In the days following a cancer diagnosis, getting a plan is paramount. Assembling a team of oncologists, radiologists, and surgeons that will determine the course to health is essential. These were the plans that consumed month one when Jen Hoverstad received her stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis.
Thankfully, the plan was a great one.
But what did she do in month two?
She cut her hair.
She assembled her tribe.
She continued her life.
She embraced change.
Month one was critical for survival. Month two was just as important.
Jen took the first steps in allowing her personal battle with cancer to unite people. In the years to come, as she looks back over one of the most trying times of her life, she may see that it was month two that turned out to have been the turning point.
Month two was about the people.
All the people.
The people who texted; who called; who held her hand when she went from long hair to a two guard (her daughter claimed this honor); the people who brought food; who cheered her on; who reached out to pray; who prayed unbeknownst to her; the people she knew; her family; her friends; the people she will never meet.
They say cancer is the disease of the aging. Jen was 34 when she was diagnosed. Cancer is more accurately the disease of the people. All people.
There are the people, like Jen, who fight cancer head on. Then there are the myriad people who support their loved one’s fight. Cancer affects us all.
It was Coach Kay Yow’s vision that the Kay Yow Cancer Fund would unite people. That is the core of what we do. It is the core of what Jen Hoverstad has done. Her strength is not only her own, but the strength of those around her multiplied hundreds, if not thousands of times over. She is the power of one.