Every once and a while, one of our members really stands out and reminds all of us what ‘living for today’ really means for someone with cancer. When faced with something that they want to do, or accomplish, or be, they don’t let anything hold them back. It’s inspiring to watch them overcome physical limitations, medical challenges, and difficult circumstances, purely with their positive mindset and perspective on life. ‘Live for today’ is how they choose to look at everyday situations and on our June group event, one of our members, Kara, did just that.
Our group met up at Taco Lu for dinner where we enjoyed some queso, guacamole, salsa and chips, amazing tacos, and finished the meal off with an incredible fried tortilla and ice cream dessert called “Sopapillas”. Taco Lu was so generous and donated so much food to us, that we had a ton of leftovers! Marissa absolutely loved how healthy the guacamole was and took it home to enjoy again the next day and our new member, June, brought her sister the leftover ice-cream dough balls as a thank you for driving her back and forth to treatment from South Carolina to The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.
After an amazing dinner, we all drove over to Adventure Landing who had donated passes for us to try out some of their most popular attractions. Go karting was unanimously decided upon as our first activity and while the majority of our group went over to the single riders lane, one of our members, Kara, who is physically disabled and wheelchair bound told Todd that she had never been go karting before and would really like to go. The duo didn’t skip a beat and got safely set up in a two-person kart so Todd could drive.
The spontaneously teamed up pair had a great chance to bond and chat about how Kara and Kaitlyn, one of our co-founders, met when they were younger and all about their history together as childhood cancer patients. Their great conversation didn’t detract from the competition however and they ended up blowing away the others, coming in first place!
Next, everyone decided to tee it up and try their luck at putt-putt golf. The course was not designed to be handicap accessible, and when someone mentioned that to Kara, her response was simply, “well, if it’s not made handicap accessible, I can just make it accessible.” She played all of the holes in her wheelchair, impressing and inspiring all of us. Todd and Maja both sank hole-in-one putts and everyone had a great time.
It’s hard not to get excited about laser tag. The thrill and anticipation made it one of the most exciting attractions of the day. Almost instantly, everyone split into teams once they got inside the course. Maja and todd teamed up. Kaitlyn, her boyfriend and Kara formed an alliance. But sneakily, Alex went rogue. No clear winners came out of our laser tag round, but by the end we were all laughing and having such a good time that it really didn’t matter.
The next thing we know, we realized that the whole evening had flown by and we only had time for one more attraction. So, Alex asked to go on the Max Flight Coaster Simulator. He put on a pair of 3D glasses and got super excited. We all watched on the video screen as he experienced what a roller coaster feels like and his facial expressions were absolutely priceless. By the end, his glasses were crooked on his face and he had a huge smile.
The entire experience lent to a lot of great one-on-one bonding within the group and it was awesome to get to know each other on a deeper level. Everyone is really comfortable hanging out together and talking about whatever they feel like, whether that be casual and fun or about their treatment and experience with their own cancer battles. We all enjoyed getting to know our new member, June, and are already looking forward to our next event in July!
We would sincerely like to thank everyone at Taco Lu and Adventure Landing for making this group event possible and so much fun! We’ve got another group event coming up soon, so follow us on our social media channels for the latest updates!
