Brendan’s Story
It has been over 2,000 days since a doctor told my wife Melissa she had synovial sarcoma. It has been over 1,400 days since her fight ended and my life and our kids’ lives changed in a way I never thought would happen.
Melissa inspired me to live life large! To fight like hell for others and most importantly, to make a difference in our lives and to show the boys that we help others- no matter what our struggles are, someone else’s is always greater!
Senator Johnson first met Melissa and I on February 28, 2017. He gave us a chance to tell our story and he listened. That’s all we wanted. After that moment we worked from the bottom up. In July of 2017, Governor Scott Walker (WI) recognized July as Sarcoma Awareness month. We ran with that and for the next four years I worked with SFA and Senator Johnson’s team to finish a monumental step that SFA has been working on for over a decade!
After four years working on this, I am grateful to have gotten this to the finish line. I didn’t do this for myself. I wanted to make a statement after sarcoma took so much. And to honor my late wife, Melissa, and continue to tell her story after she passed away.
Having July be recognized on a national level as Sarcoma Awareness Month, puts in on the same platform as October (breast cancer) and March (colon cancer). This recognition and platform allows so many hospitals, doctors, and patients to work on continuing to find better treatments and work toward a cure for a cancer that has been all but gone unrecognized or forgotten. This is just the beginning of a better way of life for patients, caregivers, and loved-ones.
I cannot wait to see this flourish and I plan to support, help, and stay involved in any way that I can.
Brendan Locke