Last night I had a dream

Enormous football arenas were overpacked with wildly cheering fans. The commentators were all familiar to me. Multiple cities across North America and around the world were showcasing similar events. Each was being telecast live, and I could see multiple large screens with views of the action around the world. Our view kept switching from location to location because there were so many action-packed venues. The energy in the arena was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The sound was deafening. The air electric. The crowds were cheering enthusiastically as lung cancer researchers made advances.

Lung cancer researchers? Yes, researching right on the field, and the commentators all were lung cancer advocates/activists/fundraisers, and I was one too, in my own arena. And we were doing the play-by-play, telling the crowds at home what was happening on the field. There were all kinds of half-time type shows, and great celebration and pageantry. Cheers would erupt as we would learn of advances in other stadiums. We were celebrating wildly!

And Chris Draft* would show up in one city after another, wild cheering breaking out whenever people saw him in their own city or on screen at a remote location. He would spend time with the commentators and with the crowds, and everyone would celebrate! He’d encourage everyone and the cheers would erupt and then he pop over to his next venue, and it would happen all over again.

Every arena, all around the world, enthusiastically cheering on lung cancer research! Advances being made in treatments and all manner of discoveries!

That is a dream worth having! An even better dream is for lung cancer to be cured!

Chris Draft of the Draft Family Foundation: Inspiring Advocate!

* Chris Draft is a former NFL linebacker. This month, he and Keasha Rutledge Draft would have celebrated their seventh anniversary. She died of lung cancer. Chris tenaciously continues the legacy they both started. He is a tremendous lung cancer advocate, strategist and mentor. He is a hero to many of us in the lung cancer community. I am grateful to him for supporting and encouraging me, and teaching me so much! He has come to Ottawa several times, and phones regularly.

Chris started the Super Bowl Challenge, where lung cancer survivors compete to raise money for lung cancer research. Whoever raises the most gets a free trip to the Super Bowl. The second and third prizes are pretty good too!

I entered because I really want to go to the Super Bowl, but more than that, I want to raise money for lung cancer research. This is something I’m obviously passionate about!

I’ve met many wonderful people with lung cancer. Interesting, funny, generous, thoughtful, smart, caring people. People who are very much loved by their family, their friends. People who have made a tremendous difference in their communities and elsewhere in the world.

I love these people and I can’t tell you how much I want better outcomes for them, for us!

With 1 in 12 people getting it, you probably love someone with lung cancer too.

Please, help me raise money for lung cancer research! Would you give, and ask your friends and family to give as well?

Our family and friends are singing our lungs out for lung cancer research this month! We’re doing a song a day and posting them on YouTube. We call it “Love Songs for Lungs”, and we’re raising hope, awareness and funds for lung cancer research. We’re having a lot of fun doing it! If you haven’t seen us yet, check us out! And if you like what we’re doing, please “like” our songs and tell your friends, because that will help too!

Here’s the link to support lung cancer research, the good work of Chris Draft, and maybe even help me win a trip to the Super Bowl:

https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/jill-hw-love-songs-for-lungs

And if you haven’t seen our songs yet … please check them out! Today will be #19, a classic love song done in a new way with a friend I’ve known since elementary school.

Here’s my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe_-U2z2imwrQpKikpisxgQ/videos

Thank you.

Our beautiful Ottawa lung cancer group. (you may recognize Andrea (front left) from a “Love Songs for Lungs” video!)