Planning a wedding is exciting. For most of those involved, anyway.
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Every detail from the celebrant to the table-runners takes careful consideration - it's the sort of event that brings joy in its approach.
What people often don't prepare well for, are the episodes in life that bring sadness and despair.
But just like a wedding, cancer demands time, organisation and planning.
The idea of a 'wedding planner for cancer' came to Cristy Jacka in the throes of her husband Karl's treatment in 2016.
"When Karl got diagnosed, there was so much information," she said.
"I'm a teacher, and the only way I could deal with it in a way was to set it up like a teacher's program.
"Everyone in our family would laugh, because I'd cart around this big folder with our tests results, scripts, all the information about his cancer - it had everything."
Cristy's planner proved useful on many occasions.
"I recorded that we were vomiting at this time and that our temperature was this, and we were in and out of hospital a lot, so I would give it to the nurses and they'd go 'Yep, no problem'," she said.
"Karl got flown down to Peter Mac at one stage, and the air paramedics went through the whole thing.
"By the time they'd landed, there were three people waiting with different medications because they knew what had gone on.
"It was Karl's job to get better and my job to do everything else."
Only nine months after her husband passed away, Cristy was telling Jenny Jensen about her folder at the Relay for Life in October, 2017.
"We were walking around the track - Jenny lost her song to Leukemia nine years ago - and I said 'I'd love to be able to give someone the 'wedding planner of cancer', and Jenny said, 'I'd love to do this bag for people with cancer'," Cristy said.
"It's an Albury thing where if you get breast cancer, you get this bag, but if you have anything else there's nothing."
Jenny first became aware of the bags put together by the Albury-Wodonga Breast Cancer Support Group in 2009 while supporting her son, Ricky.
A goal to replicate that idea for the wider cancer community has stayed on her mind since, through many advocacy projects with the Albury Wodonga Cancer Foundation.
"For years, I've tried to get better psychosocial support," she said.
"There's just not enough funding for every person to have their individual support person, so if we give them this bag, it's at least putting into their hands the right information for support.
"You might not want to look at it straight away, you might put it away for a while, but it will be there when you need it."
After the Relay for Life, a committee was formed early last year, involving Jenny, Cristy and seven others.
Conversations began about what this resource might look like and how it would help people.
Cancer survivor Christy McIntosh helped form the name 'cBAG' (A care bag for people with cancer), and reflected on her personal experience.
"I had Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma a couple years ago and had treatment in Albury, and I had no information - it was finding everything out as you go," she said.
"When I started doing chemo and immunotherapy in May 2017, nobody told me it tasted like you'd licked a 50-cent coin.
"I worked out on my own that Mentos helped, in trying to get rid of the taste."
So Mentos went on the cBAG list.
As well as things like a one-drop deodorizer for the bathroom (when you're sick, you smell chemo everywhere), hand warmers for when, like Karl, you refuse to skip the footy, and a very special wooden comfort symbol.
"Ricky was given a wooden cross and held it whenever he had a needle or biopsy, and Karl had a rock that (his daughter) Lucy painted that he held every time he went through something like that," Jenny said.
"The nurses said, 'While you've got that in your pocket, you've got the love of your girls beside you'.
"Ricky had his cross, and Karl had his rock, so we wanted to offer a little timber artifact."
It's envisaged every person who is diagnosed with cancer in Albury-Wodonga will receive the cBAG for free.
The first production of 1500 cBAGs has been made possible by support from the Bendigo Bank and $20,000 from the Albury Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre Trust Fund, which was born from the Albury Wodonga Cancer Foundation.
"On average 100 new patients are diagnosed per month, which takes us to 1200 in the first year, so we decided to go with 1500 to begin, as there might be a surge in take-up at the start," Jenny said.
"The bags will be available through Border Medical Oncology and Genesis Care, at Terry White Pharmacies in Lavington, Albury and Wodonga, and at the Hilltop patient and carer accommodation centre."
Hilltop manager Helen Murray can't wait to start handing them out next month.
"When somebody who's just been diagnosed comes to me and says 'I'm worried about all these things', if I can give them the cBAG and it has all the support in there, that's wonderful," she said.
The cBAG also includes a magazine that will be updated bi-annually and the cPLAN, a "fancy" re-imagined version of Cristy's planner.
"There's been a few additions - we have a section for 'My Moments'," Cristy said.
"That came from Tim Fischer; he's having Leukaemia treatment and said we needed a section for the moments you might want to remember, whether they're funny or sad.
"I know there's moments we forgot because there was so much going on."
Cristy hopes no-one else will be missed by a support service thanks to the cBAG.
"Jenny is the visionary with this, and what I'm really proud of is the information we have with all the services," she said.
"It's probably not until we started putting this together that I realised how many services we have - our journey was only seven months, and we missed a lot of services because we just didn't know about them.
"I'm never going to have enough money in the world to ever repay the hospital for what they did for my family, they were so kind, but what I can do is share what I know.
"This is our gift to our community."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Jenny said seeing her 10-year goal become a reality was exciting.
"To have someone put their arm around you and make you feel supported, I think is just everything on that journey, and that's where the cBAG comes in," she said.
"We want people to feel like it's a big hug from their community.
"It's just a little samples of things that could make your journey better - we don't know if it will, but it might.
- The cBAG will be launched at an event on August 9, being hosted by the Albury Wodonga Cancer Foundation. It will run from 6.30pm to 9.30pm at the Albury Entertainment Centre. Tickets are $46 and available at www.awcfevent.floktu.com
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