We Take Too Much For Granted Everyday

Alice Pyne is a 15 year old girl who knows she is running out of time. She has hopes and dreams like we all do - she would have liked to have been a dolphin trainer - but she knows that some of those things will now, in her words, "remain dreams."

I became aware of Alice yesterday when her blog went viral with her bucket list - and one of the things she wanted was to trend on twitter. For me there is something inherently human in this desire to reach out - a need to be known, to be thought of - simply to say "I'm here, I exist, I live... and there's so much stuff that I still want to do." I know to some extent we all can relate to this.

One of the items on Alice's bucket list is to "make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor." This is something that is simple for most of us to do and I highly recommend it. I've been on the bone marrow registry for years and I hope that one day I might be able to help someone, like Alice, to keep on working through their bucket list and to live all of their dreams. In Canada you can start the process HERE. In the United States go HERE. For everyone else, google "bone marrow donation" and your country and it should bring up the program you need.

Another thing Alice challenges us to do is consider what it is we are putting off doing and why. If something is important to the way we want to live our life then we should start making that a priority and look for the opportunities we need. We're all relatively guilty of getting bogged down in the mundane daily tasks we feel responsible to participate in and we always put things off because we will get around to them, eventually. But what happens when you run out of time? As Alice asks in her blog profile - "If today was your last day on this earth, how would you spend it?"

It's worth some time today to ponder that question, right after you sign up for the bone marrow donor program in your jurisdiction.

We are all running out of time, just most of us don't know it. Keep on dreaming, my friends.

Livestrong Together

 

Fourteen years ago, on October 2, Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer - but with the news that it had spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain his chances were greatly hampered. He was only 25 years old.

 

Through a combination of determination, education, physical conditioning, aggressive medical treatments and a positive attitude, Lance fought back at the disease. Before even knowing how the story would end he declared himself a cancer survivor. He created the LIVESTRONG Foundation as a support and advocacy group for other survivors. And he never backed down. Amazingly, after his treatments finished, he went on to win the Tour de France a record breaking seven times in a row.

 

Lance Armstrong has been an inspiration to me and his LIVESTRONG website has long been a source of knowledge and motivation for me as I try to incorporate healthy choices into my own lifestyle.         

 

Today is LIVESTRONG Day - a global event to raise support and awareness for the 28 million cancer survivors worldwide. I am going to wear yellow today in support of the LIVESTRONG ideology and in honour of Lance Armstrong and the way he showed us to believe in our strengths. 

 

You can also participate in LIVESTRONG Day online - help spread the word.

For Just One More Birthday

On Sunday a tweet from Rhiannon MacDonnell brought me to this video and the latest American Cancer Society campaign, More Birthdays. The slogan is "the official sponsor of birthdays." It's a good campaign and if you go to their site you'll see many popular artists are participating.

This campaign especially touches me because in 2004 Duncan and I both lost parents to cancer, each of them dying just days short of their respective birthdays. Of course, there is no good time to say goodbye to a loved one. 

The Canadian Cancer Society also has an amazingly powerful campaign. They tell us that every three minutes another Canadian finds out they have cancer. There's a good chance that none of us will have lives unaffected in some way by this disease. We need to support research and development as we work towards finding a cure.  

And until then, here's to more birthdays. For everyone.