day 1 of the 3day 09

the banner that bobbies mom made for my mom


















the survivor circle on the morning of the walk


















the LONG row of people as we started the walk


















the 1st pit stop sign























2 awesome ladies from the buttercups


















the buttercup team

day one eve and day one morning

these first few pictures are of us at dinner. mom opening a scrap book that bobbie made for her from the past two 3 day walks that becky and bobbie did. the rest of the pics from dinner are of my, my mom, becky, bobbie, rose, my grandmother and my bug :)

the ones further down are of us at opening ceremonies friday morning. wow, what a powerful moment!

why i walk

for my favorite girls :)

he holds her purse

Dad, OB, David. Thanks for holding moms purse over the years. You are the best :) We love you!!

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Will he hold your purse?

"Everything I know about marriage I learned in my cancer clinic." I've been known to say this to my friends, maybe more than once, maybe even causing some of them to grind their teeth and grumble about Robin and Her Infernal Life Lessons.

I can't help myself. I've worked as a breast cancer doctor for 20 years, I've watched thousands of couples cope with every conceivable (and sometimes unimaginable) kind of crisis, and I've seen all kinds of marriages, including those that rise like a beacon out of the scorched-earth terror that is a cancer clinic.

It's a privilege to witness these couples, but the downside is I find myself muttering under my breath when my single female friends show me their ads for online dating. "Must like long walks on beach at sunset, cats," they write, or "French food, kayaking, travel." Or a perennial favorite: "Looking for fishing buddy; must be good with bait." These ads make me want to climb onto my cancer doctor soapbox and proclaim, "Finding friends with fine fishing poles may be great in the short term. But what you really want to look for is somebody who will hold your purse in the cancer clinic."

It's one of the biggest take-home lessons from my years as an oncologist: When you're a single woman picturing the guy of your dreams, what matters a heck of lot more than how he handles a kayak is how he handles things when you're sick. And one shining example of this is how a guy deals with your purse.

I became acquainted with what I've come to call great "purse partners" at a cancer clinic in Waltham. Every day these husbands drove their wives in for their radiation treatments, and every day these couples sat side by side in the waiting room, without much fuss and without much chitchat. Each wife, when her name was called, would stand, take a breath, and hand her purse over to her husband. Then she'd disappear into the recesses of the radiation room, leaving behind a stony-faced man holding what was typically a white vinyl pocketbook. On his lap. The guy -- usually retired from the trades, a grandfather a dozen times over, a Sox fan since date of conception -- sat there silently with that purse. He didn't read, he didn't talk, he just sat there with the knowledge that 20 feet away technologists were preparing to program an unimaginably complicated X-ray machine and aim it at the mother of his kids.

I'd walk by and catch him staring into space, holding hard onto the pocketbook, his big gnarled knuckles clamped around the clasp, and think, "What a prince."

I've worked at cancer clinics all around Boston since then, and I've seen purse partners from every walk of life, every age and stage. Of course, not every great guy accompanies his wife to her oncology appointment every day -- some husbands are home holding down the fort, or out earning a paycheck and paying the health insurance premiums -- but I continue to have a soft spot for the pocketbook guy. Men like him make me want to rewrite dating ads from scratch.

gma and her bug

come cheer us on!

if you want to cheer on a breast cancer 3 day walker (like me) this weekend, you can do so here!

Friday, October 23

8:45 am - 10:45 am
Downtown Buford
89 Main St.
Buford, GA 30518

12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Suwanee Station
Station Center Blvd.
Suwanee, GA 30024

Saturday, October 24

9:15 am - 12:00 pm
Oreck Vacuums Store & Plaza
5005 Peachtree Pkwy
Norcross, GA 30092

11:30 am - 6:00 pm
Duluth Monarch School
3057 Main St.
Duluth, GA 30096

Sunday, October 25

7:45 am - 9:30 am
Lowe's
4950 Peachtree Industrial Blvd.
Chamblee, GA 30341

10:45 am - 1:30 pm
Atlantic Station
171 17th St.
Atlanta, GA 30363

the reason

she is the reason we walk.