CHICAGO, IL. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — When Cathy Nilson was diagnosed with breast cancer she knew she had a tough road ahead. But in addition to months of chemo and radiation, Nilson added something to her treatment that wasn’t prescribed by doctors: laughter and positivity. It came in the form of hats that she asked family and friends to send her … never realizing even strangers would tip their hats to her.
As a wife, mother and full-time worker … 56-year-old Nilson wore many hats.
But as a breast cancer patient she wore even more.
Nilson told Ivanhoe, “One of my friends said let’s have a scarf party! And I said ‘I am not a scarf gal. Send me a hat.’”
It was a call to action that had family, friends and even strangers tossing their hats into Nilson’s cancer-fighting ring.
Her sons, Trevor and Spencer Nilson, said, “I would just go out the front door to go get the mail and there’d be a package there every single day.” “Yup I’d just come home and there’d be a stack of three or four boxes just right at the front door.”
As the hats poured in, so did the smiles and laughter.
In all, 114 hats came in from 11 different states. Nilson wore every one of them, giving Facebook friends something to look forward to and leading to something you don’t often hear in northwestern medicine’s oncology center.
Valerie M. Nelson, MD, MBA, oncologist at Northwestern Medicine said, “People looked to see her and couldn’t wait to see her; what’s she wearing today? What hat does she have today? From the front desk, to the radiation folks, to the infusion center, the patients. It was pretty incredible.”
“You can either wallow in self-pity or you can just say this is what I’ve been dealt, and I’m gonna deal with it the best I can,” Nilson said.
And when the treatments leave you drained, physically and emotionally, laughter really can feel like the best medicine.
Now that Cathy is finished with her treatments and in remission she says it’s time to pay it forward and pass the hats on, just in time for October, breast cancer awareness month. She donated most of her hats to other cancer patients.
Contributors to this news report include: Jessica Sanchez, Field Producer; Brogan Morris, Assistant Producer; Tony Dastoli, Videographer; and Jamie Koczan, Editor.
