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As I made my way east towards Washington DC, I stopped for the night in Wheeling, WV. While I just picked this town off the map as a sort of half way point, it turned out to be the perfect place to spend the night. People are always the most interesting attraction of any town, and I had the pleasure of having breakfast this morning with Becky Graham and Gail Van Vranken. Both Becky and Gail shared with me their stories of battling cancer.

Gail (Boatsie) Van Vranken and Becky Graham

Gail Van Vranken, also know as Boatsie, is the founder of Boatsie's Boxes to Baghdad (boatsie.com), an organization which sends needed supplies from soap to tote bags to troops in Iraq.  What started out in her basement (and is still headquartered there) Boatsie’s Boxes to Baghdad has grown into a national organization with chapters throughout the country. When Boatsie ran out of storage room in her own home, it was Becky Graham’s husband Larry that supplied the additional space.

Becky Graham
Becky Graham is tall and strong and strikes me as someone who is used to having her life in order. Becky is the type of woman you’d believe is able to handle anything thrown her way. As a nurse, she spends her days taking care of other people.

Becky’s husband Larry is the Lieutenant Colonel for West Virginia’s National Guard. In July of 2007 Larry was due to come home from Iraq. After 18 months of being responsible for 66 other men’s lives, what Becky wanted to give her husband most was to return to a “normal” life.

One week after Larry came home, Becky was diagnosed with breast cancer. As Becky put it, “He was gone for 18 months not knowing if he was going to come home. He made it through a war. He didn’t deserve this.” It was actually Larry who discovered the lump.

When Becky went to see the surgeon she told Larry he didn’t need to come because she was sure “everything was going to be fine.” When the surgeon met with Becky he asked, “Where is your husband?” Becky then knew the news wasn’t going to be good.
Becky’s response was, “Oh my God.” And then she said it again, and then again. After giving herself a moment to let it sink in, Becky then prepared for the fight. She asked her doctor, “What do we need to do to save my life?” With that, Becky then went about choosing the best team of doctors and decided that she was “gonna kick butt!”

Becky planned to continue working 36 hours a week at her nursing job. She kept this up through her first two rounds of chemo. But after the third treatment she realized, “Oh my God, it’s going to kick my butt.” She then cut back to 20 hours a week. Becky says continuing to care for other “patients got her through.”

It’s been just a little over a year now since Becky was diagnosed. Becky’s hair has grown in but she’s not quite ready to embrace the title, “survivor.” She doesn’t like to have to keep going to the doctor for follow up appointments because to her that means she is “still broken.” While she worked hard to make life as normal as possible for her husband, its clear to me that Becky longs for the day that will be true for her too.

Gail (Boatsie) Van Vranken
12 years ago, Gail Van Vranken was battling cancer in her own unique way. Like Becky, Gail made up her mind early on that she was going to beat this cancer and went about succeeding through positive thinking and some creative visualization.

Gail, also known as Boatsie, was diagnosed with colon cancer back in 1996. She was standing in the kitchen, and then suddenly she plopped to the floor. It turned out she had lost a lot of blood due to a “large, lazy tumor” in her colon. She had surgery to remove the tumor, followed by five weeks of radiation and one year of chemotherapy.

Boatsie was determined to fight her cancer and her strategy was to put on her “cancer armor” and to “think positive.” As Boatsie explained, “Once I got my mind made up that I was going to get through, I kept a positive attitude. Every time those dark feelings came in I fought it. I wouldn’t let it enter my mind.”

Boatsie also made a decision to do something positive for herself after every chemotherapy treatment. A lover of gardening, after each treatment she bought herself flowers.

What was most interesting to me was Boatsie’s use of visualization to push her through the tough times.  She often “visualized a lot of light.” Light and sunshine.  But what probably was Boatsie strongest visualization was the “army of Pillsbury dough boys” that Boatsie imagined “with fierce faces, carrying pitchforks” marching through her body conquering the cancer. She doesn’t know how she came up with Pillsbury dough boys but it seems to have worked, as she is now12 years cancer free.

Boatsie spoke about how when you are going through treatment you “cling to any positive news.” At one point her doctor explained that her “cancer is now in a laboratory far away.” Now that was something Boatsie liked visualizing.