In 2002, I thought my mother was going to die.

She was diagnosed with stage3 breast cancer. There are only four stages a patient can go through.

I felt incredibly hopeless and lonely during that time in my life and I swore I would change that one day.

And then I did.

Below is a short story about an event called Yoga in Motion that I co-founded with a friend in 2008 – it combines yoga and fundraising and to date we have raised more than $100,000 for breast cancer research and awareness. This is a big part of my life these days, which is why I want to share it with you all, because this blog is a big part of my life, too.

Oh, and I should mention.. in 2005 I wrote, “start a charity” on my Birthday List that year. And it, just three years later, it happened. See? Lists work. Just sayin’.

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The power of change

By: Sandy Braz, co-founder, Yoga in Motion

My story begins like many others: In a doctor’s office, on the receiving end of a conversation that started with the words, “I’m sorry to say, but…”

My mother was 49 when she learned that she might lose both her breasts and live for another six months, if she was lucky; longer if she took treatment, which she knew nothing about, but once watched a friend receive and surely thought the treatment looked worse than the cancer itself.

For a few minutes that day in the doctor’s office, as the news was delivered to her, she considered foregoing treatment and living out her days with my sister and I by her side, her hair, breasts and body in tact. She considered it, but not for long. My mother wanted to live, and we needed her to.

At the time I was 21 and my sister just 16. We were newly a family of three, the ink on my parents’ divorce papers barely dry. To say it was a difficult time would be an understatement; but to say it was the worse experience of our lives wouldn’t be accurate either. That year, as I watched my mother be pricked and prodded, go bald and lose part of her breast, I learned that, like me, she wanted to live a full and healthy life. She wanted to be there for my graduation the following year; she wanted to celebrate my first home; she wanted to button my dress on my wedding day; and she wanted to kiss her grandchildren goodnight. For the first time in a long time, she regained her will to not just live, but to live well.

Simple pleasures like coffee became a joy; spending time with my sister and I became what she looked forward to, not what was a chore of preparing dinner or doing laundry; and sitting in the passenger’s seat of my car as we drove to and from the hospital every Tuesday and Thursday for treatment became an opportunity to watch her daughter become a strong woman, just like she always hoped I would be.  “I’ve done well,” she once told me, as we pulled into the treatment centre, “and I am so proud of who you have become.” As the breast cancer broke her down, the experience of being loved and cared for helped build her back up because, as we learned that year, it is possible to change how cancer changes you.

By the time my mother was diagnosed, I had been teaching yoga for a couple of years. It helped me help her. Yoga gave me a way to deal with my confusion and sadness and anger towards breast cancer; it gave me an opportunity to heal and change what cancer meant in my life. For all these reasons, and for my mother and sister, I co-founded Yoga in Motion, alongside the compassionate and philanthropic women of the Mount Sinai Auxiliary. It is an event that I hope inspires others to redefine what cancer means in their own lives; it is a way to put themselves in motion for a cure.

Want to help make a change – feel free to RE-BLOG this post or sponsor me here.

2nd Annual Yoga in Motion
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Liberty Grand, Toronto
10am-2pm
yogathon