I needed to step back for a little bit, I have not blogged or been on Facebook for more than a couple minutes at a time. I have breast cancer and I’m fighting probably one of the largest battles in my life. In fighting this battle… some people really stepped forward for me and our family… Every single day, I expressed gratefulness and love and support. We are leaving the wedding industry… so my motivation was nothing other than friendship. Anyone who knows me, my close friends and family… KNOW me and know I’m genuine, loving, grateful and not demanding….  I’ve mentioned more than on 1 occasion that I had a very close circle of friends and that I was not one to get involved in the industry.. I occasionally attended functions… Anyone in the industry that we’ve worked with knows that we are extremely giving of images, etc… I think it’s very unfair that anyone is making unfair assumptions based off of tiny bits of information and hearsay regarding any of the parties involved…  I was sad that the event cancelled…. I have expressed NOTHING else publicly out of respect for everyone… In order to handle this with grace. We have been extremely blessed and it’s unfortunate that the fundraiser had to come to and end, but we are still blessed… we are not walking away empty handed… quite opposite… it was said at the beginning… “even if it’s a couple thousand, it’s better than nothing”… We were just grateful for the help.

There is absolutely no question that many people have stepped forward to help, but in this venture… I did not have a say… other than at the very beginning, I was told I could make requests… but beyond that, I didn’t have a say. It was felt that it was in my best interests and in order to avoid drama to be off of the sub site created for helping our family…. In doing this, I was unaware of anything being said…

I wanted nothing other than the fundraiser to happen, my intent wasn’t as focused as the members about making money, as silly as that sounds…it was a fundraiser.  I was thrilled to have people there who love and care about me and I wasn’t really in the loop, so I was unaware of just about every aspect of the event.  I just really hoped to be able to be there and going through this time, where I have chemo rash, I’m bald and I have puffy eyes….. that I’d hopefully look pretty…After all of the drama of it ending… and the comments I was told were being told to some of the key members, comments in general…. it was at that point that I asked if it would stop… (at the point that the online auction was being talked about)…. This was not because we were upset that the fundraiser was cancelled, it is purely because some aspects of this have been a source of stress and due to that… I asked for it to stop… I need to focus on healing, not because I’m being selfish… but my survival depends on it.

To ALL of the members involved… we have expressed nothing but gratefulness. Darrell and I really have to focus on our family, keeping a level of calm in our household… We just really ask that every aspect of this be dropped, put behind us…. and let’s all please move on. Let’s stop making comments of judgement, when clearly there is no way for anyone to have all of the facts in this situation…

Again, to every single person who has helped or touched our family in some way…. for those genuine efforts, we cannot possibly express enough thankfulness… Please do not ever, ever question our gratefulness…. For the money raised, for the money invested… groceries… jewelry… we cannot possibly express enough thankfulness…

Although I’ve been thanked over and over and over for this blog…. part of me regrets having told anybody about my cancer… part of me wishes I’d fought this battle quietly… Everyone deals with cancer differently and every single one of my emotions is real, valid and totally acceptable. Fighting cancer is hard enough…. chemo makes me very sick for at least a week or so…. We need to pick our battles, if that makes sense… and my battle needs to be about fighting cancer… I have decided to continue writing my blog, but  I will be stepping back from Facebook… My blog is my therapy, may way to express myself…. so there will be no updates to Facebook… so if you are genuinely interested in reading it… please make sure you follow it so you are notified of a new update… (others can feel free to post my blog if they would like, I just will not be posting it to Facebook).

Tracey came with me to chemo today… all went well… the same symptoms as usual…  I had a meeting with my doctor and he is feeling some softening in the tumor. He did tell me last visit it was 6cm and this time he is feeling some changes… we won’t know until my next tests which will be further down the line… Today I’m officially 1/2 way through chemo… 

Tracey, her Mom Millie and I have been having a great time catching up… a lot of laughing and goodness for my soul… it’s been very therapeutic…

Much love…