Shawnigan fights cancer

The fight against cancer surged through the School gates as Shawnigan welcomed the 2018 Tour de Rock.

 

An annual tradition, this year's efforts culminated with a Wednesday morning visit from the Cops for Cancer.

 

Clutching homemade signs and wearing this year's 'word shirts' emblazoned with the word "Persevere," students lined the driveway for the Tour's 9 a.m. arrival.

 

The visit included a moving speech from A-J M., who encouraged her peers to cherish the moment. A Grade 12 student in Groves' House, A-J's arrival at Shawnigan was delayed for a year after she was diagnosed with cancer in her humerus in the fall of 2017.

 

"It's crazy how one little word can change everything," A-J told her peers, as she talked about how she and her family coped with the illness and how she grew as a person during her treatment. Now cancer free, A-J said "The key to life is to find beauty, even in the suffering."

 

After the departure of the Tour de Rock team, the Shawnigan celebration continued with public head-shavings of the highest fundraisers on campus. Meanwhile, students took turns being strapped into stretchers (representing the loneliness of a cancer battle) for 30 minutes at a time.

 

 

On Tuesday, the community was inspired by a message from English teacher Jay Connolly, who shared recollections from his diagnosis and battle with leukemia. "I felt like I'd been pushed into one of those torture rooms where the walls and floor and ceiling close in," Mr. Connolly said. "This is the story of what it feels like to be in one of those rooms."

 

Mr. Connolly spoke about how the blessings he saw all around him were painful, knowing the possibility he faced of losing them. However, his perspective changed when a nurse gave him a message of hope in the middle of a chemotherapy treatment: "I know this is difficult," he remembered the nurse saying. "But that just means it's working. The cancer cells are dying."

 

Mr. Connolly encouraged students to support causes like the Cops for Cancer enthusiastically, pointing to how Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope had changed the conversation about cancer. "Terry Fox wasn't about the run," he said. "It was about the hope. It was about changing the cancer story from pessimism to optimism."

 

Picking up on Mr. Connolly's message, Grade 10 student Chelsie W. performed the song Anyone who wishes, written by Jay and Jack Connolly.

 

 

Chelsie W. led all fundraisers this year, accumulating more than $6,000 in pledges towards the Shawnigan total. Moments before she shaved her head on Wednesday, Shawnigan presented the Cops for Cancer with a cheque for $23,000.

 

Shawnigan also sent four busloads of participants to Sunday's CIBC Run for the Cure, while Grade 12 students organized a successful charity dodgeball tournament on Saturday evening.