Having survived 12 years of metastasized breast cancer, Kathryn has given back to her community to provide other women with hope.

Transcript

You wake up every day and you give gratitude that you have another day, you enjoy every season because you’re never really sure are you going to see the next season. The sad thing, I suppose also, is that I’ve lost so many of my friends with the disease. Whenever I go back to my metastatic group, I go back once a month and sometimes I don’t go anymore for me, I go because I call myself hope in a bottle. And I give hope to the people who are just newly diagnosed. Look there is a possibility that you can be here 12 years later. And I suppose I am very grateful and I express it every day that I’m still here.

I try to give back. I started volunteering last year in a friend of mine’s elementary school because I missed the kids. I missed… there was something that I got from teaching that I needed so I volunteer and I take Sammy with me. I take the dog with me into the schools because I wanted to teach the kids about rescuing animals, about being kind to animals, about how sweet they can be, how quiet and calm they can be and he’s like this in the school. And I give back, I try to give back and I’m back again this year, I go twice/week and it gives more purpose to life because I found not working there was a huge void for me. I believe that having my job as a teacher was a huge part of why and how I stayed in my marriage that wasn’t happy because I got happiness from my job.

---

Go back