Amy Carpenter
2017 Participant/Breast Cancer Survivor
May St. John, USVI
A week in paradise was our dream vacation. We have talked about going to the island of St John before we got married, 20 years ago. Little Pink Houses of Hope made a dream come true when statistics say that my years are numbered. Living with Stage 4 cancer means that I always question how long I have to live, while trying to stay focused on beating the odds. It means almost weekly trips to the doctors, specialists, or infusion treatments for 2 years and counting. For 1 week I got to be so far from my doctors it was almost scary.
Our St John vacation began with wonderful friends helping to arrange plane tickets for us. We were greeted at the dock with samples of island rum and by our wonderful Volunstars. Our condo kitchen was stocked with great food and our first outing as a group was to a great bar for drinks and then off to a fantastic restaurant where the bill and gratuity was all covered. We had daily excursions that we loved: standup paddle boarding, tours of the island, snorkeling, picnicing, massages and lounging. Every evening we ate at sumptuous restaurants, many right on the beach! The most special dinner was date night. We ate and a ritzy Italian restaurant that would have been way out of our family budget. We loved the evenings where we sat and had drinks late into the evening with other couples.
My husband and I loved all of the planned activities, but we also loved the freedom to go out and have adventures of our own. We told the group the first night that our goal was to snorkel as many different spots on the island as we could. Our coordinators helped make our dreams come true by helping us get to some out of the way spots on the island and advice how we could daytrip to the BVIs. It was magical to snorkel with so many turtles, brightly colored fish and beautiful corals.
We came back with lovely tans, great stories, beautiful pictures, and priceless memories. The friendships that will hopefully last lifetimes are even more precious.