Join The Shade Project for the Inaugural Drive to Fight Skin Cancer Golf Tournament!
Purchase Tickets Here
Sponsorship Opportunities
By Kali Glover
By Kali Glover
Join us and our Co-Founder, Lurleen Ladd, for her CD release concert, benefiting The Shade Project for Amplify Austin!
Location: Peached Social House | 6500 N Lamar Blvd | Austin, TX 78752
Date: Friday, March 1, 2019
Doors: 7:00 pm | Concert: 8:00 pm
A $25 donation per person is requested through Amplify Austin or at the door.
By Kali Glover
The Shade Project has been selected to participate in a charity competition with Tiff’s Treats to celebrate their 20th Anniversary. Help us win by sharing our charity code SHADE2019 and by placing an order with Tiff’s Treats. Make sure you enter this code at checkout in the charity promotion code box each time you order! The code will deduct a penny off each order and that’s your indication that this sale has been recorded.
Ten percent of our sales using charity code SHADE2019 throughout the entire month of January will go to The Shade Project. The organization with the most sales at the end of January will win $20,000!
OUR CODE: SHADE2019
*Valid 1/3 – 1/31 Only*
By Kali Glover
This will be the biggest party yet! Tons of surprises in store! Enjoy handcrafted mint juleps, wine beer, and southern fare. We’ll have a live Kentucky Derby broadcast, live music, dancing, a bourbon lounge and amazing one of a kind live and silent auction items.
By Kali Glover
Date: October 25, 2018
Time: 7 p.m.- 10:30 p.m.
Location: Star Hill Ranch – 15000 Hamilton Pool Rd, Bee Cave, TX
$125 ticket price includes:
By Kali Glover
By Kali Glover
Wednesday, June 27 at 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM | La Holly | 2500 E 6th street, Austin, Texas 78702
By Kali Glover
By Kali Glover
On July 21st, 2015, I got the phone call that will forever change my life. I was told I have melanoma, skin cancer. About two weeks prior, I had a nasty mole on my thigh removed and it was sent in to get biopsied. All I was able to do is cry at first. Why? Well, I was only 22 years-old. I just had a baby exactly two months before that. I never tanned, and I hated being out in the sun in general. Honestly the only thing I could ask myself was, am I [going to] die? I laid in my bed looking out into the living room at my sweet baby boy. I wiped away my tears and told myself, I got this. I will beat this. I have my son to raise.
Within the next couple weeks, I was meeting new doctors and learning so many new things, and it did get overwhelming at times. Since I did just have a baby, my stomach was still going down, and since I had a c-section, it took longer. I happened to notice a hard lump in my groin. I showed it to my doctors and they sent me to get it biopsied. It came back positive for melanoma. The cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. I was officially “staged” I guess you can say. I couldn’t believe that I had stage 3C metastatic melanoma. I couldn’t believe that I had cancer. I didn’t feel sick. I always thought you felt sick if you had cancer. There was so much I didn’t understand. All I know was that I just wanted it removed and I wanted to continue with my life.
Since it spread to my lymph nodes, my oncologist quickly got me set up for surgery. On August 27th, I went in for the big surgery. I had the rest of the melanoma tumor removed from my leg and 14 lymph nodes removed from my groin and thigh. I have three scars. Two 6-inch scars and one 12-inch scar. Once all my results came back, I came to learn that not only one lymph node tested positive, two did. I also learned that where they removed the rest of the tumor, the cancer was already seeding in a new place. Thankfully they got it cut out when they removed the original one. Recovery sucked. I had two live with two drainage tubes hanging out of my stomach for a couple weeks. They kept getting clogged and they were uncomfortable. Let’s just say I was one happy girl when they came out.
Of course, while all this was going on, we were having issues finding a treatment plan for me. My oncologist wanted me on a trial treatment. Of course, with all the cancer centers around me, these trials were not open or available. I had to be on something by the beginning of December, or I would have had to start regular chemotherapy, which they really did not want. Or, I would have had to move out of state. (I live in Pennsylvania, and I almost had to move to Texas). Literally, in the last few days, we got the best news ever. The one treatment they wanted me on opened at the cancer center I’d been going to! RIGHT IN TIME! I was so happy. So, I started my treatments on November 18th. The treatment is called Yervoy. It is an immunotherapy drug. My first four treatments were every three weeks. So, I had to go to the cancer center, get bloodwork, then sit for 90 minutes while I got my treatment through an IV. Thankfully no port! For the next three years, after the first four doses, I will go back every three months for a “maintenance” dose as they call it, just to be safe.
In January 2016, I started noticing some swelling in my leg and I did some physical therapy. I have slight lymphedema in my thigh. Thankfully it didn’t spread to my lower leg… Yet. So, therapy lasted a couple weeks and things went smoothly. On March 29th, 2016, I finally was able to hear that I am NED—which means there is NO EVIDENCE of DISEASE!! Greatest news ever! As months went by, I continued to do my treatments every three months and get regular scans. My oncologist likes to keep an extra close eye on me since I am high-risk which makes me feel good! Over time my lymphedema has gotten worse and spread down to my foot. So now I have to wear whole-leg compression stockings which can get annoying sometimes.
Now to January 2018… I continue to be NED. I have less than a year left of my treatments. My next one will be on Valentine’s Day. I still have to deal with the effects of lymphedema. I am just glad I am alive, beating this horrible disease and getting to raise my wonderful son. Now I will continue to get my treatments and protect my skin and continue to go for regular check-ups and just hope nothing EVER comes back. Even though this journey has only been a couple years, I will be on this ride for the rest of my life. This evil cancer can come back at any time. People tell me all the time, they don’t understand how I am so happy and so calm during all this. I just say that I have to be calm. I don’t have time to freak out. I am busy fighting. I am busy taking care of my son. I am busy living my life. Now I plan on living my life to the fullest. Of course, I will be smart and protect my skin while I do it.
P.S. They said me getting pregnant was the best thing that could have happened to me. My hormones helped push the melanoma outwards instead of spreading in my body. So technically my son saved my life, and he doesn’t even know it yet. He is my hero.
By Kali Glover
My story is a little different. This summer I unexpectedly had four people in my family pass away the same week. I believe because of that stress I kept picking at scratches on my arm without even thinking about it. After a few weeks of my arm not healing, I had a few coworkers mention that I might want to go get it checked out.
Two days before my dermatologist visit, I had a pimple develop at my temple. It kind of hurt and truthfully, I thought, ah man, the doctor is going to think I am a teenager with this pimple. So, I head to the doctor for my arm and they tell me to undress. Wait, what? Why do I need to get naked just to have my arm checked? That scared me just a bit because I realized I had no idea what I should have expected. The doctor began checking all over my body and thank god, my arm was fine, and they gave me some cream to heal it. I was relieved that I was just being a hypochondriac. However, then the doctor checks the pimple and says “Well, we need to test this out”. Wait, for a zit? Sure enough, she comes back and says it’s the basal cell cancer.
Now I have always been a pasty person, and therefore I have used sunscreen my entire life. So, it made no sense how that could happen. I’ve only been to a tanning bed twice in my early 20’s and I usually wear hats when I’m coaching. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized, I am not good at reapplying the sunscreen. Being a softball coach, I am out in the sun every day for at least three hours. I also spend most weekends recruiting at tournaments. Most of these places do not have shade for you to stay under. The more I talked to the doctors the more I realized that just putting the sunscreen on once was not enough. Also, if you are going to use the spray, you must reapply that even more. Awesome, all things I kind of knew but refused to pay attention to.
Fast forward a few weeks to the day before I am scheduled to get the cancer removed and Kristen from The Shade Project comes to do a speech. Those that knew what I was going through paid a lot closer attention and of course kept reminding me that at least this skin cancer was the least serious one! All of that was true but I was still scared to death. All I could think about was that I was about to get part of my face cut and get to do follow-ups every three months or so. I went from rarely having to go to a doctor to making permanent appointments for the rest of my life.
The removal itself was not as painful as I thought it would be. However, the smell of the burning flesh is something that will always stick with me. I was lucky that it only took two attempts to get it. I know many others that took seven or more tries. I have also started paying closer attention to my skin. Recently, I had another pimple pop up on the other side of my face that hurt and didn’t seem right. I went in immediately and the doctors used the liquid nitrogen to freeze it off. I have a few more spots that keep coming up and I will keep going in!
I now feel the sun a lot more when I am outside. I make sure I am constantly reapplying sunscreen. I remind other coaches to do the same while out recruiting and of course, I remind my team as well. I think the biggest thing for me to say is to pay attention. I was dismissing a “pimple” that hurt and didn’t feel like others that I’ve had. It took a terrible week this summer for me to go get checked and it has prevented me from what potentially could have been a terrible future.