Hi Everyone,
I wanted to make you all aware of a wonderful thing we have going on here in Virginia. Through this website I met a lady about my age, her name is Hero, whose father had oral cancer last year. He had the same exact surgery I had, same hospital, same wonderful doctors. He came through the surgery fine but developed a staph infection that eventually led to a fatal heart attack one month after the operation. She contacted Brian about using her dance studio to do a benefit for OCF and Brian had her contact me. The event is called "Pappou's Kids" and is November 20th at the Roper Theater in Norfolk. We are garnering the attention of local news and radio stations and hoping for it to be a success.
Pappou is a common name for a grandfather here in the South and that is what most of the kids at the dance studio called Hero's father, his name was Arthur Kotarides. He built this studio for Hero, from the floor tiles to putting up walls, and he was a fixture at the practices always encouraging the kids. He was a surrogate grandfather to many of them.
My daughters and I met Hero last week and the common threads were amazing. Her dad had the same doctors, hospital, surgery. One of her dancers is one of my former cheerleaders. One of her adult dancers and one of the main organizers of the event is a youth ministry leader at my church, she headed up the youth ministry gymnastics team that my daughter Kelly was a member of last year. SOOOOOOO, the ties were startling and it fueled me even more.
After this dance recital is over Brian, myself and anyone who wants to be a part of it will be having a Walk for Oral Cancer the weekend of April 9-10, 2005. That is the same weekend as the National Oral Cancer Screening Day. I WISH IT COULD BE ANOTHER REUNION DATE FOR ALL OF US!!! It would be awesome to have a large group of survivors in attendance. Virginia Beach is an AWESOME place to visit.
I will let you all know how the recital goes and hopefully this will give everyone a model to go from when you start something similar in the state you live in!
Minnie

SCC Left Mandible. Jaw replaced with bone from leg. Neck disection, 37 radiation treatments. Recurrence 8-28-07, stage 2, tongue. One third of tongue removed 10-4-07. 5-23-08 chemo started for tumor behind swallowing passage, Our good friend and much loved OCF member Minnie has been lost to the disease (RIP 10-29-08). We will all miss her greatly.