Day Sixty: People who care for others

I have been thanked so many times in the last two days by people who I have to thank, and did. Most of the attendees at this conference are therapists, at least the people who came by my booth. And it does amaze me that these caring people can step into the breech time and time again, to give what relief they can, while they can. They often donate vast quantities of their time and more of their money. Some of the therapists are also sufferers. Primary lymphedema can be successfully treated and many of those sufferers have a special appreciation for the suffering of others, whether also primary or secondary, from cancer.

Several people asked about whether there were any limits on the fund, wondering whether like other sources of funding it was only available for lymphedema associated with some other primary condition, like breast cancer. While I was glad to be able to say that it is for any garment to treat lymphedema, there is a rather severe limitation: there is far more need than there are funds. To that end, I hope to start my Memories of Marilyn blog by September 20th. I'm still working on the trailer that I will put in every entry, something like my tag line, Life after Layoff, in this one. It will be a direct appeal for donations to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund but the entries will be our life story more for the grandchildren she will never know.

The booth staffing went from 7:00 AM to only 4:00 PM today. This meant that I was able to go out to a local Whole Foods and have a wholesome meal. I was back in my room by 6:00 PM, working on the short speech that I am to give tomorrow. I've incorporated some of the suggestions I solicited from my family by email and made some other changes on my own. I'm including it below. The operative word is short.

There was one question that came up that I think is worth pursuing. One of the therapists who came by asked what was to be done with recycling the lymphedema garments that are no longer needed, unfortunately most of the time because their previous user has died. Marilyn's were given to a group in Oakland who know how to properly match the garments to people who can really benefit from them. As Marilyn and I found out, an improperly prescribed lymphedema garment can accelerate the lymphedema.

The speech:

My wife suffered and died from cancer. I'm not going to go into the details of why the cancer wasn't treatable but one of the side effects of her cancer was lymphedema in her left leg, particularly the upper thigh and groin. I know from her personal experience that treating lymphedema can make the immobile mobile again; treating lymphedema can make an observer a participant; treating lymphedema can take a person, like my wife, dying from cancer, from focusing on her death to being truly alive: able to participate in her daughter's wedding, able to join her daughter's new in-laws at the Thanksgiving table, able to meet her son's fiancee's mother. (My son is getting married in two weeks.)

This blessing of really living while she still had life was made possible by a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg. Lymphedema treatment is truly a blessing. The last smile I saw on my wife's face was when she last saw and thanked Michele Coxon, her manual lymph drainage massage therapist who had dropped in just to visit. I want to extend that thanks to all of you for the care you give to relieve the suffering caused by lymphedema.

When I asked Don how I could help pass the blessing that Marilyn received on to others in her memory, he put me in touch with Saskia. I am glad to be able to publicly thank all the great people associated with the National Lymphedema Network, the members of the board, the employees and volunteers, and of course, Saskia, who made the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund a reality.

If the funding for the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund were to be left to my resources alone, the blessing would be too small and the memory far too short. This is why I am asking everyone I can, every lymphedema product supplier I can, to help extend the blessing and memory, the memory of my wife who died from cancer but was living to the very end.