Renee Ross, Blogger Advisory Council Member, at the Cutie Booty Cakes:

I think everyone knows someone that has survived or succumbed to cancer. I’ve written in the past about my Aunt Helen who passed away when I was 15 after a battle with leukemia. Her brother, my grandfather also died of cancer and I have numerous friends that have been diagnosed with varying types of cancers. Some have survived but many have not.

Because of the impact that cancer has had on people that I care for deeply in my life, I jumped at the opportunity to become a member of the American Cancer Society Bloggers Advisory Council. And armed with the knowledge that African Americans have the highest death rates of any racial or ethnic groups in the US, I feel it is important for me to lend my voice and time to getting information out to educate others about this problem.

As most regular readers of my blog know, I have personally been on a journey to healthy living in a very consistent manner since November of last year. By exercising and eating right, not only I have I lost 42 pounds but I am decreasing my likelihood for developing cancer. After many years, I have also recommitted myself to having annual health screenings, something that many people do not do. Unfortunately, because of a lack of health screenings, many times cancer is diagnosed at late stages in the African American community.

I implore you to investigate your family history, have annual checkups and have screenings for any cancers that you may be at risk for. If you don’t exercise consistently aim for at least 3 sessions a week and load up on healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. Most importantly, even if you are already doing these things for yourself, encourage your friends and family to adopt your lifestyle.

You can find out more information about prevention by visiting the American Cancer Society website. Do it for you and for your family.

Happy New Year everyone! You know what that means — it’s time to set those resolutions. The most popular New Year’s resolutions focus on being healthier: losing weight, exercising more, quitting smoking, and spending more time with loved ones. Sure enough, half of Americans say they want to lose weight each New Year. But too often, we have a hard time keeping our resolutions, so we just vow to try it again next year.

This year, the American Cancer Society’s Blogger Advisory Council is using social media to put a new twist on the traditional concept of New Year’s resolutions – and you can join us. We’ll support each other, and hold each other accountable so we can keep to our good intentions!

So how can you give your New Year’s resolutions a makeover this year? By turning them into a “my more birthdays list” so you don’t fall off the bandwagon (we all know what that feels like). It’s easy as 1, 2, 3:

1. Create a list of things (could be one thing or many) you plan to do to stay healthy in 2010 and/or to help create more birthdays. This is your “my more birthdays list.”
2. Share your list on Facebook and/or Twitter (using the #mybdaylist hashtag). These could be anything from losing 5 pounds or eating more vegetables to training for a 10K or half-marathon.
3. Tweet and/or post messages on Facebook about the progress you’re making on your more birthdays list throughout the year. This will help you get support, tips, and encouragement from others who are trying to accomplish their more birthdays lists.

On Twitter stay tuned to #mybdaylist for tips and programs to stay on track.

Please join us! You can make a real difference, right now, as we help each other achieve our goals and together build a powerful community. If we all pitch in we can touch countless lives, creating a world with less cancer and more birthdays to celebrate.

Click below to start your own more birthdays list on Facebook or Twitter.

Heather from A Mama’s Blog is our newest member of the American Cancer Society’s Blogger Advisory Council. She herself is a thyroid cancer survivor and writes movingly about her own battle with thyroid cancer, and those of her readers as well:

The first “person” who came into my mind was all of my blog readers who have thyroid cancer and have written to me with their stories.

I could write about Holly who is 37, and a mom of three, who after having a thyroidectomy in September, and radioactive iodine last month, is facing the possibility her cancer has spread into her lymph nodes.  Holly had been told her lymph nodes were fine, but they discovered an area of high iodine intake.  If this spot turns out to be lymph nodes, Holly could be facing another surgery to remove them.

Or I could write about Patricia who is also 37, and a mom of two.  During the past year, Patricia had a huge lump in her neck and with the urging of her children’s father, she decided to follow up on it. It turned out to be a 6.5 inch goiter.  She had a biopsy done on October 15th, and found out early this month it is cancer.  Patricia is facing a thyroidectomy surgery within the next two months.

There is Nicholas, who is a physician with three small children, who had a thyroidectomy and a neck dissection in June.  He is still having drainage and medication issues.

These are just three people out of the many who write me about their experiences with thyroid cancer.  A common theme in many of their letters, is they are looking for support and someone who understands what they are going through.  Despite their cancer, and challenges, these cancer patients and survivors continue on in with their lives.  They are there for their children and spouses.  They are there for their parents who have medical issues themselves, and for the others that rely on them.  Most importantly, they continue on for themselves.

This beautiful post is from Renee Ross at Cutie Bootie Cakes:

“….Growing up I spent many days in Aunt Helen’s kitchen, similar to many families, her kitchen was a gathering place. This is where she prepared great meals and on most holidays our entire family gathered at her home. I was extremely close to my aunt and her death was one of the first I experienced in my young life, over 20 years ago. Aunt Helen died of cancer and my last memory of her alive is seeing her hooked up to machines in a hospital bed, shrunken and sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb her so I quietly left and she died later that week. There are many days when I regret not getting in that one last hug, the comfort of her warm embrace but carrying the memory of those hugs has to suffice.

The loss of my Aunt was tremendous. Not only was she my aunt but she was my godmother too and she took her responsibilities seriously. Every year on birthdays and holidays all of the kids in the family would receive savings bonds. She taught us at an early age the value of being financially savvy. She loved the finer things in life and saved her money to buy them. I don’t believe that she ever used a credit card and every few years she would buy a new car – paid in full – so that she would not be indebted to anyone.

All of these things were simply amazing to me because my aunt was a domestic worker. She spent the majority of her days cleaning house and caring for a white family that lived in Sands Point -not far from our home. The photos of her wards lined her shelves, with places of honor right next to her blood relatives. I must admit that I sometimes felt a tinge of jealousy when I was young because her “children” had the benefit of spending so much time with the aunt that I loved so much. That jealously always quicklydissipated because Aunt Helen had enough love to go around.

In her death, as in life she was a caregiver. My aunt’s savings helped to finance my education and I remember the day as a young undergrad a switch went off in my brain. I hadn’t been applying myself to my studies, I was doing the minimum in school because I found it easy and could pull out a B in a pinch. But earning B’s when you are an A student doesn’t suffice and I realized that the hard work of my aunt paved the way to opportunity for me. I applied myself to my school work with fervor and on my next break from school I visited her grave site for the first time since her death 7 years prior and thanked her for all that she provided for me.

I’ve struggled for weeks trying to write the words that capture the beauty and effervescence of my Aunt Helen. She was a beautiful woman both inside and out, a lover of celebrations, always the life of the party and frequently the hostess. She lived a fairly long life, she died at 72 but there are many times when I wish she had more birthdays. Losing her to cancer made it easy for me to respond positively when I was asked to participate on the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Blogger Council. I want to support the efforts of the ACS, “a nationwide, community-based, voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and service.”

Read more here

This from Susan at Toddler Planet and Mothers With Cancer:

As the health care bill makes its way through the Senate Finance Committee, and pink washes over the countryside, the American Cancer Society is campaigning for more birthdays.  That’s right.  More birthdays.  Where in the past perhaps women have unofficially “stopped” having birthdays at 39, the ACS wants everyone to have more birthdays.

And you know what?  I do too.   I desperately want more birthdays.  I want to turn 39, and 40, and all the lovely numbers that come after that.  I want to blow out the candles with my kids, and see my littlest one turn 3, and 4, and become the big kid that he thinks he already is.  I want to take my big kid to school, and teach both kids to drive, and be there when they get all gussied up for prom, or whatever the digital equivalent will be in 2025 (yikes!).

I’m taking steps to make that happen.  And I’m telling you all about it every step of the way.  I also talk a lot about mothers with cancer that I know from the other site, like Lyn, who just returned home from a double mastectomy and full hysterectomy … just a week after she finished chemo!  Or our Aussie friend Jenni Ballentyne, who is living full-time at hospice now, seeing her son Jack on the weekend, who has fought the good fight, but whose time is near.  Or Katie Homen, who we recently lost.  But today I have someone else to talk about.

Sherry K.  Miss Sherry, as my kids call her, as their faces light up with smiles.  Miss Sherry was my son’s preschool teacher last year.  Soft-spoken, kind, but determined, Miss Sherry always saw the best in the kids, and helped bring it out in them.  The class of 3’s was close-knit, gentle with each other, and friends with all.  In the early morning, both boys and girls sat quietly and did puzzles at the table.  At 10, both girls and boys ran around on the playground.  At noon pickup, they were the well-behaved class that came down the hall quietly, but with smiles on their face.  Whether encouraging parents to leave notes of praise for good behavior the kids had done or telling us about the way our kids loved participating in the drama skits she planned, Miss Sherry was always gentle, and kind, and attentive, and all the things you’d hope your child’s preschool teacher would be.

Miss Sherry helped me, too.  The first day I met her was only days after my oopherectomy, and I was so faint it was difficult for me to squeeze into the little chairs at the preschool-sized table.  I was self-conscious about my arm, with the sleeve and glove that marked me as “different.”  I didn’t want my kid to be seen as different, though.  I didn’t want people feeling sorry for him, or have him referred to as “the one whose mom has cancer.”  I didn’t want people to know.  But Miss Sherry knew.  And she pulled me aside and shared a little secret with me.

Miss Sherry is a 21 year survivor of breast cancer.  And she is now doing wonderfully, and remembers it as a time long ago, not a driver of every day life.  Throughout the year, she kept tabs on me as well as my child, asking about me when I wasn’t the one to drop Widget off at school, complimenting me on my hair as it grew out, or when my color returned and I looked like I had more energy.  She was there when I had to go back to daily lymphedema therapy, again, and again, and sometimes Widget was late to school.  She is still there at the school this year, and we smile as we pass in the hall.  We know something that not everyone knows, you see.  We know how very precious this life is, and how I almost lost this opportunity to tell you so.

Miss Sherry put a note in the preschool newsletter this week, reminding everyone to get their mammograms, do their self-exams, and remind “all the women in your life” to do the same.  It may seem like a little thing, to say what everyone says in October, but for a 21 year survivor to even want to think about this dastardly disease again, much less show such compassion and outreach, means a lot to me.

And so I dedicate this post to Miss Sherry, and I wish for her, and for all of you, many, many more birthdays.

…

Is there a survivor in your life that inspires you, makes you laugh, or touches your heart? Join the ACS more birthdays meme by posting about her or him on your own blog, or in the comments here, and grab yourself this badge.

More birthdays. That sounds pretty good to me.