Posted on: 3:44 pm, December 6, 2012, by Nick Dutton and Stephanie Rochon, updated on: 12:35am, December 7, 2012
RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) ??Lisa Thalhimer?s friends and family say she handled many things in life with a great sense of humor.
?No matter what she was going through, she had something funny to say,? says Lisa?s friend Claudia Biegler.
?She was funny and had a great sense of humor,? says her husband of 35 years Bobby Thalhimer.
Thalhimer can relive his wife?s wit through emails she wrote as she fought a very aggressive form of breast cancer called Triple Negative Breast Cancer.
She was diagnosed in December 2008. It was spotted on a mammogram, but Thalhimer says her doctor didn?t think it was cancer and said she could wait three months before having it checked again.
But the tumor grew rapidly and a biopsy revealed it was, in fact, cancer. Thalhimer says Lisa started emailing family and friends almost immediately.
Lisa was a creative writer and Thalhimer says the emails were some of her best writing.
??It was entertaining, ?said Thalhimer.? ?We learned how her chemo visits were turning into parties. Some of the funny things that would happen.?
They also chronicled Lisa?s struggles during treatment, both the physical and emotional.?? In one called ?Shaking the Daisy?s Neck,? she wrote about wanting to strangle a smiling daisy on a hat she?d been given, but instead learned a greater lesson.
Lisa wrote, ?The Happy-Face Daisy and I are friends again. I just needed to change my thinking. An hour of writing and Mission Accomplished!?
?It was a moment of revelation for her that she had to be responsible for how she was going to handle this even though she was feeling awful,? said Thalhimer.
Lisa handled many tough treatment decisions with humor as well.
?Ta-ta to the Tatas!? was an email she wrote about the choice to have a double mastectomy to reduce her chances for reoccurrence.
She wrote, ?I hate to see them depart without a tribute to the girls. They?ve been with me so long, showing up at such an early age when I was still a tomboy and furious that I could no longer play shirtless.?
?She decided if that?s what it takes to survive that?s what I want to do,? said Thalhimer.
But Lisa didn?t survive. She died from breast cancer in the spring of 2010. She was 55 years old. But she lives on in her emails.
?Reading them every night was like looking into her soul,? said Biegler.
Biegler was one of several friends who gave Lisa?s emails to Bobby as a gift.
?It was her book. And she always said she was going to write a book, ? said Biegler.
They are a book now, sort of.? Bobby created an online manuscript that helps raise money for one of Lisa?s other passions ? children?s literacy.
He says readers will also discover another part of Lisa?s legacy, a reminder of the importance of early detection. ??While Lisa?s cancer was diagnosed at a later stage, her sister?s was caught much earlier.
?Early detection can make a difference,? said Thalhimer. ?If her story helps with that, then it?s worth telling over and over again.?
Click here to reach Lisa?s Story: www.tcfrichmond.org?
(give/donor stories/Lisa Thalhimer)
Click here for more on Lisa Thalhimer.?
Source: http://wtvr.com/2012/12/06/buddy-check-6-breast-cancer-victims-emails-offer-inspiration/
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