Evening of Hope welcomes patients, survivors, caregivers

POST FALLS — The North Idaho Cancer Warriors monthly Evening of Hope will begin again at 5:15 p.m. March 5.

The free cancer support group has not held an in-person event since January 2024, when its meeting location, the Post Falls Library, experienced burst pipes and flooding brought on by severe winter weather.

With the library's doors open, the group will once again serve as a welcoming space for cancer patients, survivors and caregivers.

“You’re not talking to doctors," group founder Jim Morrison said Feb. 12. "You’re talking to cancer survivors. We speak your language.”

Morrison, a longtime North Idaho resident and 21-year Stage 4 lung cancer survivor, launched the group in 2016. It survived a pause during the COVID pandemic and continues to connect with a newsletter recipient list of about 100 people.

With another revival in 2025, Morrison said the format to begin with will be simple.

"We’re just going to talk. We’re going to be there for cancer people and cancer caregivers,” he said. “It’s going to be a roundtable discussion of the good, bad and ugly of cancer.”

One Evening of Hope participant and volunteer is Adam Borg, 42, who has been involved since the beginning. Borg is a Stage 4 terminal brain cancer survivor. 

“I had emergency surgery down at Kootenai (Health) where they had to remove a tumor the size of my fist,” Borg said. "They got 90% of it out. It’s a glioblastoma, which is one you don’t want to have. Survival rate is like nothing. We had a guy in our group whose doctor literally told him, ‘Go home and get your affairs in order. You’re a walking dead man.’ He and I were tumor brothers, glio brothers.”

A year and a half later, Borg's cancer came back.

"My doctor told me, 'This is what it does, eventually it’s going to kill you,’ he said, ‘or, take my advice, do the treatments and don’t stop praying for a miracle,'" Borg said. "And eight weeks later it was totally gone. That’s been 12 years.”

Borg said since his experience, he and his wife have felt called to help where they can. 

“One of the main reasons that I’m still here and the purpose that I’m still here is to spread hope and talk with people,” he said. "If there’s anything I can do — listen to them, encourage them, anything like that — that’s why I’m here. I’m here for a reason."

These tales of survival and hope are the heart of this cancer support group, which will soon feature speakers and professionals to share more stories and resources with attendees.

Evening of Hope meetings will be from 5:15 to 6:45 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month at the Post Falls Library, 142 W. Mullan Ave., Post Falls.

See North Idaho Cancer Warriors Evening of Hope on Facebook for details.

    Borg