Disappointment

"The principles of living greatly include the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and trial with humility." - Thomas S. Monson

I finally had to call it a day on my goal of going to England for a family wedding this weekend.  It is the middle of week five and while I'm making some progress, it is not enough to allow me to navigate airports and sit on a plane for a seven hour flight.  I'm sad.  We've been planning for this trip for two years now.  Merv will go without me. 

The silver lining is that it is also The Weekend to End Women's Cancers and had I gone to England, I would have missed it for the first time in 12 years.  This year, Jacob has co-captained our crew team with me.  As I've been down through all of August, he has had to attend all the meetings on our behalf and I have done all the planning and communication work with our team.  The work of crewing is heavy and my contribution this weekend will be limited but at the very least I'm hoping to pull up a chair and cheer on our walkers for a couple of hours each day.  This year I am reminded of why what we do is so important.  The money raised at the Weekend not only is helping to find a cure for women's cancers but it is also helping to find better, less damaging treatments.  As my back problems can be traced largely to the bone loss and compression that resulted from my breast cancer treatments, I acutely feel the need to help find a better way.  The path forward from life saving treatment should not be a lifetime of pain. 

England will still be there when I'm back on my feet and while I will miss this joyous occasion, I'm sure there will be other opportunities to celebrate with my English family.