New Journey

As I start my second week at the Ulman Cancer Fund, I am excited and energized about this new journey in my life. In my position as the Intake and Resource Coordinator, I will be taking phone calls and email contacts and providing information about Ulman and other resources that might be helpful to individuals or cancer professionals. I most recently worked as a business analyst and trainer at a financial firm, but did not feel rewarded in my job.

I was introduced to the Ulman Cancer Fund in March 2008 when I attended the One Night, One Fight event with Sheryl Crow. I volunteered at a few events when I learned about a new position. I was immediately inspired and felt called to work with young adults with cancer. As a three time cancer fighter I know first hand what it is like to try to cope with cancer along with the daily trials and tribulations of life.

My journey has been a long and interesting one. I am not fond of the words survivor or victim. I think calling myself a survivor is like tempting fate. Having Cancer is a never-ending war with lots of battles, each battle takes a winner and a loser; statistics might be like: cancer 2, patient 5. Who knows how the whole war will end….

Instead of victim - I prefer to think myself as a recipient of a gift. The word victim has a “lose” mentality. Granted the gift of cancer is not what you want and certainly one you can live without (no pun intended)! But think about all the gifts we get at Christmas, birthdays or other times in our lives that people give us (and something they think we may like it, but in reality it is awful) and our first thought is why me or how can we get rid of it right away.

Gifts are not always what we want and wars and battles are not fun, but we learn a lot from them.

Allison
Intake & Resource Coordinator