640,000 Steps towards Save Lives

It's time to launch my annual participation in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Boston (2012).  This event takes place in major cities throughout the U.S., and in an increasing number of international locations.  The Avon Walks involve striding 40 miles over two days, a feat that requires devoting one's feet to months of pre-event training.  Here in New Hampshire, this training commitment either means joining an indoor gym, or calling upon one's New England hardiness and winter wardrobe.   Given my limited budget and time, and hoping the fresh air will help counteract the "seasonal affective" hibernation tendencies we Northerners struggle against, I wait until late February to start training for my ninth annual Avon Walk endeavor.

While my walk counterparts in California quickly slip on a fashionable sweater for their Avon Walk training strolls, it takes me five minutes to put on my winter uniform - hat, coat, warm "ugly pants", wool socks, and gloves -  before hitting the frozen pavement.  It's warmer in Califormia and, well, alive.  My walks are accompanied by long measures of silence. Here in small town New Hampshire, no birds are singing, nor are neighbors out  and offering staccato "hellos", except mouthed through the glass of their heated vehicles. Please don't spray me with cold wet snow, I think while smiling as they drive by.  They don't see my smile anyway. My face is covered by my scarf.  In the southwest U.S., Avon crusaders train under green, leafy canopies while smelling lovely flowers. My only reminders of NH botanical life are occasional dried up leaves, crispy fragile vestiges of last summer's vibrancy.  I feel sort of like these leaves - dried out and drained of color from too many months spent indoors in my heated home.  Then, there is the matter of sneakers.  While California girls don light and airy cross trainers, all bright and cheerfully clean, I dare not break in my new annual walk sneakers, the aerated ones that will help my feet succeed for 40 miles.  Not yet.  Instead, I wrangle my feet into snowproof, windproof, dirtproof lugs.  Tres chic.  All this gear I must wear in the cold winter days. But, I also bring along my imagination, and my thoughts take me to southern California.  I imagine that I am walking with my breast cancer crusader comrades there, and feeling the warm sun on my face.

Starting about now, my pedometer becomes my annual friend.  I wear it as much as possible, measuring and increasing the steps it will take me to complete nearly 27 miles on day one of the 2-day Avon Walk Boston event in May.  The tick-tick of my pedometer gets me closer to motivating my winter-lazy body back to health again.  I start with a goal of 2500 steps a day - just over mile.  This is an easy goal.  A walk up and down my street, a choice to park far rather than near, to take the stairs rather than the elevator, and my pedometer reading surprises me at how quickly simple habit changes can add steps to my days.  Eventually, I will get up to 10,000 steps a day, about 5 miles, and I'll be ready once again to embark on my fulfilling Avon Walk journey.  Then, for two days in May, my solitude and the quiet of winter will be replaced by a roaring swell of humanity as we warmly walk side-by-side for a cure.

Most days I conduct my training solo. Sometimes I am joined by a friend, and recently by my teen son who has proudly joined the crusade. I never train with my dog, who finds it more interesting to stop and sniff every few yards while my creaking knees beg me to keep going.  When I am lucky enough to have winter walking companionship, the parallel strides and interesting banter make the miles fly, and I forget the cold and my running nose.  Our smoking breaths humor me, and remind me of puffing factories or steaming cups of tea.  By April, early buds, ethereal chirping, and willing companion walkers will make this training so much easier.  I remind myself in February and March that those days are just weeks away. Really.  Until then, in February and in March, I create a virtual symphony in my mind.  The hope-song melody in my heart is accompanied by the swish of arms swinging in my nylon jacket, while the rhythmic crunching of shoes on sanded roads keeps the beat.  .

Left, right, left, right....crunch,swish,crunch,swish...I am ready to commence the training, beaming inside as the earth under my feet and the cold in my face remind me over and over that I am alive, I have survived!

Left, right, crunch, swish, and I can ensure life for others....that's why I stride.... when I could be home and cozy.  It's my amazing gift to give back.

For those that want to support me, visit www.avonwalk.org and enter my name: Donna Bramante InDelicato.

Let Us be Something Every Minute: Growing Past Cancer

“Dear God” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.  Let me be gay; let me be sad.  Let me be cold; let me be warm.  Let me be hungry…have too much to eat.  Let me be ragged or well dressed.  Let me be sincere- be deceitful.  Let me be truthful; let me be a liar.  Let me be honorable and let me sin.  Only let me be something every blessed minute.  And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is every lost.” - from A Tree Grows in Booklyn by Betty Smith, 1943

Cancer is as much a disease of emotional struggle as it is physical. I read this book recently, and the excerpt really resonated with me, moving me to joyful tears. I re-read the paragraph over and over in the quiet of the night, the noisiness of the ballet studio, and aloud to each member of my family..  These words so reflect the internal bargaining that many go through when battling cancer.  "Please let me survive," we plead, "and I promise to appreciate every moment of every day,"  Then, when we are finally out from the dark tunnel of treatment, our faces once again in the sun, there is a deep and eternal appreciation of living, of feeling the seconds, the moments, and hopefully compiling them into years of grateful survival.  

Sometimes fears of recurrence pull cancer survivors to a panicked place, inciting desperation to validate one's alive-ness by living, even over-living.  I know this first hand.  For those that have been stricken with cancer and struggle in those moments of recurring fear, those that support loved ones that are dealing with cancer, and even those that have survived 50 years past cancer but still have occasional fear, I assure you that you are not alone.  These emotions are not all bad.  Cancer survival, and its associated gratefulness for life, lead many to explore a new hobby, take on a new challenge, love a little deeper, be more forgiving, loosen up.  Our perspective changes and we not only see the forest for the trees, but the trees for the leaves, and the life-giving air and sun. 

To live ones life with an authentic appreciation for living is, in a sense, like living it from death backwards.  Facing off our mortality makes us realize the gift that is time.  How wonderful to more fully value and feel watching our children sprout and branch out, opportunities to learn and lead, our ability to share and impart, and time to just breath..  To be "above ground" consciously experiencing and engaging in the full breadth of what it is to be part of humankind is to be truly alive.  To smell the ocean and earth, feel the biting cold, cry at our losses, celebrate our joys, laugh out loud, help others in need, and learn something new every day is like the unwrapping of gift after gift after gift.

Perfect or not... how blessed we are to be something every minute of every day.  The quote above says it all and more.  

Here's to the adventure called life, the medical and scientific communities that afford people like me the chance to live, and generous souls everywhere that support research and care.  May our combined philanthropic and humanitarian efforts afford more people struggling with cancer the chance to survive, and touch all the wonder that is "life".   

Tools and Tips and Fundraising Adventures

It’s mid-March in New England. For most, this means the anticipation of Spring, a much needed college break, the slow and deliberate shedding of winter sweaters, the tiny daffodil sprouts that give us Northerners cause to release the tensions of Winter. For me, Spring means all this and so much more. March means that breast cancer fundraising season is already in full bloom, and my beautiful bouquet of “Team BellaDonna” volunteers is right there blooming beside me.


Team BellaDonna, a loose conosortium of people directly or indirectly struck by breast cancer, began nearly a decade ago. Instigated by my mom’s emotional response to my first bout of breast cancer, Team BellaDonna is comprised of women and men that are inspired to exercise tangible efforts against the disease. This group, including up to 25 individuals over the years, has more heart than a herd of elephants, and a determination that has allowed us to collectively raise over $250,000 for the smartly and efficiently run Avon Breast Cancer Foundation, and its offshoot, the Avon/Love Army of Women. Young and “older”, moms and singles, businesswomen and students, members of the Team BellaDonna posse join the efforts for varying reasons. Some tag along for one cathartic term as an empowerment and renewal effort after battling breast cancer. Others, the core team of about eight, return to the group year after. We are survivors, supporters, sisters, sons, and perhaps superstars to those we empower through our numerous fundraising and awareness efforts. Turning emotion into effort, trial into tribute…that’s what this group is all about.

Over the years, Team BellaDonna has created and encountered many adventures. Among the humorous failures that were more investment that return – an “Open House” party at my home featuring the likes of Lia Sophia, Usborne Books, and Pampered Chef. What was I thinking when I opened up my home to the public? The concept was that people would move from room to room, purchasing items with a percent donated towards fundraising efforts.

Another questionable effort – the “cottage” handmade glass bead bracelet project. Beautifully designed bracelets made by women that were already overburdened with careers and kids, in a market flooded with Pandora®, Chamillia®, and other “trendy” “build a beaded bracelet” offerings. Yeah, that was destined to fizzle before it started.

The children’s concert palooza with a collaboration of four hugely popular interactive tot-set performers, garnered quite a bit for our cause, promoting breast health to hundreds of young moms to boot. Now that event was both fun and fruitful. We were roockin’ in the isles with toddlers at a packed auditorium! What pleasure to be a kid again, miming animals along with the pre-school set!

A greater success, and still with great potential, our Team BellaDonna “ArtWear” tee shirts, designed to symbolically represent hope BEYOND breast cancer, a core focus of my personal and professional efforts. With original signed art donated by a known artist, Ken Maryanski, this endeavor may yet be a winner. I just have to clone myself to find the time to roll this project out completely while still earning income through gainful employment. Still, the shirts do sell locally, and simultaneously raise hope.

Email, social media, direct mail, tables at supermarkets, motivational speaking, producing major public events, auctions, fashion shows – the fluid Team BellaDonna group, though they may very well raise eyebrows and sigh behind my back, has been with me from the time of my second breast cancer bout, literally marching towards breast cancer cures. Truth be told, we’ve had a lot of fun, met some amazing people, and learned great practical skills along the way! Oh, and then there’s the little 40 mile Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Boston walk in the park we reward our efforts with each May. But, that’s another host of stories.

Last week, whilst in the thick of planning our annual “Styles & SMILES” Charity Fashion Show and Auction (those of you that are professional event planners will realize this in itself represents a full-time job), we threw together an event called the “Pink Toolbelt Diva” party. Although not great as a fundraising event (the first time out rarely is), this event had the effect of raising more awareness and generating more empowerment than any of our prior fundraising endeavors. The Toolbelt Diva event allowed women to try Tomboy Tools®, sized for women and with pink accents, at fun hands-on stations “manned” by local Firefighters, Team BellaDonna husbands (bless my husband), and Home Depot store managers, who seemed to enjoy all the female attention. The event was a win-win-win, gathering women of all ages for the empowerment that comes with learning independent “tool use” skills, providing attendees the opportunity to contribute to the cause while getting practical skills and tools in return, providing a networking opportunity for area businesses related to homes and design, and reaping a percentage return towards Team BellaDonna fundraising efforts Through a concerted public relations campaign (did I mention my background includes a Masters in Communication?), the event garnered front page photos and articles in every area newspaper, both local and state news. The message: Women Can Do. The exposure and awareness for corporate Tomboy Tools (a women owned business that, at a corporate level, sponsors the Avon Breast Cancer Foundation), corporate Home Depot (traditionally perceived as a man’s playground), and the Avon Breast Cancer Foundation were a bonus benefitting these organizations. I do sometimes wish our corporate beneficiaries would find creative ways to reward our Team BellaDonna volunteers’ efforts towards promoting these businesses, but am also grateful for the opportunities these collaborations represent.

The “Pink Toolbelt Diva” event had little girls learning about power tools, grown women fixing faux cars, older women painting on practice walls, gardeners getting tips from Home Depot experts, and me finally learning what to do if my car tires fail. The three survivors on our team spoke with others, offering counsel, consoling those that exchanged their breast cancer stories, and modeling hope as they represented “thriving and purpose” after cancer.

For me, the event provided an opportunity, yet again and again, to model proactive humanitarianism and management skills for my young daughter, who, at 9, follows suit as a little leader of her own inventive and adorable “event management” efforts. Finally, I was able to let go of my need to “kick cancer’s #@$” by personally directing every fundraising project, passing the event managment reigns to two of our capable younger team members, who got a taste of what it is to pull disparate event pieces together, and the pleasure of watching the event become much more than the sum of its elements. In the thick of the event, I surveyed the room, all the action, emotion, conviction and shared purpose, and my eyes rimmed once again with inspired tears. Thus, like many other of our ongoing efforts to support those impacted by breast cancer and move the big bio-scientific –medical machine closer to the real breast cancer answers, we’ll call our first “Pink Toolbelt Diva” Party a good success.

Now, just weeks later, there are dozens of fashion show/auction tasks to tie up. We’ll need an entire skein of “pink ribbon” to knit the event together and pull it off, and a piece to tie the clock’s hands as we race to find the time to complete the event while juggling our lives. But, I know that Team BellaDonna is up to the task.

Crayons and Tears: My Breast Cancer Diagnosis

I shall never forget the heavy and humorous circumstances surrounding my second, and hopefully final breast cancer diagnosis.

On a beutiful day in May of 2003, I drove with my precocious 1-year-old daughter to the office of Breast Surgeon Dr. Yvedt Matory at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. A few weeks prior, I had undergone an excisional breast biopsy of a suspicious mass. Despite having had early breast cancer removed from the same breast just 4 years prior, I approached this appointment with confidence. I'd had two other breast lumps biopsied in the two years prior, both of which had been benign (non-cancerous), and expected this news to be the same. So, when both my husband and mom offered to come with me to this spring 2003 appointment, at which I was to have the biopsy incision checked and receive pathology results, I incessantly declined their offers. "I'll be fine!" I very stubbornly insisted. I suppose, in hindsight, I had taken my optimism a bit too far.

The long drive into Boston for that appointment was lovely. I remember it well. My toddler daughter Victoria and I sang nursery rhymes along the ride. Having had very early breast cancer 4 years before and, therefore, being at elevated risk, I truly treasured and celebrated out loud the fleeting, rhyme-singing days of motherhood. Victoria was (and remains) innately musical/artistic. We arrived on time, but, as usual, were stuck in a crowded waiting room for over an hour. Still, my cherub sang on, much to the delight (for some, annoyance) of our fellow "waiters".

I (we) were finally called in to the exam room, with its sterile aroma, crinkly exam-room tissue, single magazine, and muffled calcaphony of bustle and voices. We were way past nap time now, my cheerful toddler growing restless in the confines of the blank blah-beige walls. Ahh..those blank walls. We were two minds with nothing to occupy us while waiting for the familiar chart retreival from the door bin, click of the door handle, and appearance of our beloved Dr. Matory. My toddler wriggled in my lap, bored of the magazine we looked at, and getting generally "antsy". I recalled the crayons and paper I had in my mom-bag-o-tricks. Thank you Crayola! My little Picasso got earnestly to work.

I have a way with people, tending to easily establish meaningful connections. Such was the case with Dr. Matory; we shared an interest in music, education, patient communications, and had children of similar ages. (Dr. Yvedt Matory has since sadly passed away, a young victim of skin cancer). Despite having a ridiculous overload of patients, as is the case for surgeons at most of Boston's teaching hospitals, I do believe that she had a particular love for me. In the years ensuing my first cancer, what I perceived as Dr. Matory's personal interest in my well-being inspired my faith and helped allay my cancer recurrence fears.

As Dr. Matory entered the door that fateful day, her demeanor was different than what I had ever before experienced. Strained emotion showed on her cocoa colored face, and a serious furrow appeared between her beautiful deep brown eyes. "Hello Donna," she said. Hmm. No gregarious smile? No quick interest in the progress of my adorable attention-craving baby girl? "She looks really tired," I recall thinking about Dr. Matory. In the years since I had been seeing her for cancer follow-up appointments, every 3-6 months, she had shared with me the difficulties of finding balance - being a top surgeon, and being a commited, involved mom. Tired. Yes, that's why the long face. She's tired. "We have some things to talk about," were her next words.

So, I pulled up a chair next to her, as we reviewed the biopsy results. Me with a polite smile on my face, legs crossed, sitting up straight, listening intently. What followed was a bit of a teacher-from-Charlie-Brown experience, with just random words bouncing around in the frozen parts of my brain. "We found more cancer....waaaa.waaaa.waaaa." "Invasive, aggressive.....waaa...waaaa" "Mastectomies...waaaaa..chemo...waaaa...radiation...waa,waa,waa,waaaaaaaa." And still, I smiled politely, nodded, cheerfully agreed to make the necessary appointments with the secretary for more surgery and medical consults, etc. "Wow, you are handling this very well!" Dr. Matory added. More polite smiles.

I was not truly able to process what I was hearing. By that point she may as well have been speaking to an alien going through programmed responses, but not really emoting. I was like "Data" from Star Trek. My intellegent, multi-dimensional neural network suffered complete gridlock. Only one brain path stayed open for processing; the one that deals with just basic functioning and survival. It was all so surreal.

And then something happened that I will never forget. We both turned around, Dr. Matory and I. Those boring walls? The ones that drive patients crazy with their blankness? Well, my 18-month-old Picasso had found a perfect canvas, and outlet for her boredom!! The walls now featured my daughter's first-ever "public showing" of her budding artisitc talent! God works in some very strange ways indeed. No more boring walls, a distraction for both physician and patient, a happy toddler, and a well-timed moment of comic relief shared by two working moms - all provided at once by my darling daughter in my moment of need. "Oh my!" I exclaimed with raised eyebrows. "Don't worry about it," said Dr. Matory as we smiled at eachother.

What happened next? I remember making some appointments, leaving the hospital, securing Victoria in her car seat (where she promptly fell asleep), and driving down Memorial Drive, along Boston's Charles River, bound for home. At some point, the neurons were released from their bondage, my brain turned back on, and....the dam of emotions broke. About mid-way down Memorial Drive, I started sobbing like I have never sobbed before. I realized the impact all this would have on my husband, 6-year-old son, mom and dad, brothers, and all those that love me, and dreaded sharing the news. I pulled over in a random Cambridge parking lot, unable to see beyond my tears. Looking back at my precious sleeping daughter snug in her carseat, and with her whole wonderful life ahead of her, I resolved to fight the ugly cancer monster again and win. I would be there to watch my son and daughter grow up and add their own unique "Crayola colors" to this wonderful world.

Seven years, lots of beautiful "artwork", and many great memories later, I'm thriving, happy, and blessed in so many ways.

One candle can light the dark

Two years ago, as I have previously described, I was "restored" to my pre-cancer self.  My breast reconstruction repaired the amputation that saved my life.    When I woke up from my reconstruction surgery and, in the prone position of my hospital bed, could not see my feet past my reconstructed (albeit swollen) breasts - I was elated!   Giddy!  I had entered Faulkner Hospital in Boston early that morning as a "two-dimensional woman-boy", and went home two days later a re-blossomed woman.

Upon my arrival home, the first thing I did was to ascend the stairs to my bedroom, reach into my closet, and slip into a strapless dress that I had not been able to wear. ( I shall describe this humorous umoment in a later blog.)   A few weeks later, the healing well under way and the pain subsiding, I began to fully and completely realize the lift that this corrective surgery provided to me and those I love.  The depression I was unaware I had suffered was gone.  As a result, I felt energized, full of new possibility, and more confident in my wellness.  The train was put back on the tracks, the world again my "oyster".

Wanting the same restorative opportunity for others, I began to contemplate the lack of information that had been available to me prior to my surgery.  As much as they were physical, the scars from my mastectomies were even more emotional.  I knew first hand how so many women like me suffered the emotional consequences of breast loss, and wanted to help every one achieve restoration.   I began researching, speaking with my doctors, phoning LifeCell (makers of AlloDerm used in my reconstruction), and surveying breast cancer groups.  A deeply involved activist and breast cancer fundraiser for the prior eight years, why had I NEVER heard about the AlloDerm option?  I made up my mind I would, I MUST, work to change that, to fill the information void.  Thank goodness for my supportive and patient family and friends.  This endeavor has compelled me for the past few years like a ninja on caffeine. Weird analogy, huh?

I learned that the AlloDerm*/implant reconstruction technique (*also referred to by some as supplemental tissue, donor tissue matrix, and acellular dermal matrix) had been conceived many years prior.  I became enraged that this procedural option was available all while those like me suffered.  I discovered that this surgery was virtually unknown outside closed plastic surgery communities.  To me, this was tantamount to a sin of ommission, a violation of women's rights!  Thousands of women, I realized, were making half-informed decisions regarding breast cancer treatment, surgery, and reconstruction.  A champion of others from the day I was born (both a blessing and a curse), I turned my anger into action, starting an impassioned crusade to raise awareness.  I mapped out a strategic communications plan targeted to reach entities I beleived could help spread the word - breast cancer communities, medical and social work groups that serve as health contact points for women, local and national media.........

The attached clip is one result.  Reporter Jennifer Vaughn, a true champion herself of the breast cancer cause, was equally upset that our interview was the first time she had heard of this option!   I knowingly sacrificed my privacy to make these communications opportunities happen.   There is no time now for regret.  My privacy seemed a small price to pay for a better fate for so many others.

What I learned, what my children experienced through my actions (one of life's most valuable lessons), and what I hope to inspire with this blog entry, is this phrase I entered in my high school yearbook way back when.....ONE PERSON CAN LIGHT A CANDLE IN THE DARK!!!  All it takes  -  a belief that truth prevails, a willingness to boldly act, and a passion to never give up.

The attached video is an example of how one person can instigate change, how information leads to empowerment, and how that informed empowerment can affect the lives of others.

Woman Seeks To Spread Message To Others

2 min 23 sec - Nov 18, 2009
for reconstruction, but her search to restore her body to what it once was has finally paid off. ... Donna Bramante Indelicato breast cancer AlloDerm ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SijIP5aTnFo