Seattle's hidden treasure for cancer patients

Gilda's Club Seattle (GCS) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. I've gone to yoga here almost every week during the past six years. I help out with fundraising and have tried to model in the annual fashion show several times (health issues always prevented me from walking down that runway).

Although GCS has 20,000 members, it's struggled during the economic downtown. Gilda's Club is one of Seattle best-kept secrets for cancer patients. Why don't more people know about it?

Check out this Seattle Times article to learn more:

Rachel Clark of Issaquah was 8 years old when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Less than nine months later, Rachel stood by a hospice bed, unable to find words as her mother drew her final labored breaths.

Cancer can be like that.

Jerry Liebermann of Seattle was 22 when a tooth extraction that wouldn't stop bleeding led to the diagnosis of his leukemia. Doctors gave him three years to live. But, while he's had remissions, relapses, rough days and painful moments, he's still around, 33 years later.

Cancer can be like that, too.

Although their experiences are markedly different, Clark and Liebermann both say cancer always will be part of their lives.

They share something else as well: Gilda's Club.

FutureMe.org

I just found this amazing website, FutureMe.org:

FutureMe.org is based on the principle that memories are less accurate than e-mails. And we strive for accuracy.

See, usually, it's the future that will reflect back on the present. We here at FutureMe think it's fun to flip that all around.

So send your future self some words of inspiration. Or maybe give 'em swift kick in the pants. Or just share some thoughts on where you'll or what you'll be up to in a year, three years...more? And then we'll do some time travel magic and deliver the letter to you. FutureYou, that is.

I wrote a private letter to myself. And then I searched for breast cancer and metastatic breast cancer, and found some public letters. I decided to write a public but anonymous letter about my dance with mets in the hope that it might help someone else with a similar diagnosis to cope. That one is set to deliver on my mets-iversary, August 20.

Who knows what I will think or where I will be when Future Me gets these letters?