The Owen Sound Hospital Foundation has honoured a fundraising champion and patient with a commemorative plaque.
Heather Little was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer in 2020 and has been receiving treatment in Owen Sound. She wanted to do something to commemorate her fight and the fight of so many others, and when she found out there was a fundraising goal to hit to earn a plaque in the Owen Sound Oncology Unit, she leapt at the chance to go for it.
"I wanted something to be commemorative and to be there forever, showing the hard work that the Heather Strong community has put together, and all the fundraising toward Owen Sound Oncology and previously Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. As soon as I found out there was an opportunity to have a plaque I said 'We're gonna get there and we're gonna do it,'" Little enthused.
The goal was $50,000, to symbolize her fiftieth chemo treatment, and Heather blew past that with well over $65,000 raised so far. She remembers that when she first decided to go for it, she wasn't even sure it could be done.
"I thought it was completely impossible, but as I mentioned, the Heather Strong community stepped up, and without missing a beat, the goal was hit," beamed Little.
Heather Strong, as Little refers to, is in reference to the popular blog she started at the beginning of her cancer journey in 2020. Heather has shared her entire battle, the good parts, brutal, challenging and uplifting.
To read the blog is to share in Heather's eternal optimism through immense struggle. Her battle has not been and won't continue to be an easy one, but she has chosen to bare all in an effort to shed light on what cancer patients can go through, and hopefully inspire others to not give up fighting.
The blog came to be rather quickly, as Heather shares. She says she had friends and family suggesting a blog to her very early in her diagnoses, and she says around the second day into her journey, she decided to look into how to go about doing it, and it took off from there.
"A few people had suggested a blog, and I didn't know how to blog or what to do about that. So I just looked it up and I started blogging, and it was the best way for me to get the information across to everybody that was interested in following my journey and supporting me along the way," explained Little.
Through that Heather Strong community that quickly rallied around her story, she was able to blow past her fundraising goal, something she says is evidence of an immense kindness and goodness in the local region and beyond.
"I say it's an embarrassment of riches because, I don't deserve it, I'm just another person who's trying to make a difference and make good things come out of bad situations. Seeing that community surround me is, you know, sometimes reflecting back on it, it's overwhelming," Little stated humbly.
In terms of where she's at right now, Heather says things are still very much an uphill battle. She has good days and bad days, and she's had to start a fourth line of treatment. Her and her team are hopeful this will at least keep the tumours where they were the last time they were examined, and she has a scan upcoming in September.
Regardless of the ongoing fight, Heather remains ever the optimist, and her glass-half-full spirit, as she refers to it in her blog, is evident having only spoken to her for a brief time for this piece.
To find out more about Heather Little and her ongoing battle, or to contribute to her ongoing Heather Strong fundraising efforts through her merchandise, visit https://theheatherlittle.wordpress.com/.