Tag: jen singer

Jen Singer, one of our fabulous contributors to See Mom Run, who is also a best-selling author, Good Housekeeping contributor, blogger, soccer coach, wife and mother, is hosting a benefit on November 6 that you won’t want to miss. Singer, who is a cancer survivor, will be kicking off The Kiss Cancer Goodbye benefit to support the New Jersey Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. And here at Role Mommy, we’re sponsoring a table at the event and offering free tickets to the benefit for 10 of our readers!
Here’s a very special message from Jen:
When I found out I had cancer, I did what any twenty-first century parent would do: I Googled it. But when I searched “parenting with cancer,” I mostly found sites about how to care for a child with the disease. When it came to being a parent and having cancer, it seemed I was on my own.
So I made it up as I went along, explaining to my children, Nicholas, ten, and Christopher, eight, that I had a big blob in my chest that doctors would shrink down with special medicine that would make my hair fall out. It was a tricky conversation. Just two days earlier, Chris had asked, “What’s the worst disease you can get?” And now, I had it.
As a result, my sons would have their end-of-year class parties, Cub Scouts graduation, the last day of school and the swim team picnic without me as I battled a six-inch tumor in my lung, the product of an aggressive form of lymphoma. I ended up in the hospital much of the same time that Paris Hilton was in jail. Watching frenzied coverage of the heiress’ release to freedom with my hospital roommate, who was nearing death’s door, was proof to me that the world had indeed been knocked off its axis.
Meanwhile, my entire house was undergoing renovations. When a neighbor saw the piles of torn-down sheetrock and bent nails in my house, she remarked, “If this house isn’t a metaphor for what’s going on with you, I don’t know what is.” But it never occurred to me to quit – either the home remodeling or the cancer treatments, which were causing such severe bone pain, it would literally knock me to my knees…sometimes in front of my kids. And there’s simply nothing about that sort of thing in parenting books.
Throughout my battle with stage 3 non Hodgkin’s lymphoma, I blogged about it for my site, MommaSaid.net, and at Good Housekeeping.com. Now in remission nearly two years, I want to celebrate, yes, but also give back by holding a fundraiser/remission party with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society at The Smoke Rise Inn in Kinnelon, NJ on November 6th. New Jersey’s hottest reggae band, The Flying Mueller Brothers, will perform and I will present “If Cancer is a Gift, Where Can I Return it?” There will also be a special appearance by The Sugar Hill Gang. For details, drop by the event page: http://event.pingg.com/KissCancerGoodbye.
If you would like to attend the benefit or make a donation, you can contact Jen directly at jen@mommasaid.net. Or, if you are quick on your keyboard, Role Mommy is proud to sponsor a table of 10 at Jenn’s event. And we’d like to offer our favorite Role Mommies the chance to attend as our special guests. The first five people to comment on our blog will receive two tickets. Get ready for a wonderful evening for a really important cause!