Throwback: The I'm Too Young For This Cancer Foundation

Once again backlogged by a week, but ICYMI, last week's episode of #OufOfPatients was the throwback of all throwbacks to the early 2000s at the very dawn of the young adult cancer movement. 

The I'm Too Young For This Cancer Foundation, aka i[2]y, manifested into existence out of the slowly burning embers of LIVESTRONG before the mighty skyline fell later that decade.

Stupid Cancer and CancerCon were but glimmer sin the primordial soup of pre-social media and pre-smartphones. We heralded and lauded our Blackberrys and Palm Pilots as bloggers, so-called gurus, and forum leaders shepherded us to MySpace and Friendster as our DSL lines crapped out as our dial-up modems rusted into obscurity.

But the AYAs showed up in force, one of whom was the mighty Leah Sheaarer (Noonan), a G1 volunteer who saw and felt her own experience with cancer in the brand ethos I was hoping to bring to an entire generation of patients and caregivers who needed permission to pissed, a community of their own and the right to survive with equity and dignity.

I welcomed Leah to OffScrip Health studios for not only an epic reunion but for a reflective and comical romp through the hay about what it took to build a movement from scratch that offered millions of adolescent and young adult cancer patients, survivors, and their families what they never knew they needed. #YALC

Prepare for a true origin story as we age gracefully.