We Live For Each Other

Original:

The other day I was hanging out with one of my new contributing writer/photographers who is also a freshman at Mercer. I asked her what she knew about Greek life there and had she considered doing Recruitment? She said she didn’t really know enough about sororities and asked me to explain more.

When explaining what being an Alpha Delta Pi means to me, I find it’s easier to refer back to the lines of one of our founders’ speeches that I recited while playing her in Spirits in October:

” Our motto is ‘We Live for Each Other’…. The Adelphean motto of self forgetful ministry to others was kindled in the innocence of our youth but later tempered by the fiery forge of lifes trials in to an iron rod”.

I think this is a great example of what ADPi means to me, and what Greek life can mean for anyone- this sisterhood transcends my college years and the parties and fun.

What has made me think of this is finding out that one of our own has cancer.

Cancer seems to strike all around me, each of us. Every time I turn around I am hearing of someone with it.

Amy is my age, just a few months older than me. She has three children. A loving husband.

I was reading over Amy’s blog last night, Thankful Tree, and learned that she has had a finger amputated, part of her palm, and has lost 40% of a lung. She found out she had cancer after feeling sick one day and going to the hospital, thinking she simply was having a panic attack or something like that- instead she found she had a 4 cm size tumor in her lung and 400 cc of fluid.

She has had to totally alter her life and her families. Even her diet has changed dramatically to be completely organic (yet another reason to not eat processed foods).

But her doctors also want her to go to New York to meet with a specialist. You see, Amy has sarcoma, and from her website ” the diagnosis is sarcoma, the rarest category of cancer. At the present time, the doctors are not sure what subtype or the best treatment option. Amy has been referred to MD Anderson in Houston, TX, one of the nation’s top cancer facilities. The doctors there also had never seen this type of  presentation of the cancer Amy has. The cancer appeared to originate from a benign tumor on her left long finger, and metastasized to her lung to form a malignant tumor that appeared to be wrapped around her vena cava and wedged between her lung and her heart.  In June 2011, Amy elected to remain under the care of her doctors here in Greenville, SC and undergo an open chest surgery to remove the tumor.”

Another sister and some of Amy’s friends have started a page for Amy on GiveForward- she is halfway through to her goal of raising enough money for the trip to New York for treatment.

I’m really not one to solicit donations for anything other than 501c3s- because I hate to ask people to donate for something they can’t write off their taxes- but please help my sister if you can. If not with money, and even if you can, please pray for her and her family.

I can tell you- she really is my sister and we truly do live for each other.

*I should add, this is a feeling not just within ADPi, but really all Greeks, and even past that, all Mercerians. We have an amazing community and I am so proud to be a part of it.

Love to all y’all,

Molly