Spreading Sunshine

This is my traveling Hope scarf 

When you are going through chemo it takes a lot out of you.  First you are anxious, not knowing what to expect. Then the medications make you feel SO sick.  It feels like an alien living inside your body. Sometimes it made me feel so itchy on the inside that I wanted to crawl out of my skin.  Then the chemo made my body ache. It was so difficult to climb the steps to go to bed at night that I ended up crawling up them to bed.  The fatigue was unreal. It was hard to muster the energy to draw on eyebrows and put make up on to feel some sense of normal.

This is the Signature Hope scarf 

When so many things are out of your control, it can be hard to see the sunshine, to find the joy. One way I did that was to find free goodies for women going through cancer. There are so many wonderful organizations big and small that want to make those going through cancer feel better. I wanted to highlight some of them in this blog so that you can get some free sunshine for yourself or spread the joy and share it with a friend going through cancer treatment. Getting a piece of mail made me smile and could brighten my day. Just a pop of color made me feel better that I would put on a bit of make up. It is amazing how these small tokens can have such a huge impact. If you are so inclined and looking to donate, these are great organizations to support.


One of my favorites is HopeScarves  They send scarves to cancer patients to provide hope.  They do this through sending a scarf with a message from another cancer patient that may share a similar story.  They encourage you to send your scarf back when you are done with your OWN story so that it can be sent on to the next women. Their motto has affectionately become "Sisterhood of the traveling scarfs." I love the inspiration that the story provided me. I also LOVE that this organization donates to research for metastatic breast cancer. They also have a signature scarf you can purchase to help support research and providing scarves to others. Hope scarves will accept monetary donations but also accept new and used scarves.  SO many ways to give back.



One surprise goodie I actually stumbled upon in my small town local cancer center. The Giving Yarn, handmade knitted hats. The were left in the cancer center for ladies to take. You can find them on facebook via STARdust-reations-The-Giving-Yarn. She provides free hats to chemo patients. Motto is "in the giving we receive."

Good Wishes Scarves sent a wonderful head covering in a cute package with a sweet message. They send "A hug for your head." They also send their head wraps for any illness that causes hair loss so they support people living with other illnesses besides cancer.

Chemocessories was a wonderful surprise. Their mission is to "Warm hearts one accessory at a time." They certainly warmed my heart and put a great big sunny smile on my face. This organization not only sent a hat, but a scarf, earrings and a bracelet.  It was all very coordinated and crazy enough totally fit my personality and style. With this organization you can donate items through Amazon,  your time with helping in the assembly of packages or through a monetary donation.

Please share in the comments other freebies that will put a smile on someone's face with cancer.