Day 10 of Movember

Today I sat to reflect on the journey that brought me to my beloved, cancer-striken, community of friends (both on Twitter and Facebook) and has me growing a painted-on moustache on my avatars to raise awareness on Prostate Cancer.

I all started around Spring time...

Being unemployed since March 12th, and having far too much time in my hands, I decided it was time to take a second look to that thing called 'Twitter' which had miserably failed to get my attention from the moment I had signed on, two months earlier. At the time, I had refused to become a 'celebrity stalker' and I had no friends on Twitter at all, so the whole thing was utterly pointless.

In April, out of pure boredom, I decided to start following some of the celebrities to see what the fuss was about: Ashton and Demi, Oprah, Ellen... All too soon I found myself creating a list of celebs I wanted to find on Twitter and also adding some other people they followed.
I can't remember how I got following Lance Armstrong but it wasn't by my own accord. Someone famous was following him and, given that I always enjoyed cycling (the sport; I'm dangerously too close to the definition of a couch potato, myself) I jumped on board his followers list just before the Tour of France 09.
The Livestrong band on his avatar caught my eye straight away. I had no idea what a Twibbon was back then but I noticed that the people he followed had the same thing on their pictures, so I went to check the link on his profile and I think I read this:
'At the Lance Armstrong Foundation, we unite people to fight cancer believing that unity is strength, knowledge is power and attitude is everything.'
After checking the work of the LAF, I decided that following all those other guys sporting the yellow band in Lance's profile could only be a good thing. I can tell you it was early days, in a way, for Doug Ulman: only a few thousand followers back then, if memory serves me. He even DM me about the following each other thing. I admire him for getting up to 39,500 before giving up the whole, polite, 'I follow you back' thing.
Those days changed my life. By the time the Tour was over, I had become a Livestrong convert (even if my heart had split over the team Astana issues) and it was only natural that I wanted to volunteer for the Livestrong Global Cancer Summit.
I missed the early days of enrolment because I was in Spain, so my volunteering got limited to 'breakfast greeter' on the last day. I remember standing by the watercooler, wearing my yellow t-shirt and the now 'all familiar' wristband, pointing out to people where the breakfast room was and watching Adam Garone, Lynn Lane, Doug Ulman, dr Gupta... pass by me. Doug was the only one I recognized, of course, since I wasn't following any of the rest, yet.
Then, Jonny Imerman ( http://www.imermanangels.org/ )came to get water and we got talking. He was incredibly nice to me, thanking me for volunteering ( I didn't know him, either, but I assumed he was part of the organizers) and we had a good laugh about breakfast being the last thing in the mind of many delegates who had been in the pub until late the night before.
By 9.30 am my duties were over and  I was told I could go home. I asked if more help was needed and was told that I could stay for the last morning of the conference and help out with luch if I wanted. How lucky can someone get? I sat with another volunteer at the back of the room, amazed at the opportunity that I had been given: 500 delegates, 65 countries, were making history in the fight against Cancer... and I was witnessing it.
At a point, a minggling, storytelling exercise was in need of extra people to complete some delegates' tables and the volunteers were dragged into action. I ended up sitting at one of those tables and I met Lynn Lane as a result of the wonderful chaos that followed when hundreds of people tried to tell a 60 sec story at about the same time (and got moved around a bit, too, adding to the confusion).
His story really moved me and, of course, I immediately recognized the importance of his work through http://www.voicesofsurvivors.com/ : documenting Survivorship, and spreading the word far and wide, bring the ever so important Hope to new fighters and those dealing with a recurrence. I'm sure that's the reason why such a new organization got invited to the Summit by Livestrong ('...knowledge is power and attitude...' ) I also met the wonderful Suzanne Lindley (
http://www.beatlivertumors.org/ ) and Pam Schmid the same day.
Lynn gave me a band, too. His is blue, a reminder of him being a Prostate Cancer Survivor, and  I have been wearing both bands ever since I got them (at a wedding, recently, my camera lens wore them) and I  keep telling  anyone who will listen what they represent.
After the Summit, I started following many of you, wonderful tweeps and beloved twisters, including Marie Ennis O'Connor (first on Twitter and then in person ) and through her I got to know the work of http://www.europadonnaireland.ie/ on Breast Cancer, too, and I'm hoping to volunteer for them whenever they might need me ( I think Marie and her advocacy deserve a post of their own so I'm leaving it at that, for now)
The final stop of my story are Adam Garone and http://www.movember.com/ . We never actually met in Dublin. The watercooler episode is the closest we ever got but I followed him on Twitter and he's been the one who got me into the MO universe. Once again, I'm so moved by the power of few: just a group of friends who got together to raise awareness on Prostate Cancer and male depression...and boy have they done it!!
Today, Movember 10th, I feel very proud to have become a MO sista and an advocate for all the above non-profit orgs and I love considering so many of you as my dear friends, too