Pinup Contest & Cancerversary

I am super excited to share that I am one of the finalists in the Miss Rock and Rumble Pinup Contest. All registered pinups competed in an online voting challenge to determine the finalists. 

The 12 with the most votes are competing on stage at the Hot Rod Rock and Rumble Festival in Fountain, Colorado at the end of August. 

I'm so excited, not just to make the finals, but for my first trip back to Colorado since I moved to Ohio. I'm not going to Hot Rod Rock and Rumble as a spectator this year. I'm participating in the pinup contest and an event that has become a yearly tradition for me.

The only thing that will be missing is Birdie. I don't want to drive cross country in the summer heat in a car without A/C. Even though I drive my 1960 tbird often, it's my only vehicle, I'm not 100% sure she'd be able to make a trip from Ohio to Colorado and back. I'd also rather not put 2,400 miles on the old girl.

The trip to Colorado and Rock and Rumble are my 7th year cancerversary presents to myself.

I feel like I've been cheated out of a couple proper celebrations due to covid-19. No trips,  no big parties. This year I'm making up for that. Two weeks before we head out west for Rock and Rumble,  I'll be celebrating my 7th Cancerversary with a party at my house. 

 My cancerversary is the anniversary of the day I received my stage 4 non small cell lung cancer diagnosis. 

It was August 14, 2015. I went to work that morning with plans  to break away from work for a lunch  appointment with the oncologist regarding pet scan results and return to work for the rest of the day. 

I seriously thought that was the appointment I would be given a surgery date to remove a large lung tumor, find out my recovery time and get follow up treatment information.

Instead, it was the appointment that I learned I was not a candidate for surgery because the cancer was metastatic, inoperable, incurable and terminal. 

Needless to say, I didn't go back to work that afternoon. I returned the next day.  I loved my job. Besides the persistent cough, I felt well. I wasn't going to let lung cancer steal my career. I had to take three weeks off to recover from a surgical biopsy. I did shorten my hours to just 8 hours a day after my return and facing some fatigue during radiation treatments to my lung.

If it wasn’t for my December 2017 hemorrhagic stroke, I'd still be delivering mail in Colorado Springs,  CO today.

Being a letter carrier brought me so much joy. I'm finding other things in life that bring joy. Some are lung cancer advocacy, sewing and pinup.

I advocate for lung cancer awareness and increased research funding whenever I can. My sewing room is being organized and cleaned up as I post this and Cookie DeMartini (my pinup name) has two pinup contests in the books for 2022 with two more upcoming this month.