Exciting New Changes Just Announced For Minnesota-Based Magazine

A big change has been announced for an amazing magazine published in Minnesota.  And if you are a woman, this is a magazine you should be reading.  #JustSayin

Exciting Change Is Brewing For Minnesota-Based Magazine

A little tease happened on social media recently by a Minnesota-based magazine.  This magazine is one of my favorites because many years ago, I was asked to share some of my own story.  My hair might be a little bit darker in the photo below but I promise, that is me in the picture.

Just a few years before the Rochester Area Family YMCA closed, I was there and working with cancer survivors through a program called Livestrong.  I will never forget the heartbreaking conversations that I had each day with those who were in one of the toughest battles of their lives: cancer.

Not only was this program life-changing for the participants but this was for me as well.  In the last few weeks of my Senior year in high school, my sister was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  It wasn't by choice but I knew every word associated with cancer and was even told that I was my sister's match for her bone marrow transplant.  Unfortunately, that transplant never happened and she passed away.

"No one gives you the path you are to take when you have to leave a hospital and never be with the person that is now gone.  There is no follow-up.  There isn't a six-month check-up for the survivors of the cancer patient.  The doctors and nurses you knew and relied on for knowledge and information and sometimes comfort, they don't follow you out the doors."

- Jessica On The Radio in Rochester Women Magazine

That's not my full story though.

Livestrong Helped Me Break My Own Silence

Trauma is messy.  Everyone handles it in their own way and there isn't a set timeline of when and how to get through it.  When you've got a few happening all at once, some might even call that the impossible nightmare.

Cancer is one trauma.  Losing a childhood sibling is another.  Having a college professor who treats you like crap after you come back from burying your sister was the third for me.  Somehow I was supposed to just go through life like the last 2+ years didn't just ruin it.  The only way I could get through the reality that was waiting for me was to shut my mouth and try to put that chapter away and just move forward.

Life has a crazy way to come full-circle and Livestrong was that for me.  While the participants were healing, I too was allowed to finally recover from the trauma I experienced about 20 years prior.

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Leadership Is Changing But The Support For Women Is Not at Rochester Women Magazine

I've always been a fan of Rochester Women Magazine and am excited for this next chapter it just announced.

The big news is finally here
Emily is passing the leadership of Rochester Women Magazine.
Please welcome our new owner and publisher Tawonda Burks! ✨
Join us in celebrating this new chapter:
✈️ Happy Hour Celebration:
Thursday, July 11
4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Latitude 44
Thank you for your continued support ❤️