What Are We Blooming?
So this is like my non-profit manifesto if you will, a little update on cancer things and my life that got me to write this. Also, I’m learning people can’t help if you don’t tell them what you’re doing. This blog is what I see Bloom Foundation Gives growing and blossoming into. I’m sure it will change, adapt, and evolve as we all do, but this blog is my place to create hope for my journey and this foundation. I recently made the hard decision to retire my Nashville Real Estate license come August after my most recent cancer progression. It hurt my pride and identity more than anything. I needed to do 16 hours of continued education, and it was stressing me out with appointments and cancer always getting in the way, so I took it as a sign and decided to focus on my healing. I believe so much in the power of mind over matter. I’ve been reading the book Radical Remission and if you haven’t, you must. So I decided to make this blog not only informative so that other people can be apart and aware of what this foundation does and where it’s going but start giving back through Bloom now that I have the energy, as a way of healing and to give me purpose. I’m so used to having three jobs and doing all the things, I needed something to do.
Within the past 6 weeks, cancer recently got scary and real. I’ve had more metastasis and started a new hardcore chemo that comes with all the side effects like hair loss and this is really my last resort when it comes to drugs to fight my cancer. If this drug doesn’t work I’ll be at the mercy of clinical trails and waiting for new drugs to be released. But it’s always during these trying times, that I feel the most blessed and loved. Yes, there are times, many, when I am cursing cancer and wondering my purpose, but something always grounds me, and I’m brought back to the blessing that is my life. Especially today. Here I am celebrating my 27th birthday and feeling better than ever. Appreciating, the now. I’m alive, and I’m breathing. Breathing, something so simple I used to take for granted. I have amazing family and friends. This morning I woke up to a birthday video from all my friends! I’m blessed. I’m loved by myself and those around me. I have a purpose.
But, turning 27 (woof) I’m grateful to be alive. They gave me two years. They provide all stage 4 people with two-year prognosis so to the naysayers this is my last birthday. But I’ll show them. Currently, on my birthday, I feel better than ever, and man does it feel good to feel good and be able to give back. But that doesn’t take away from the fact I’m still in the trenches. Tumors and lesions are still healing in my brain, liver, lungs, on my skin and in my right breast—luckily no surgery in my near future. A month ago, I was on constant oxygen, could barely talk or walk without gasping for air in-between words and steps. I am currently undergoing chemo treatments and gene-targeted therapies weekly. No scans again until insurance approves them in September. The works. But I can genuinely say these past few years have been the most fulfilling of my life. I’ve never felt so loved by others and myself! I’m closer to my family and friends. I started LIVING and I hope to be able to help other women say the same through this foundation and by sharing my story!
Recently with the protests and COVID, I’ve also realized how privileged I am and have been throughout my diagnosis. It’s been eye-opening, and I’m doing my part to share, to educate, and expand my understanding of the breast cancer community. It also made me eager to share, help, give, and educate myself and others. Especially because all the COVID restrictions that have been placed on everyone are basically all restrictions you have to take on once diagnosed with cancer - masks, social distancing, hand washing, etc. but also the added mental stress from constantly being reminded you are at high risk of catching a disease is taxing. So at a time like this especially, I’m so grateful to feel good and have the energy to help others.
So here’s what Blooms’ Plans are for the next year or so and where I see this foundation thriving and a few stories on why I think these things are important.
“There’s no fear when you’re having fun.” - Will Thomas
FUN:
I want this to be a place, everyone, and other breast cancer foundations know to come to for fun things. There are plenty of foundations that are doing AMAZING work creating awareness, raising money for the latest and greatest technology and advancements in research, providing resources to help with bills, medical expenses, etc. I want Bloom to be the place women come to for some FUN and peace, amongst other things. When you think Bloom Foundation Gives I want people to think FUN, smiles, and laughter!
COMMUNITY:
I want to build a community, a safe space. Where women can be themselves, feel guilt-free about shopping for themselves and having fun while also having cancer because sometimes when your other cancer friends aren’t doing to well at the moment it can be hard to share the good times. While I am open to sharing my journey many women are not. I want to give women and also women my age, fighting MBC a space to communicate and talk, about the real stuff and the not talked about stuff.
My colleague/friend and her fiance are creating an awesome app that I can’t wait to utilize called Mentr. I can’t wait until it’s live and we can use it to help mentor women through a difficult and confusing time. I want to create a community of accountability buddies where we’re all checking in on each other, calling up Bloom cancer friends to go on walks, making sure no one is alone in this journey. Create a space to share hope, share faith and good news but show empathy when you need it.
MENTAL HEALTH:
A big piece of my story (read here) I hope to start sharing more of. I want to share resources, create a safe space, and raise awareness of the importance of mental health. I fought it at first then realized every time I was depressed and on a low, my cancer got worse, and for me that looked like brain, skin, and lung metastasis. But I have an amazing cancer community with resources and cancer therapists that I can lean on and are truly why I am here today. I want everyone to have that.
In one study researchers examined the impact of psychologist-led small group sessions that offered strategies for reducing stress, improving mood, changing health-related behaviors and adhering to treatment and care.5 The breast cancer patients who participated in the groups had a 45% lower risk of their cancer coming back and a 56% lower risk of dying from breast cancer.
In 2019 1.8 million people were diagnosed with cancer, breast cancer making up for 15%. Of that 1.8 million 15-25% will be diagnosed with depression, that's 450,000 people. Anywhere from 8-24% of people with cancer are also living with depression. [3]
Youth and young adults are at greater risk for depression and other conditions compared to adults with cancer. [4} Having a mental health condition can worsen outcomes for patients overall.
One in three people with cancer experience mental or emotional distress. It is most common in breast cancer (42%) and head and neck cancer (41%) patients.[vi] Cancer survivors are twice as likely to die by suicide than the general population. (https://www.bhthechange.org/resources/mental-health-impacts-of-a-cancer-diagnosis/)
Okay, the FUN stuff!
“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” - Katharine Hepburn
FUNdraisers:
I’m currently reading Radical Remission Surviving Cancer Against All Odds and it’s full of a lot of information I was thinking but no one really talked about, except maybe one person here or there. One thing this book has done and reassured me of is that FUN is needed when dealing (I don’t use the word fight anymore because it has a negative response in the body,) with cancer but also the importance of other things like exercise, the power of the mind, healthy eating, taking control of your overall health with doctors, and mental. Before reading this book I noticed what a difference, making shitty cancer experiences FUN made in my healing. I started living my life thanks to my cancer diagnosis, free time, and through the generosity of others by sharing my story. It all made such a difference they deemed me cancer-free after my first 6 rounds of treatment. Then I fell into a depressive state dealing with a lot of survivors guilt amongst other things and cancer quickly returned. Like always, emotionally I jumped back up and went back down and am currently riding a high. But a lot of our FUNdraisers and events I imagine for Bloom unfolded from my ups and downs. While they’re all not in place now having had so much energy lately I’ve been able to make a vision board for where I see Bloom going. Rather than keep it to myself I figured I would share the vision, one as a means of exercising if you speak it out, it will happen but my current reality, according to my doctors is the weekly chemo I’m on is the only thing killing off this cancer right now. Then my options are kind of well nothing until they come out with something new or maybe a clinical trial. There’s always the reality cancer wins, doing these fundraisers and making more cancer friends recently has shown me how unforgiving cancer can be. One day you’re feeling amazing and the next scans show more lesions in your brain or you're in the hospital getting a lung biopsy. That’s my reality. That was my quarantine (stop complaining about face masks, it could be worse, try a radiation mask.) SO, while I have the means and ability, I want to share what’s in my head.
SweatNet Packages
SweatNet is an amazing company that builds community in the health and wellness space. Bloom has been blessed to work with SweatNet Nashville hosting a breast cancer awareness yoga class and our first bloom proceeds donation fundraiser for one of the owners’ birthdays. I love this platform, the community, and the ease of health & wellness it brings for all fitness levels. My goal would be to continue hosting yoga fundraisers all over with SweatNet since their in multiple cities and growing, where Bloom can raise resources, awareness, and have some fun! I also hope to construct a Bloom approved studio/gym/food program so women going through breast cancer, cancer in general, or are immune-compromised and can’t go to gyms but want the community can more easily find safe spaces during chemo treatment when germ anxiety is at an all-time high. These will be studio/gym/food places that are deemed safe for those women and people and are screened based on Erika’s standards (ie. organic, chemical-free, etc.) crazy corona standards and treatment standard recommendations given by oncologists (virtual, private & outdoor classes offered.)
Yoga Events Hosted by ME
My practice has changed so much since being diagnosed with cancer. I struggled at times with what yoga looked like to me. I went from yoga meaning a 60 minute heated vinyasa to just breathing on my mat to simply moving to see where my body is at. I believe yoga is more than just a physical practice, I classify it now as three practices of the mind, body, and spirit. I now include a healing meditation in my daily practice but I’m not feeling guilty if I don’t physically get on my mat every day and do a 60-minute flow.
I hope to teach breast cancer patients and help them make these daily practices so they can heal, do retreats specifically for them, and continue to teach breast cancer awareness classes especially in October. I would love to travel the world and do this one day.
Shopping Sprees
My cancer “look” has changed with my mood and my weight. When you’re diagnosed with cancer get ready to deal with body image issues like never before. Get a therapist, talk about it, find the badasses advocating about this like Dana Donofree & Wildfire Magazine because it’s gonna happen. Your body is about to change in ways you won’t even be able to understand. With that comes a new wardrobe… or 2.. or 3. I experienced hair loss, weight gain, and weight loss. While I’m grateful I haven’t had to have any breast surgeries, I can’t even imagine the struggles that come with that. This FUNdraiser allows women to update their wardrobe guilt-free. I don’t want them to worry if this money should go toward medical expenses or the kids, no, it’s for you! Yes, get that hat for your bald head, yes get those new shoes! My hope is people can nominate breast cancer friends or themselves, that could use a little pick me and we can just send them gift cards to their favorite stores once we have the resources.
Hair Cutting Parties
Hair man. The more cancer stories I read hair loss seems to be the hardest part. Most people usually say “I know it’s just hair but...,” myself included. By completely changing your identity during this time is more than just becoming bald. It’s an identifier that you have cancer and a reminder every time you look in the mirror. I struggled with these hair loss woes at times but I also had some fun with it. Sometimes it falls out more than once. But luckily it grows back. I had a hair cutting party that made the initial haircut so fun! All my friends came into town, we have champagne, they had fun wigs and I got a sick pink mohawk! We had FUN, to say the least. My hope is women or their friends can contact us and we can surprise them with these parties!
YTT Scholarships
When I was doing my first round of chemo treatments every 3 weeks, I am so grateful one favorite studios and yoga teachers in Nashville decided to host their first 300 HR Baptiste YTT. I needed this more than I knew. Granite, it wasn’t a walk in the park, I tried to quit because I wasn’t teaching at the time but it was exactly what I needed at that time. I did some of the training virtually and some in person with the other instructors when I could. It kept me physically, mentally, and spiritually in check. It gave me community and purpose. I want to be able to give this to women who are in my shoes with breast cancer. It gave me so much. I hope to create a network or community where women get word that we supply these kinds of scholarships. We have an Apply For FUN tab where we have a list of YTT offered by Baptiste Yoga, which changed my life. I hope this encourages women that yes they can do this. This is something I hope to fundraise for through yoga retreats, classes or donations, grants, and by scholarships offered by the yoga teacher training program studios.
Travel: Fill Up Your Cup Trips
I’ve never traveled more than I have with cancer. I finally have the free time, resources and God bless Southwest Airlines for all the free flight’s thanks to points. It has been one of my favorite parts of cancer. Being able to go visit friends or go places I told myself I was too busy for before or didn’t have the money to. Well, when someone gives you 2 years to live it's weird how you suddenly find the time and the resources find you. When I received my brain metastasis news I went to St Lucia and it literally blissed me out so much that I was excited to go home and get my brain zapped. I hope to create a space where someone can just email or text us they got some crazy news and need a vacation. I can get their information, send them their tickets and accommodations, tell them to send pictures and have FUN! Let them know where the closest hospital is in case anything happens and give them spaces where they know it's safe. Traveling recharged me and filled my cup up every time I needed it. I went to California, Austin, TX, St Lucia, New York, Wilmington Beach, Miami, Nashville, Ohio, and tried to go to Amsterdam but that’s a story for another day. I met so many cancer patients afraid to travel because they might get sick but I remained safe and by not letting my fear hold me back, LIVED! I definitely took extra precautions which I hope to share, especially now with what’s going on in the world with Corona. Right now I am slowly getting back into feeling comfortable and able to travel, as I do I hope this sector of Bloom grows with me because it made such a lasting impact on my healing. Nothing like planning and anticipating a new travel adventure.
Paint the Town Pink/Pink Party - October
Our first big fundraising event I hope to host with all proceeds we generate for the month going to a foundation that is dedicated specifically to stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, METAvivor. I’m stage 4 and it can be a scary reality that I’m on my last known medicine and if that stops working what’s next is unknown and that I have to do some kind of treatment forever. Each year, 200,000 Americans are diagnosed with breast cancer. Six to ten percent of these diagnoses are metastatic, or stage IV, and approximately another 30% of breast cancer patients develop metastatic breast cancer.
With this FUNdraiser, my vision is to sell t-shirts specific to the cause. I want to travel and host yoga classes to raise awareness and share my story in my favorite cities Columbus, OH, Boulder, CO, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Oxford, and wherever the world will have me. I hope to have a wellness concert event with all my talented artist friends singing their positive tunes in Nashville. ALSO, paint the town pink by finding businesses that will donate and allow mural artists to paint their storefront window pink or a wall on their building. I hope this becomes an annual event and more and more walls are painted pink and awareness is raised about stage 4 and the importance of this research.
I firmly believe research is so important. Foundations like METAvivor give 100% of their proceeds to MBC research. While I feel guilty at times for spending money on fun instead of life-saving research I know both are necessary pieces of healing. Again, which is why we plan on donating all of our fundraising proceeds in October to METAvivor to contribute to that research. I hope we can give back more while also being able to give fun, but fun is what we do and we leave the research stuff up to them!
Lastly, not a fundraiser but we have an Amazon Registry. I get asked a lot about what to buy for people who have recently been diagnosed with any kind of cancer. This is where I keep all the things that you can find of Amazon that really helped me and Bloom gets a percent of the purchase.
How you can help right now:
Donate directly
Have Erika host a yoga donation class
Sell Bloom merch at your studio?
Sign Bloom up for your non-profit with Amazon Smile
Transfer Southwest Points
Have a storefront window or wall where we can paint a Paint the Town Pink mural in October? Contact Us!
Have a vacation spot or relaxing oasis you’d like to donate or discount if someone needs to fill up there cup?
Want to help us donate more cancer care bags? Contact Us!
Email Erika and talk more at erika@bloomfoundation.gives.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far!! 27 is going to be the best year yet!! I can’t believe Bloom Foundation Gives launched only 6 months ago, time flies when you’re having FUN!
Love & light,
Erika, Co-Founder & President