'Chase every sunset'

COEUR d'ALENE - White cloth napkins dabbed many a tearful eye as Jim Morrison picked up his 13-month-old grandaughter and hugged her close.

"This is what a goal looks like," he said to the crowd, his voice breaking.

Morrison, a stage 4 lung cancer survivor, told the attendees of the Susan G. Komen Promise Celebration brunch Saturday how he was told when he was diagnosed in 2004 that he would never live to see his daughter get married, to see his first granddaughter born or even to see many more sunrises.

But he beat the odds.

"Set a goal and go after it," he said. "I learned to fear regret more than failure ... Even if you die trying, you die trying.

"Cherish every sunrise, and chase every sunset."

Morrison, of Coeur d'Alene, is the first male to be chosen as a speaker for the Promise Celebration, which is now in its third year. It was held on the Lakeview Terrace of The Coeur d'Alene Resort, where about 100 people, many cancer survivors, braved the chilly autumn wind and rejoiced when the sun broke through the clouds.

Guest speaker Lindsay McNally of Boise, with short, purple hair, followed Morrison's heartfelt presentation with her own. She shared with the audience that the purple is to raise awareness for metastatic breast cancer, also known as stage 4 advanced breast cancer, which is cancer that spreads beyond the breasts into other parts of the body.

"That's when it becomes incurable, and that's when it becomes fatal, and that's when you start hearing some pretty scary things," she said. "No one has died from breast cancer that's just stayed in their breast, it's when it spreads beyond."

She said it is estimated that more than 155,000 people in the U.S. are living with metastatic breast cancer.

"This is a statistic nobody really wants to hear," she said. "The median survival is three years, and in 1978 it was 18 months."

McNally said metastatic patients will be on treatment the rest of their lives, therefore they are "forever fighters," haunted by a cancer that will never leave. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, went through treatment - lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and medication - and thought she had beat it when in 2013, she discovered a pain in her leg.

"As it turned out, I had a hairline fracture in my hip," she said. "They told me again, 'You have cancer. It's in your skull, it's in your sternum, it's in your pelvis, your wrist.' It felt like my entire body was riddled with cancer."

Both Morrison and McNally shared the darkness and tragedies they suffered in the grips of cancer, but they also had something powerful in common - their messages of hope.

Morrison, who only had a 2 percent chance of surviving five years past his diagnosis, has dedicated his life to helping other cancer patients, who he calls "cancer warriors," as they struggle through their initial diagnosis and learn to live with, and hopefully beat, cancer.

"If an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends," Morrison said. "But if an egg is broken by an inside force, life begins. And great things always begin from the inside, and isn't that where cancer starts, on the inside?"

McNally said her battle with cancer has given her a sense of clarity. She is more aware of her surroundings and continues to live her life to the fullest.

"I found a new lease on life, new things I can do," she said. "I've learned to live a new life. I have absolutely no regrets about anything."

Recent breast cancer survivor Tina Botai of Harrison attended the celebration with her husband and best friend, two people who loved and supported her through the initial devastating diagnosis, a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction. She will be running the Race for the Cure today for her good friend who has metastatic breast cancer.

"It speaks to my heart," she said of Morrison and McNally's experiences. "The emotional part that you go through, it touches you. You worry every day, 'Is it going to come back?' Every little lump, are you OK? You have to have to drive, I am a driver, I drive, head down and you keep going. You get up in the morning and you go. That's what you have to keep doing. I have goals, I have things that I want to do with my life, and that was part of having the mastectomy. I have goals, I want to see my grandkids. I have goals for myself with my horses. We moved up here to live the dream, and I'm not letting cancer take the dream away."

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Coeur d'Alene is today at 9 a.m. (timed) and 10 a.m. (nontimed) at North Idaho College. Prices: Adult 5K, $35; youth 5K, $20; adult 5K, timed, $45; youth 5K, timed, $20; adult 10K, timed, $55; youth 10K, timed, $45. According to its website, the Susan G. Komen nonprofit has invested more than $2.6 billion in breast cancer research, outreach, advocacy and programs in more than 30 countries since its inception in 1982.

Info: www.komenidahomontana.org