Ten years ago, while immersed in the excitement of expecting her second child, a Prince George woman received earth-shattering news.
"I had gone for my first physical and they found something," said Desa Chipman, who remembers the fast pace of being diagnosed with cervical cancer when 19 weeks pregnant as if it were yesterday.
"I remember getting the phone call on a Thursday and the doctor telling me I had an appointment the following Tuesday at the Cancer Agency in Vancouver," she said. "I'm in the bliss and joy of being pregnant and this comes out of left field. It was indescribable."
With the support of her husband Scott, three-year-old son Zachary and the rest of her family, Chipman spent the next three months travelling back and forth between Prince George and Vancouver for treatment, which caused her to lose the baby and finally undergo a full hysterectomy.
But that support circle didn't end there, with emotional and financial help as well as child care coming from her extended family and friends. She said she also had an incredible team of doctors and nurses here in town and down south.
This weekend, Chipman is taking a major step forward for herself and for women who feel they are going through similar situations by themselves.
"I decided to share my story because this year has been a turning point. I feel strong enough mentally and physically," Chipman said. "I'm in a place where I feel I can help somebody."
Getting to this point hasn't been an easy journey, though Chipman said she tried to reach out to others a year after her surgery.
"I wasn't emotionally there yet," she said.
For the first time, she is taking part in the Shopper's Drug Mart Weekend to End Women's Cancers. The two-day event taking place in Vancouver Aug. 13 to 14 features a 60-kilometre walk to raise money to benefit the B.C. Cancer Foundation.
"Whenever I'm doing something that's a physical challenge for me now, nothing compares to what I went through," Chipman said, adding recalling her own fight against cancer gives her strength and motivates her to push past obstacles.
"I'm ready for the blisters," she laughed.
Now in its eighth year, the walk is one of the most emotional fundraising events, said BC Cancer Foundation President and CEO Doug Nelson.
"It has the most hugs and the most tears," he said.
With more than 1,000 participants, Nelson said it's not hard to find someone with a story to tell.
"I've walked next to people who have reordered their chemotherapy treatments so they would be strong enough to do the walk," he said.
To highlight what the event has done for the women's cancer cause, prior to the first walk the foundation was only able to provide $200,000 per year to breast cancer research. Since the first walk in 2004, more than $20 million was invested in research and programming.
According to B.C. Cancer Agency statistics, an estimated 150 women in this province will be diagnosed with cervical cancer and 44 will die from it in 2011 alone.
"The research is working, women are living longer," Nelson said.
With her husband and son, now 13 years old, cheering her on, Chipman will be participating in the Survivor Circle and is speaking at the event's opening and closing ceremonies. "They're my pillars of support because they keep me going," Chipman said of her two men.
