Tag: LiveStrong

Strong Partnerships Helping Cancer Patients

Know someone who’s healing from a cancer diagnosis? You might want to check out your local YMCA. LiveSTRONG and YMCAs have had a strong partnership since 2008. This partnership underscores important knowledge about healing from cancer: cancer patients need community support and healing cancer is a long-term process.

Riding past my local Y last week, I was glad to see this sign promoting the LiveSTRONG at the YMCA program. This program is “designed to help adult cancer survivors reclaim their total health.”  Participants in the program meet twice a week “to regain their physical, emotional, and spiritual strength.” That’s why I love the idea of this program: there is an acknowledgment that cancer patients need to heal on a number of levels. Cancer affects every nook and cranny of a person’s life and LiveSTRONG at the YMCA aims to address a variety of challenges cancer patients face.

This 12-week program, offered at no cost, also benefits every family member of the cancer patient as it includes a complimentary membership for the entire family.

Printed material sums up this program:

Participants work with Y staff trained in supportive cancer care to safely achieve their goals such as building muscle mass and strength; increasing flexibility and endurance; and improving confidence and self-esteem.  By focusing on the whole person and not the disease, LIVESTRONG at the YMCA is helping people move beyond cancer in spirit, mind, and body.

Restoring strength and physical stamina is important; equally important is the need to restore self-confidence, address relationship issues, and stresses and life changes associated with cancer diagnosis and treatment.  If you know someone who could benefit from this program, please connect with your local Y or LIVESTRONG.

Strong Partnerships Helping Cancer Patients was last modified: December 1st, 2016 by Deb Nelson

LiveStrong: A Powerful Force for Good

Today is LiveStrong Day, a day to acknowledge and support the 28 million people around the world who are living with cancer. This annual celebration takes place on the anniversary of Lance Armstrong’s October 2, 1996 cancer diagnosis. Yes, you read that correctly, a celebration of a cancer diagnosis. In Armstrong’s own words:

The truth is that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Armstrong’s diagnosis is also the best thing that happened to millions of cancer patients. After fighting his own battle with cancer, Armstrong (with a little help from his friends) founded LiveStrong – a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping cancer patients and their families navigate the unfamiliar territory of cancer treatment. At a time when emotions are running high and stakes for choosing the right treatment are even higher, LiveStrong’s employees step in to lend a helping hand to millions of people around the world.

Yes, I’m a Lance Armstrong fan. Yes, I wear one of those yellow wristbands every day. And this is why: Armstrong could easily write a check – a very large check – every year to support cancer research; or he could hold one heck of an annual event to raise millions of dollars in support of cancer research. Instead, he shows up every day leveraging his name, his story, and his healthy athletic self to help people figure out how they can deal with hearing these three words: You. Have. Cancer.

Instead of feeling alone, cancer patients are embraced by an extended family experiencing the highs and lows of cancer treatment right along with them. There is a place to turn when you have a question about your cancer treatment; there is a place to turn when you don’t know what questions to ask; that place is LiveStrong.

The words of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and LiveStrong say it best:

Unity is strength.

Knowledge is power.

Attitude is everything.

LiveStrong may be the most powerful example of leveraging celebrity status I’ve come across. But then again, we’d expect nothing less of Armstrong, would we?

 

This blog post is one in a series highlighting good deeds. Please share examples of good deeds in your community with us below or contact Deb directly.

LiveStrong: A Powerful Force for Good was last modified: October 2nd, 2012 by Deb Nelson