Hello Everyone:

Hope all is well. I’m excited to write this latest update. As many of you know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. The “pink” is everywhere! It’s big business. I mean, even the NFL pro football players are wearing pink.

I was approached by the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation to see if I would participate in their first radio-thon reaching out to the Chinese community. It was going to be in mandarin, and my mandarin is very basic, but I agreed. The goal was to create awareness for PMH and canvass for donations. The radio hosts were very patient with me and my message was simply this: Princess Margaret Hospital gives one Hope. When it was confirmed that I had cancer, one of the things I found comfort in was the fact that I live in Toronto with one of the best cancer hospitals in the world. And because of generous donations, that has allowed for research, I had a fighting chance. That’s hope. Seems small but it was a big deal to me at the time. The radio-thon raised over $60,000.

Team Winnie‘s Warriors went running on Sunday, October 6th for the CIBC Run for the Cure which is the largest single day event raising funds and awareness for breast cancer across Canada. I am proud to say that WW’s raised over $10K!! My team of 18 did the 5K run in style! As I was preparing to head downtown to meet my team members, (getting shirts, hats, bibs, pens and ribbons etc…), I got on the subway only to realize that I had forgotten something essential and important…..Horror of horrors…..I had forgotten my lipstick!! LOL. Luckily for me, one of my Warriors let me borrow a dab of gloss. 🙂

The rain held off. The energy and excitement could be felt everywhere. And I wrote “Winnie‘s Warriors!” again on the Wall of Hope as I did back in 2011. I had more fun this year – less overwhelming feeling – and look forward to doing it again next year. The first year we were 8. This year 18. Next year 25??

And yes, I did run. At least non-stop for the first 2 kms. Then I had a pain in my previously injured knee that I couldn’t ignore so I did the run, walk, run routine. Then realized I had forgotten something even more important…..Advil!! And for the record, my running shoes were 2 years old….although I was asked by a few people whether they were brand new! What can I say? I keep my shoes clean! After the run,  they were really muddy – the field was very mushy and messy from the rain, so I took the advice of one of my warriors: brushed them and put them in the washing machine. 🙂

It was a special day and it’s a special month.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone (it was Turkey day here in Canada on Monday). I have much to be Thankful for – especially thankful for having all of you in my life.

Gobble Gobble!!
Winnie xoxo