By David F. Rooney
The 2010 Relay for Life kicked off Wednesday with a party at the Last Drop and its organizers are hoping to at least match last year’s earnings of $70,000. Can you help them do that?
“Tonight is all about being with our friends and telling our stories,” Honourary Chairwoman Lindy Silano said as she opened the celebration.
And people do have stories. Silano herself has one. The 32-year-old was diagnosed five years ago with myelogenous leukemia, a relatively rare cancer. She was diagnosed after she fell while snowboarding and, later on, experiences pain in her side.
“My initial reaction was frustration,” she said in an interview. “I had been an unhealthy child and was trying to improve my health and here I was diagnosed with cancer.”
Silano underwent a course of drug treatments she must follow for the rest of her life.
“I’ve been in remission for five years now, but it’s not a cure,” she said. “This is why I really push for more money for research.”
And research does pay off.
Silano noted that the survival rate for cancer was only 20 per cent in the 1940s and 30 per cent in the 1960s. However, today it is 60 per cent. That’s a dramatic change that has only come about because people support cancer research.
Silano urged Revelstokians of all ages to form or join Relay for Life teams and for everyone else to support them by pledging money to the cause.
This year’s Relay for Life will be held from 10 am until 10 pm at Centennial Park on June 13. To register, please contact Lindy Silano by e-mail at
lindy_silano@yahoo.ca. You can also phone her at 250-837-6247. And, of course, you can register online at www.cancer.ca/relay.
In the meantime here are some more photos from the Kick Off Party:
