Pink Saturday

Beverly at How Sweet the Sound hosts a blog carnival every week featuring pink items. This is my very first Pink Saturday post! Many of my visitors are Pink Saturday participants, but I don't have a lot of pink things, so I haven't played along before. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is an important cause to me, and I have many pink things to share that relate to that!Here is a cake with a pink ribbon! This is my mom, Dorothea, in 1997 at the party we held celebrating her 5 years of being cancer free. Some doctors say you're "cured" after 5 years, others say 7, others say you are always "in remission." Whatever the magic number is, we decided that 5 years was a big milestone and had a party!

Here she is in 1992 at my sister's wedding, wearing a pink brocade suit. She had just turned 53 when she was diagnosed. She was about half-way through her treatments, and was very conscious of getting a good wig for the wedding photos. She wanted them to look like the "real" her. You'll notice that other than her hair, she looks perfectly healthy. She had some nausea and weak days, but overall went through things very smoothly.

In the spring of 2005, after 13 years, Dorothea was diagnosed with a different type of breast cancer on the right. She again went for the full mastectomy and then had chemotherapy. This is also the summer when I had my first bone marrow transplant, so it was a lot of work for my sister and dad. We did manage to get our Ogunquit vacation in early in the summer before I was hospitalized and on a week Mom didn't have chemo. Nothing stops that vacation! Sadly, the only pink in this picture is the headband my niece is wearing! I really wanted to show you this picture so you can see that the woman doesn't age!
Many of us have the Click Every Day to donate mammograms button on our sites. Do you click your own button daily? Do you click from other people's sites? Do you ever look around the shop? I found this fleece that I think is super-cute and doesn't scream breast cancer. I'm getting it for Christmas gifts for several people. I've had fun looking at everyone's Pink Saturday offerings, and putting my own together this week! Thanks to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for hosting this carnival every week!
I hope you will come back this week to participate in my Bone Marrow Birthday Week Giveaways. I am trying to raise awareness of the ease of becoming a bone marrow donor. There are five great prize packs that will be given away at the end of the week!