Wear Pink to the Rink!

If you live in the area (or even if you don’t), I urge you to don pink and come out to watch 18-year breast cancer-survivor, Feather Janz, sing the anthems and drop the puck at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre tonight. Feather told me her story yesterday and she is ready and waiting to tell it to anyone who wants to hear it. Breast cancer is the #1 killer of Canadian women ages 34-49, our young Moms, and Feather wants to know: “What are we going to do about it?”

Tonight Feather is going to sing and drop a puck and get a tattoo at the Abbotsford Heat game to raise awareness, hope, and money in the fight against breast cancer. She knows all about that fight. At the age of 23 she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer that took her left breast, but not her will to survive.

Twelve years later she developed an entirely different form of cancer in her right breast which had spread to her lymph nodes before she caught it. By this time she had 2 daughters, ages 2 and 4. Carmella and Cadence will be on the ice tonight to watch their Mom drop the puck to open the Heat game. She survived cancer the second time, for them.

According to Feather, cancer is a radical disease that needs to be treated radically. Feather fought hard as the doctors cut it, burned it, poisoned it, and with the help of her Naturopath, starved it. “I wanted my girls to know that their Mommy did everything possible to live for them.”

Feather is stronger and healthier today than ever before. She is a college instructor, Children’s Ministries Director, fitness instructor, speaker (she addressed the House of Commons last year to advocate for the passage of the Breast Density Awareness Bill), and now, anthem-singer! A long-time choir member and worship leader, Feather accepted the challenge of learning the American anthem with the same gusto she mustered when appearing on Canada AM: “I told God a long time ago that I wouldn’t go knocking, but every time He opened one for me, I would put my best foot forward and walk through that door.”

“I prayed for God to keep me alive long enough that the girls would really know their Mom.” According to Feather, her daughters are smart, beautiful, and love the Lord. They sound to me like the mirror image of their mother. Wear pink to the rink tonight and see for yourself: www.abbotsfordheat.com/tickets/single/ or 1 877 452-HEAT(4328)