It was an emotionally charged day with many positive outcomes. Thank you all who attended and those who then took the initiative to follow up with me and share your reflections of the morning.
My team was amazing by supporting the event by catering with cakes and all sorts of yummy things.
Thank you to BP who are passionate about making a difference to the community and supporting the team or as we say, the BP family.
If you are interested in what my presentation I have copied it below....
(these are just my notes so not meant to be read this way so)
Pink Presentation - Connecting the Dots
Firstly, I would like to thank Brooke and Chris for their support in
letting Project Services bring this event to you.
Secondly, I would also like to thank Jodie Chadwick and all of the
participating Project Services Social Team putting this even together.
Finally, I thank all those in Asset Management for supporting me through
this journey…It makes all the difference in the world when reaching deep for
strength in the fight.
This will be a story about connecting the dots so I’ll
ramble a bit and then connect the dots.
I first envisioned this event when I laying in the hospital bed for my
mastectomy which was going to occur the next day…and here is why….
It was a very significant moment as I reflected upon the future and specifically…what
I was in control of and what I was not in control of which was as follows:
In Control:
1.
The election to do surgery
2.
The election to do chemotherapy (at that point it was
not a point of discussion yet)
Out of
control
1.
Outcomes of the surgery
2.
Outcomes of the body scans to know where the cancer
had travelled to
3.
The outcome of my prognosis
So the “out of control” was bigger than the “in control” column…I don’t
do well in that space (not that I’m
controlling or an “A-Type personality”
Out of balance
– needed to get the balance back
I needed to get a more balanced spreadsheet in my mind. So I thought about all the things that I
could be in control of and that was when I started thinking about the Awareness
side. So I emailed back to my team (Jodie)
and said I had a vision to do this event…and she got onto it straight away.
My thoughts at that point in time were this….
Cancer was
NEVER ever in my plan – still isn’t by the way.
So why was I surprised…even that I/we know that cancer is all around me….all
around us. One in two men and one in
three women will have cancer before they are 85. Look around that means the one person you are
looking at will be affected? Or one in 8
women will have breast cancer…THAT is why we are here today.
So what I hope is different in my journey is being
open and honest and talk about it so it can help others and hopefully save some
lives.
The start to
my story…
Let’s go back to the moment when I knew that life was going to be a bit
different…My short story. The finding
the lump and being diagnosed was no different than any other person…cancer does
not discriminate….and I was just a
faceless nameless person cancer attacked….
Let’s put
this all in context….In January I had four team members that were dealing with
cancer either themselves of their family members on a daily basis. Since that time three of the people have
passed away…
So, when I found a very large lump on my breast I late February it was a
a real “ah shit moment” (I’m not good at routinely checking so was just a
moment for me to do the right thing for myself). So since I had a heightened awareness from my
own team…I did the right thing by calling the doctor…and the doctors office
said, “okay we’ll see you on Monday”.
Hmmm…no messing around…that’s good…?.
But wait, let me check my schedule (okay, self talk moment…yes, I had
things scheduled and I was BUSY…but I was going to have to re-schedule). I went to the doctor and it was clear
throughout the day as I did the mammograms and ultrasounds and then being
walked to the surgeons office and then being walked to the biopsy room that
there was a sense of urgency building.
By the time I got out of the office I called my husband to tell him
about my day (of which I had not shared with him ahead of time).
So we waited two days (two long days) to wait to hear about the
results. Again, I had an all-day
leadership team meeting that day…did I really have time to head to the doctors
to hear what he was going to tell me (really…did I have to ask myself
that?). So I ducked out quickly of that
meeting to find out the results….yes, you have cancer. Yes, you need to have a mastectomy…what are
you doing tomorrow-we can book you in for surgery? Tomorrow was a bit too much for me.
What went through my mind was the following week was International
Women’s Day….and I had been working on the NAWIC event where we were hosting
300 engineers….that should be the day I should do it. Where I get the energy of the NAWIC group I
have put so much energy into over the years.
This is where
I start to connect the dots
Funnily enough, that morning I had exchanged emails with none other than
Maxine Morand. I said this to the doctor
after he handed me a BCNA book to give my husband I information to put
everything into context. I said I knew
of the organisation and of Maxine. He
then asked me “why and who was I that I knew Maxine”. I explained that I had been President of
NAWIC and I run a mentoring program and had gone looking for someone to help
fund the program where we set up mentoring for over 100 engineers each
year. I had gone to Maxine when she was
Minister for Women and asked for funding.
And as a result she was going to be our guest at the upcoming IWD event.
So the Surgeon started telling me about his daughter who was an engineer
who was currently working in Asia and a mentoring program would be great and
highly beneficial.
We walked out of the room and my husband turned to me and said, “only
you” …only you can turn any situation into a positive one. I don’t know how you do that.
Connecting
the Dots
So to conclude, when sitting there in the hospital bed thinking about
how to connect all the dots so I could stack my odds on the positive side… I
thought about doing something like this.
THIS is how in my mind I could stack the odds in my favour and make a
difference…. by bring in all of you and get you aware that Cancer can strike
any of us at any time.
So in the
name of our BP Values I implore upon you to
Think Safety, Courage and OneTeam to:
·
Do your health checks
·
Don’t feel like you’re too busy to take care of you!
The greater the awareness …the greater the opportunity to save lives.
Summary
In summary people have commented on my courage to come
into work while I work through this but I want to also say that if BP were not
so supportive of me then I would not be here so I’m thankful to BP for being
highly supportive of me during this journey and letting me share it and bring
awareness to all of our community.
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