Stepping Up To Wellness Run/Walk Hosted By Cancer Wellness Center

As many of you know, the Cancer Wellness Center is a special place for us and so many others.  Join our Alla’s Yogi’s Team at the Stepping Up To Wellness Run/Walk on May 18 to have fun and raise funds for the Cancer Wellness Center, which offers free programs to anyone impacted by cancer including patients, their families, friends, and caregivers.  If you cannot attend, you can still make a donation or help raise funds.  Alla has been teaching at the Cancer Center for over 5 years and this year her students named their team after her, so please join us or donate!  It’s our way to step up to cancer!  Please also keep in mind, Alla teaches a free class at the Grayslake location every Tuesday at 5pm.

Register/Donate

Susan’s Story

It was three months until I met someone else with ovarian cancer. It was so very comforting to attend my first meeting of the Ovarian Cancer Discussion Group and met other women living with this disease. I remember that before the meeting started, I heard a group of these women laughing hard and I thought, “What’s wrong with these women, don’t they know they have ovarian cancer?”  But listening to their stories and all they have gone through, I learned a great deal. Yes, I learned about different treatments and different doctors and treatment facilities and how to research trials and make collaborative decisions with my doctors. But the most important thing is that these women taught me HOW TO LIVE WITH RECURRENT OVARIAN CANCER. These women talked about all they were doing to live with this disease and I thought to myself, Susan, if they can do it, it’s time to put on my big girl pants and I could do it too, I too could live with this chronic disease.  So I continued to listen and learn and then tried to give back to the group that has helped me so very much these past three years. I only hope that I have and will continue to help other women as this group has helped me in so many ways.

I remember walking into my first yoga class at the Grayslake location. Although no one talked about cancer, it was just so very comforting to be in this room with women who understood why I was there and why I was wearing a scarf. Alla, the instructor is absolutely wonderful and made sure to ask about my surgery and let me know which poses I needed to skip and how to modify some poses. This group became so very supportive without any talk about cancer and I believe the yoga helped me both physically and mentally deal with the effects of diagnosis and surgery.

I had surgery in December and struggled with complications that required rehab after the hospital to get out of a wheelchair. Finally went home with a walker, in-home PT and then slowly getting back on my feet with indoor and outdoor walking. I started with 5 minutes on the treadmill at 1.5 mph.  But the time I found CWC – yoga at Grayslake and the women’s group, I heard about the Stepping Up to Wellness fundraiser in May. I used the 5k walk as my goal that winter for my increasing my stamina and speed in my walking. During the next few months, I kept walking and walking in order to be able to participate and complete the 5k walk in May as well as raise some money for CWC. And I was very pleased that I was able to complete the 5k walk that first year in 2011. And for 2012 and 2013, I formed a team from the Ovarian Cancer Discussion Group and we met our goal of over $10,000 in 2012 in order to get the matching corporate grant and stained glass window.

Please join me at the 2014 Stepping Up To Wellness Event on May 18…