one herself...

B.A.J. was so funny!

I have cried twice in front of Mike since then, both within the past week.  Once was because I was pissed and the other was when I saw on Facebook that my friend's 32-year-old daughter died of breast cancer.   She had learned of her daughter's Stage 4 diagnosis only five days earler.  Thirty-two years old!  And she leaves behind 6-month-old twins.

I'd so rather cry out of anger. 

But what is there to be angry about?  Let's enjoy every minute of life today, shall we?  And thank you, dear Lisa, for being the angel on earth that you are.  With every cell in my body, I wish you a full recovery and a long, long life ahead.