Narrator: Good Day Tulsa, with your host D.C. Roberts, Keith Taylor, Mike Collier, and Kristin Dickerson. Good Day Tulsa.
Mike Collier: But standing by your son during his recovery from cancer Linda Armstrong never gave up hope and for her son Lance. She now travels and speaks on behalf of the Lance Armstrong foundation to help raise awareness for cancer victims, and we will talk to her very shortly.
D.C. Roberts: You couldn’t meet a nicer lady.
Mike Collier: Exactly.
D.C. Roberts: And next we’re going to talk with Lance Armstrong’s mom. She is so pretty, and so pretty inside. Celebrating life with cancer survivors. We’re going to talk with Linda Armstrong Kelly when we come back on Good Day Tulsa, so stick around won’t you?..... And welcome back it’s Friday can’t you tell it’s 9:11. Standing by her son when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, I’ll spit that out, Linda Armstrong Kelly now makes it her mission to speak out to raise awareness about cancer research also about cancer education and she is in town today speaking at the Celebrate Life event honoring five year cancer survivors. Linda it is so great to have you in.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: It’s great to see you DC.
D.C. Roberts: Oh, it’s great to see you, you look great. Let’s talk about this event this is a very uplifting event isn’t it? A great time as it says to celebrate.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: We are celebrating life and any survivor that reaches that five year mark is a huge celebration.
D.C. Roberts: Yeah.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: So today we’re honoring survivors.
D.C. Roberts: Isn’t that great, and that’s so great that you would take time to do this for everybody but you can really speak to this of course with your son Lance having cancer.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: It every year it seems it would get easier, but really it doesn’t. I mean it’s on my mind all the time and here at the station I talked to some people that have a relative or themselves that’s been diagnosed so it’s on my mind everyday, and fortunately Lance will celebrate eleven years of survivorship this year.
D.C. Roberts: Such a blessing. And also, lets talk a little about caregivers because you know they give so much and they have to celebrate too don’t they?
Linda Armstrong Kelly: Caregivers have the hardest job of anybody. The focus is always and should be on the patient, but what you put around that patient is important that caregiver, the family, the friends, and being able to talk about it and stay extremely positive. For me, being positive is not difficult, but I got to tell you when Lance was sick and had a 40% chance of survival it was tough I mean.
D.C. Roberts: No kidding.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: I would go to my room every night and cry, but I didn’t let him see me crying. You know I felt it was important to talk about tomorrow and try not to change anything that you’re doing.
D.C. Roberts: But that really does take a drain on these people doesn’t it? Because just as you know you are always trying to have that face for the patient, but yet you still have to deal with all those emotions.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: Absolutely, and I think more importantly too is to be able to help that patient with the, get the information that they need because as someone that’s sick there’s so much information thrown at you and information is knowledge and having that caregiver with you as I was to chronicle everything that I was learning to log everything that I learned and to read as much information as we possibly could.
D.C. Roberts: And let’s talk about that piece about just being preventive if you can. It’s so easy when you feel good to think, “Oh you know I’ll get that test later I’ll do that in a couple of months”, but you can’t do that can you?
Linda Armstrong Kelly: Early diagnosis is so very important. People are learning this more and more and more. I believe that if you are diagnosed and caught it early enough it can be cured and depending on certainly the situation but early diagnosis, self exams, please take time to do that.
D.C. Roberts: And I want to show you a picture. This was in the Tulsa World yesterday. Such a great picture. This is Lance when he was 15 years old and he had won a big event here in Tulsa, a big race and they were talking about in the article the guy that he beat was saying you know he thought Lance was so far behind him and he looked and he was right there and he was "thinking this guy is going to be unbelievable and he’s 15" and isn’t that great?
Linda Armstrong Kelly: Oh. That is so great. I that was a very positive positive experience many years ago. Lance was 15 he’ll be 37, but when we came up here for that triathlon it, I mean we drove from Plano Texas that morning and I think drove up early, early. It was such a positive experience and those memories will live on forever.
D.C. Roberts: And lets talk a little about to about what people can do as far as surrounding not only the patient but the caregivers. You’ve got to have a support system don’t you, you’ve go to have those friends and family.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: And absolutely you have to have somebody there helping you collect this information, leading you along, keeping that positive attitude. Also, talking about it. The patient is often times doesn’t want to talk about cancer and it’s a difficult thing understood but I think it’s important because you learn so much from other people whenever your sharing your condition.
D.C. Roberts: And at the event today, Celebrate Life you’re going to be the address, key note speaker. Tell us what you’re going to hope to impart to people just a little bit about what we’ve been talking about?
Linda Armstrong Kelly: My goal is to be able to share my story and that somebody in that audience will realize that, that hope is there. We are walking testimony for Lance’s story, and certainly from what I, that journey we walked through that there’s hope and that’s the message I want to give people.
D.C. Roberts: Well, and Linda people will listen to you.
Linda Armstrong Kelly: Thank you.
D.C. Roberts: So that’s great seeing you, you always look so great.
Linda: Thank you
D.C. Roberts: We’re going to give you some more information at Cancer Treatment Centers of America you can get all kind of great help. You can call them at 918-286-5000; also you can go online they have a wonderful website with all kinds of tools to help you, cancercenter.com. And Mike, it’s so great of course to see Linda and what a positive message to let people know that there is hope out there and you can be positive about it.
Mike Collier: Yes. Definitely, that sounds really good.