Making Strides Against Breast Cancer is May 2

Last week I had the pleasure to be invited to speak at the Kick Off Breakfast for this year's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Campaign. The following is what I said. I am so glad to be associated with the firm that I am.... and yes I will be asking for donations! I have found it is much easier to ask for money to beat cancer than it is to tell friends and family I have cancer.

My name is Lynn Carlson and I am proud to be associated with Coldwell Banker Mid America Group Realtors. Marilynn Cedarstrom is the VP Director of Corporate Services at Coldwell Banker and was supposed to speak today but is out of town, so I am here to try to fill her shoes. Anyone who knows me knows that I am always one to try a new pair of shoes and it is better yet if it involves the color pink!

Marilynn has been instrumental in our company’s involvement with the Making Strides Campaign.

Nine years ago, Marilynn attended the very first Kick Off Breakfast that Making Strides had. At the end of the campaign, she was not happy with the amount that our company raised, so she made a pledge to herself that the next year we would raise much more. The second year we raised over $5000. To Celebrate, Marilynn and her husband Larry had the first Pink Party at Marilynn’s Pink Pad. Everyone in our company that contributed was invited for dinner and about 15 people came. The Pink Party has grown to over 50 people. Last year we raised over $15,000 and with matching funds from our owner, Marvin Pomerantz and the Pomerantz Foundation, the total we were able to donate to Making Strides was $33,000.

Marilynn starts each campaign by picking a Team Captain from each of our offices, which is 8. Our larger offices actually have more than one captain. Then we meet and set our goals, which of course is always higher than last year’s actual. She makes sure that we all have and wear our pink wrist band for the entire two months of fund raising. This helps to remind us of our goals, much like a string around your finger would do. We are Realtors, so we are very competitive and we want our office to raise more than the other offices. Marilynn sends a weekly email company wide letting everyone know how much each office has raised. In addition, our company buys either a T-Shirt or Hat for everyone that contributes. One year, we all signed our names for the back of the shirt, now that made me feel accountable to raise some money! A donation is encouraged for this.

The day of the walk Marilynn puts up a tent with a banner so we can all meet and walk together. Then we end up our efforts with the Pink Party at Marilynn’s Pink Pad.

Both Marilynn and the President of our company, Carolyn Hemlinger, are survivors and are therefore very passionate to our cause. They genuinely care about each agent and have created a family atmosphere at Coldwell Banker. We all know that families are there to support each other and to celebrate life.

That is why last year; I attended the Making Strides Breakfast as my office captain. An agent in my office had been diagnosed the previous fall and had a mastectomy followed by reconstruction. I so admired her strength, her positive attitude that combined with how our company rallied to support her that I wanted to do my part. I knew I could never be as brave as her. Funny thing about the word never…it usually comes back to show you just how wrong you were.

Little did I know that my Making Strides involvement would become very personal. Just a few weeks after the kick off, I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. My first reaction was tears and fears. Cancer is a nasty word, it is synonymous with all that is evil and out of control, that did not help my attitude any so I decided to refer to my cancer as crap…. That I can handle! Thankfully, I was blessed that two of our guest speakers from 2008 were a part of my team, they are Dr. Kollmorgan and Edra Frouts, Breast Cancer Care Coordinator at John Stoddard. They were so instrumental in changing my attitude from one of fear to one of knowledge and empowerment to beat this crap.

I had a lumpectomy, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. The thought of chemotherapy had me scared witless, but you know what? It was not all that bad. Chemotherapy has changed from what I remembered my father went through in 1980. Yes, I lost my hair, food tasted like cardboard and I had no energy but I did not get sick once! I want to thank everyone who works in the medical industry to improve the care for cancer patients.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see breast cancer cured by the time my 2 year old granddaughter grows up? To have 1 in 8 women diagnosed with breast cancer is too many. I found that once I was diagnosed that I met so many people who are survivors. I want to thank each survivor who went before me to give me courage; you are the sisters I always longed for when I was growing up. It surprised me that there were so many because they had been so quiet about their survivorship. Many survivors do not want to make a big deal out of their survival, but we need to be vocal, we need to celebrate life and show just how much breast cancer affects our lives.

So let’s set some personal goals, Remember goals need to be specific and public, my personal goal is to raise $1 for each day from the day of my diagnosis to the day of Making Strides which is about $400. Since I made that goal public, and I realized that amount is equal to what one course of my anti-nausea drugs cost, it should be easy to raise that. Therefore, after I reach that goal, I will set the bar for an additional $365 for each of the two survivors from my office who also fought the fight.

So my question to you is what will your goals be? Let’s set them, have some fun and raise lots of money so we can beat this thing I call crap.