How many of us are or have been touched in our personal lives by breast cancer? I have friends and co-workers who I have watched bravely and successfully battle this disease. However the person I want to tell you about is a member of my family. She is my sister-in-law. When I married her brother she was just 12 years old and very protective of him! We watched her go through those teenage years and finally off to college. After finishing her education she became an art teacher. In a few years my children (her nieces) were flower girls in her wedding. We thought we had all made it into adulthood and would live happily ever after as families are “suppose” to do. Fast forward 40 years and that sassy little 12 year hold has battled this disease 3 times. The first time 8 years ago she seemed to come through the trauma, shock and treatments like a champ. Whew! Now we can have our happily ever after. Two years ago she found another lump. This time she struggled with the thought of a mastectomy. I won’t go into details here but she really had a hard time dealing emotionally with this again. Her outlook was very fatalistic and it seemed everything we tried to do to help and support her failed. Unbeknownst to us she elected to decline chemotherapy and follow-up treatments after her surgery was completed. Almost 1 year to the month later she found another lump. Today, I am happy to say, she has completed her initial round of chemotherapy treatments (that got rid of the tumor!) and is now getting monthly infusions of Herceptin – a drug not available to her 8 years ago. Thanks to breast cancer research her doctors feel that this drug will prevent another recurrence. I don’t have to tell you how vital the research is for this disease.
With this being said one of the fantastic teachers over on Teachers Pay Teachers, Lindsay Perro, at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Lindsay-Perro has organized a breast cancer awareness fundraiser. You can also visit Lindsay’s blog Beyond The Worksheet! .
She has opened a new store called Breast Cancer Awareness Fundraiser. You can click on any picture on this post to take you there. She asked for product donations to bundle and sell in the new store. 151 products ( K-8, ELA and MATH as well as some clipart resources ) were donated to Lindsay. The total value of all resources is $720. Lindsay has bundled the resources together by grade levels (k-2, 3-5, 6-8) and subject to create 7 different booklets. You can buy the booklet that best meets your needs for only $25. All monies from this store will go directly to breast cancer research.
The Fun Factory donated a k-2 ELA product and we will be purchasing at least one of the booklets as well.
If you would like to contribute, head on over to http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Breast-Cancer-Awareness-Fundraiser and look at all of Lindsay’s hard work.
Thanks to people like Lindsay and you maybe our family and many more families will get our happily ever after this time!

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