| Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
Category:
EAST LONGMEADOW – It’s not every woman who hosts a dance party in the operating room before her mastectomy. Last spring, Lindsey Bubar did. Video of Bubar, her cousin Nicole Diffley and the OR staff rocking out to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” just before she went under the knife went viral following her operation on April 16.
“My 35 year old cousin Lindsey & I dancing our way into the operating room for her mastectomy,” Diffley wrote on the YouTube post. “EVERYONE should have her attitude and remember "there's never a bad time for a dance party". #dancewithsomebody
It is exactly that kind of indomitable spirit that pulled Bubar through a year of surprise, treatment, uncertainty and more treatment, and will keep her and her support team, Lindsay’s Tribe, walking in this year’s 25th Anniversary Rays of Hope Walk and Run toward a Cure for Breast Cancer on Oct. 21 at Temple Beth El. in Springfield.
Last year, her team raised $14,000 to support the local non-profit that had helped her – and so many other local women facing the same diagnosis – better navigate their breast cancer journey.
Bubar said breast cancer was the last thing she expected when she found a lump in her breast in 2017.
“There’s no breast cancer in my family, there’s no genetic lineage, I’m the first one” Bubar told Reminder Publishing. When she found the lump, she said it didn’t really register, she just thought “something weird” was happening.
“Even through all the doctor visits and evaluations and biopsies and all the things they do to get to that point of what it actually is, through that whole process it was so surreal, and I just kept saying, even after the first biopsy ‘It’s not cancer, we know that. Why would it be cancer, that’s impossible’.”
For the health-conscious mother with two young children, the diagnosis of breast cancer – which came a week after her 35th birthday that July – was a total shock.
“It was so hard to process,” Lindsey said.
Her first round of treatment began in August with six months of chemotherapy. In March of 2018, a follow up lumpectomy revealed the chemo “didn’t get it all.” She had a mastectomy in April, followed by 29 rounds of radiation, which concluded this past July.
“It’s been kind of boring around here ever since, and I couldn’t be happier. Boring has never felt so good,” Lindsey admitted. “I still look back on the past year and it’s so strange to me that I just went through all of that.”
Almost immediately after her initial cancer diagnosis, Lindsey said her family rallied around her to offer support. They also began planning to host a walk team in the annual Rays of Hope Walk toward a Cure for Breast Cancer.
“I’d heard of [Rays of Hope], you cant live in Western Mass and not hear of it,” Lindsey said. “But I’d never participated …I never knew anyone who had breast cancer.”
Bubar said her parents spearheaded her 2017 team, which eventually numbered nearly 80 family, friends and supporters.
“It was a really huge troupe. Lindsey’s Tribe was well-represented by just the most wonderful people, my very best friends who are my sisters, basically, my family both immediate and extended, and then their friends and their family, people that I see maybe once a year if I’m lucky showed up to be part of Lindsey’s Tribe that day.
“It was so heartwarming to be surrounded and supported and loved by all those people,” she added.
When it came to the walk itself, she said the special things she saw done for breast cancer survivors were just overwhelming.
“It’s really just a beautiful thing, the survivor’s tent, you feel like you’re part of this club of just the most amazing, if I can say it – badass – strong, inspirational women and to know that I’m put in a category and people thing even a little of that of me, is just amazing,” she said.
When it came to support for her parents in fundraising for Lindsey’s Tribe, she gave special praise to “the Michelle’s” at Rays of Hope.
“Little meetings for the [team] captains to get ideas for fundraising, how to fundraise, they’ve been very supportive of me and especially my parents in developing the team, and really helping them build thing sup because cancer doesn’t just happen to one person, cancer happens to the whole family, the whole circle of friends and Rays of Hope supports that entire community of people that are impacted by it,” Bubar said.
When Reminder Publishing spoke with Bubar on Sept. 9, her friends and family had already raised nearly $1,600 for this year’s donation, with more than a month to go to the Oct. 21 walk.
“If we aren’t the number one team that’s fine. If we stop right were ewe are that’s ok. I’m glad we’re able to do something for such a wonderful organization that’s a major player in the breast cancer community that supports not just the patient, but the whole community,” Bubar said.
For info on how to join or support Rays of Hope, visit www.baystatehealth.org/about-us/calendar/foundation/rays-of-hope.
To see Bubar’s awesome OR dance party, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu-3KG_deQw