I attended the Worldwide Leadership Training Broadcast this morning broadcast by the church. DH was supposed to come to but he wasn't feeling well again when it was time to leave so he stayed home and ended up taking a nap while I was gone. A little later in the day I ran a few errands to get some Valentine stuff for the kids to make Valentines for their classes. After that I helped the kids make their Valentines and then gave DH a quick haircut.

My mom came over in the evening to watch the kids while M&M was at the school play and DH and I were out. My neighbor who went through breast care treatment a few years ago invited me and DH to attend a cancer support group dinner with her and her husband. It is a support group for women diagnosed with cancer in their 40s and younger, called the Young Survivor Sisters. Right now the group consists solely of women with breast cancer so I felt a little weird there. While I have gone through some similar experiences as these women, a lot of it is also very different. There are also several of these women that have the BRCA-1 gene, so that is one thing that some of us share in common. I saw two women there that I actually know personally. One of them (one of the founders of the group) lives in my stake and was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 26. The other women is M&M's Language Arts teacher this year at school. We talked for a little bit after the dinner and she expressed her concern for M&M and wanted to know if there was anything she could do for her. I got a little choked up talking to her. I think whenever my kids are mentioned I have a hard time keeping it together. That and the fact that I kept thinking about how my experience that I am going through is so different than so many of these other women. The keynote speaker/performer for the evening was Hilary Weeks - an LDS singer/songwriter. She was hilarious to listen to and had some very inspirational songs as well. It's nice to hear how similar kids and parents are, no matter who you are. It was a very nice evening and dinner and it was nice to be invited by my neighbor. Right now I am trying to decide where my place fits with this group. On one hand I think it might be nice to join and use this experience to educate these women about ovarian cancer, and on another hand maybe I need to look into starting up my own group that focuses on ovarian cancer or BRCA-1 positive women. A few of the women in the group had made some necklaces for everyone in the group that had the pink ribbon on it and the letters YSS (Young Survivor Sisters) underneath the ribbon. I was reluctant to take one, but finally did after the urging of several people there. I honestly can't see myself ever wearing it because the pink ribbon is specific to breast cancer and I am not a breast cancer survivor. Each type of cancer has its own color and the color for ovarian cancer is teal. I've been looking online for something specific to my type of cancer that I can buy and wear. So far I've found a necklace, bracelet and hat that I like but haven't ordered anything yet.