A few months ago, Mikey got an unexpected email from an unknown sender saying that he was a recipient of the Hope Awards for producing Wrong Way to Hope and that the award presentations were happening in Toronto on October 29th. We were stunned and accepted the invitation since we would be out that direction in Ottawa the following weekend at a YACC conference. It turns out that the event was a huge gala and fundraiser was the 23rd the CIBC Celebration of Hope to benefit the Breast Health Centre & Cancer Clinic at the Markham Stouffville Hospital. Once we arrived in TO we were amazed to see the hotel they set us up in at the Hilton Garden Inn & Suites:

Pretty swanky, no? We were amazed at the place and went to sleep after a long day, unsuspecting of just how incredible the next day would be.

Sunday started out happily after an amazing sleep in our luxurious king-sized bed! After a quick morning workout for me and some cleaning up, we got ready for the day: from this -

to this -

Ready to go! Soon we walked downstairs to enjoy the gala we were attending.

It was QUITE the event!

Our table was RIGHT up front and we sat with the other Hope Award recipients:

The afternoon started with a fantastic Michael Jackson impersonator who rocked it out with two other dancers!

He sang Billy Jean and Thriller (very appropriate for Halloween-eve) and put on a great show! There was also great food mixed in with the speeches, fundraiser updates, and generous people introductions.

Delicious, healthy food that was we really appreciated!

Then, it was time for the awards. I was so proud of Mikey for receiving the Hope Award and couldn’t believe we were there at the honored table. We truly did not realize what a big deal this event was until we got there, and it added to the weightiness and fun of the day.

We were surrounded by many other deserving recipients including MJ, the founder of Rethink Breast Cancer and Sharon of Sharon, Lois, and Bram! Yes – the “Skiddamarinky-dinky-dinky” folk singer herself!

And then, after the auction drawings by local firefighters and the new knowledge that we didn’t win the BMC, we took part in a first for us: a fashion show! We kept looking at each other going, “We’re seriously at a fashion show?! …didn’t see that one comin’!”

It was a great event and we are so thankful to have been a part of it!

The rest of the evening was perfect for real relaxing: reading books in the hot tub, putting our PJS on, and watching some 30Rock. Oh yeah!

The next day we relocated to another hotel downtown and met up with a man, Dave, the Officiating Manager of the NHL, whom we met on the plane from Calgary to Toronto. He had actually given us a 40 minute ride from the airport to our first hotel for the gala and then offered us a tour of his office where he works with the NHL! So Tuesday was spent walking around his building with our Mikey’s mouth hanging open as we explored some pretty cool NHL behind-the-scenes!

This is the room where ALL the hockey gear from ALL the NHL goalies gets sent to be cut and measured. Can you believe it? That PVC pipe contraption is homemade and this is where it ALL happens! When it gets busy, this room is apparently PACKED with boxes.

Mikey at one of the stations in THE NHL control room! The puck literally stops here with many screens monitoring multiple games – the final word on a call with anything to do off-ice happens right here. And we hung out in there! #noway

Mikey and I chillin’ at Colin Campbell’s desk. Who’s he? Just the director of Hockey Operations. NBD.

Thanks again to Dave for blessing us with free NHL gear, introducing us to your friends (like Jim who’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame and on the board and gave us free passes among other goods!), and for extending your generosity to two people you didn’t even know. Let us know whenever you’re in Calgary!

You better believe we went to the Hockey Hall of Fame that afternoon. [For photos of our time there, check out this post on my website.] And yesterday, among wandering around town and laying low as Mikey’s been feeling a bit sick, was spent at the Princess Margaret Hospital where Mikey held a screening and presentation of WW2H. It went great – what a group of engaged oncology professionals! – and we were able to see two good friends, Norma and Jocelyn. We love these two! Thanks for helping set up the screening and spread the word of our coming!

What a great few days! And so hard to believe it’s all happened. Tomorrow we’re meeting some friends, relocating to a downtown hotel with our gear, and prepping for a Tuesday night screening of our film at the Princess Margaret Hospital. Special thanks to all who made this happen today and for their hard work! It was an incredible event and many great things are going on in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)’s hospitals!

Have you ever been to a fancy fundraiser or gala? This was our first of this magnitude for sure!

Live well & be well friends and keep spreading hope wherever you are,

Bonnie & Mike

A rainy run, pho with Laurie & Mike, the Sens vs Avalanche hockey game!

Good food & fun reunions with friends…a theme of this trip!

The Ottawa Share Conference is a program created by the Oncology Aftercare team from the CHEO and Ottawa Hospitals to deal more in-depth with the issues that childhood cancer survivors face as they transition to the life stage of being a young adult. It’s a harsh reality to be in a children’s hospital setting and then to be thrust into the “adult world” in a different hospital as soon as you’re 18, surrounded by people who are all (seemingly) in their 50’s and 60’s in the oncology ward. We were honored that they chose Wrong Way to Hope as the focus of their conference and excited to also present during break-out sessions on some of the themes developed in the film. Mikey spoke on “reintrajectorization” (finding your new life trajectory post-cancer treatments after everything has changed) and I spoke on relationships. We were pumped to have a mini reunion with almost the whole “cast” of WW2H, including Laurie (a local Ottawa girl and incredible woman!), Jared and Vik (both from BC) and Peter (another local guy)! It was SO good to be reconnected with them and to really relive that first trip and experience that has changed all of our lives in so many ways. I thought it’d be neat to share a little of what I spoke on and provide the resources available to you guys in case you’re seeking some direction or encouragements in your relationships – romantic, family-based, or between friends.

To be honest, I was quite intimidated to speak on this topic. I mean, what makes ME an expert to speak on the vast topic of relationships?! The answer? Nothing. But, I have had some experiences early-on in my marriage and gleaned a lot of wisdom from others and was happy and excited to pass that along.

(click for image source)

So what makes up successful relationships? I think if I could boil it down to three things, I’d say:

• Knowing who you are
• Having a shared purpose
• Love & Respect

Knowing who you are and why you act the way you do allows you to anticipate how you might react in certain situations relationally. For example, knowing how you respond to conflict, deal with change, and what your tendencies are when the unexpected happens will help you when it comes to interacting with family, friends, and a significant other. Dr. Gary Smalley created a personality quiz that helps give us insight into these different aspects of ourselves. While the results are not gold (everyone can change too – you aren’t locked into a certain personality type and can work on your weaknesses!), it gives us a great foundation from which to see what our gut reactions are. Take the assessment here.

Moving beyond personality traits then, another aspect of knowing who you are that’s important is learning your love language. Have you ever heard of the five love languages? Author (and counsellor) Gary Chapman wrote the book and came up with this concept about the five love languages because he came to see that everyone he had ever counselled had a “love language,” or a primary way of expressing and interpreting love. He also discovered that, for whatever reason, people are usually drawn to those who speak a different love language than their own. Of the many ways we can show love to another person, there seemed to be five comprehensive and universal “languages” to show love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. This is important when it comes to relationships because by recognizing your different love languages, you can discover why there are problems, quarrels, or communication issues with someone you love. Take the love language assessment here (pretty interesting stuff!).

One of the most important things in constructing solid relationships during a tough time is knowing who you are first as an individual but then in relation to the other person; then you are more able to have a shared focus or purpose (this relates more to relationships of the romantic kind). It really helped Mikey and I to manage our conflicts and navigate our new experiences when we were able to focus on something other than each other and other than our circumstances during Mikey’s treatments. This helped us because:

• As much as love each other, we aren’t perfect and will let each other down. Cancer or not, there will always be something to get frustrated about, miscommunicate about, and be let down about, but if we can focus on something other than each other and share that focus, our perspective will be on something steadier. For us, it’s our faith in Jesus. What we share together is the truth that we are forgiven and redeemed in him even though we aren’t perfect, and surely in any relationship your imperfections come through, especially in hard times. By both pursuing Jesus personally and together we were able to look ahead and fix our eyes on something other than each other.
• Circumstances are always changing, so basing your happiness and relationship on what’s happening around you isn’t fixing it on something steady. You need a foundation and something secure to be grounded in, and our faith continues to be that for us even as we continue to figure out who we are as a couple and what our direction is in life.

Lastly, practicing the principles of love & respect helps in every type of relationship. Although men and women need both love and respect, love is special for women because it is more of what we feed off of and need to live; respect is that for men. Think of it as an air hose to breathe; women need to receive love and men need to receive respect.

We first heard this simple but profound truth from a book of the same title by Emerson Eggerichs. Mikey and I first listened to this book on CD as we drove back from CA to WA on our honeymoon, pausing it every so often and discussing EVERY fight we ever had and finding that each issue boiled down to the same thing: him experiencing a lack of respect from me, and me experiencing a lack of love from him. In fact, a survey of 7,000 people revealed, when asked this question:  When you are in conflict with your spouse or significant other, do you feel unloved or disrespected?  that 83% of the men said “disrespected.”  72% of the women said “unloved.” Those are significant numbers!

During his chemo treatments, Mikey and I were often accompanied by his parents (and naturally so), especially in the beginning of the “new routine” we were getting used to. It was difficult and an odd situation to be in relationally because Mikey’s mom wanted to be at everything and, while we understood why, we often wanted to go alone as we were so young into our marriage and wanting to distinguish ourselves as a couple. Essentially, we were feeling a lack of independence while being so dependent on his parents and others. When we asked to go alone for the remainder of the appointments and treatments, she was hurt – she essentially felt unloved by the request while Mikey felt disrespected when she came because he felt disrespected to do it alone as a man.

There’s just a small example of how this concept works in a non-romantic relationship; now, after more communication and clarification on why we were all feeling like we were, everyone was feeling better and understood one another much better. This love and respect idea rings so true for couples too, and I could write a whole series of posts on how this shapes out and shows itself in marriages, but I encourage you to look at this concept in your own life – part attitude and part action. For further exploration of the topic (highly recommended! ), check out the website.

In ALL relationships, the hard(est?) part to effective communication and mutual love and respect is learning to take off the lenses through which YOU view the world (whether you are a “beaver” or an “otter” – personality test! – whether your love language is one of “acts of service” or “quality time” – whether you connect more with love or respect) and learn to see life from the other’s perspective. This is incredibly difficult to do, but learning to adjust how you look at life, deal with conflict, show love, and express yourself helps immensely. The ability to adapt and connect, to be flexible and open, to listen and grow will go a long way in helping with your relationships, using the tools provided above as a guideline and foundation from which to start.

Parliament in the background!

By knowing who you are and how you relate to others, having a shared purpose with someone in your life, and treating each man with respect and woman with love, you will be better equipped for healthy relationships with those around you and more prepared to weather the storms together in difficult times. What are some of your relationship tips? Have you ever heard of the above resources? Again, I have nothing on my own to add or give, but through my experiences and the wisdom I’ve gained from others and from the resources we’ve been exposed to, I hope I was helpful to those at the conference dealing with relationships as we all do, but specifically surrounding cancer…it complicates things a little bit.

The rest of our trip continued in a similar fashion as the stories from the above photos show: good food and great new and old friends!

Dinner out at Darcy McGee’s pub post-conference + the fun Haunted Walking tour around Ottawa!

Shots with Andrew, Laruie, and Jared around Ottawa and at the Museum of Civilization…

A very huge thank you to Melissa, Pat, and Sara for bringing us all out to the conference and allowing us to be a part of such a special event! Thanks also to Naomi for housing us, showing us around, giving me late-night candy corn (YUM!), and to Laurie and Travis for their hospitality and kindness around the city too. We love you guys! What a great experience.

Have a *good* rest of your Monday (we’re trying to do the same and keep our eyes on our shared focus!) we’ll be back when there are more WW2H updates!Live well and be well,

Bonnie (& Mike)

We thought we would update you on several new developments that have occurred recently before we hop on a plane for some new adventures in two days’ time! One exciting thing is the advancement of Mike’s job; he is working with a project called Cancer Bridges with the Tom Baker Cancer Centre (TBCC) where he’s working to bridge the gap between community based organizations and health professionals when it comes to cancer survivorship. It’s an amazing opportunity and he’s been learning so much and making great connections. One of the most incredible aspects of his new job is the fact that Mike’s now working at the same hospital where he was treated, and just last week he was able to give a grand rounds presentation to over 90 doctors and nurses from the TBCC. Some of those in the auditorium recognized him and it was quite emotional and overwhelming to think of how much has changed in the last three years and to see how we’ve come full circle in our cancer journey.

A screening the week before at the TBCC given to a group of nurses and nursing students.

Another neat update is something that’s happening at our screenings now: a research study! It’s given our presentations much more depth and given us the chance to tap into the before and after’s of health professionals’ experiences with the film and as it relates to their work with young adult cancer survivors. We are so thankful to Liane Kandler for her help in organizing the research study, heading it up, and putting the muscle (and mind!) behind this as research is a new realm for us.

Speaking of new realms and great experiences, we recently had the opportunity to be featured on the Stupid Cancer Show with Lisa Bernhard and Matthew Zachary of i2y live on-air from New York (click here for the link to the episode). The theme of the program was young adults and film and they also had an interview with the real-life man who had cancer from the new Hollywood film 50/50, so it was great to be featured alongside this film and be able to share what WW2H has done for many young adult survivors across North America. Aaron Byrant and Fred Sprinkle of HandsOn Films gave insight into the film creating/editing side of the adventure and Jen Luce and Laurie Hinsperger spoke from their experiences on and off the river as survivors. They did a great job hosting with so many voices as a part of the conversation, and we are thankful for the opportunity to speak!

Today we had a neat and unexpected event happen when CTV News phoned us and asked to do a piece on us for Thanksgiving! They came over to the house around 11:15 am and we spent the next hour and a half or so doing a little interview at the house in the backyard and shooting some footage down in beautiful Fish Creek Park. We’ve never had anyone phone us for an interview, so that was a great surprise, and it was one of the best interviews we’ve ever had and happened so out-of-the-blue; thanks to CTV and their reporters and anchors for the great coverage and for showcasing WW2H and Cancer Bridges! The piece aired tonight and is really well done, take a look!

So…WW2H has a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! We also have some exciting events coming up (October through November are busy months!) but we don’t want to give it all away…we’ll make sure to blog on-location from our next destinations: Ottawa this week, home the next, Ottawa again followed by Toronto at the end of October and finally Austin, Texas in early November! Should be another great new adventure and we look forward to continuing to be a voice for young adult cancer survivors and being thankful for the moments we’re given along the way. Have a great week ahead and transition into fall!

-Bonnie (& Mikey)

At the summit of Mt. Temple two weeks ago – climbing mountains post-chemo & radiation!

On Monday, September 26th at 5pm Eastern Time, come listen in to the great discussion of the themes and the back-story surrounding Wrong Way to Hope. (Click the link below).