Melinda's First SHOUT Meeting

I think about Melinda all the time and in fact, I remember the first time I met her. It was at our very first Shout meeting in June 2006 at Cafe Nova. I think we were all nervous. She bounced in with a huge smile on her face and I thought, "Wow, this girl is awesome!!" I think she had even done chemo recently. I could tell she had an amazing spirit and a wonderful heart. We connected because we both have twin brothers and talked about how neat that was growing up because you always had someone to play with. Melinda came to so many of our meetings and always had the most upbeat and positive attitude. She was always so willing to help out with our group and even took Sandi food after surgery. I am so happy that Shout was an important part of Melinda's recovery, and she helped so MANY in return with their recovery. She sure helped so many during her short time here on earth. ~Molly Fritch

[ SHOUT was founded in June 2006 by two breast cancer survivors, Molly Fritch and Sandi Troup. Diagnosed at ages 31 and 32, they recognized a need for other young survivors to connect and set out to create SHOUT: Strength, Healing, Optimism, Understanding...Together]

Normal Activities

Melinda had surgery in early May 2007 to begin the breast reconstruction phase of her recovery. Almost immediately after the six week waiting period after surgery, Melinda was on the phone to the doctor's office begging him to let her play soccer again. Her reasoning was basic - the doctor said she could return to her "normal" activities after six weeks had passed. Since she had been playing soccer right before her surgery, playing again was normal in her mind. The doctor disagreed but ultimately told her that there was nothing he could do to stop her from playing and reminded her to be careful and try to avoid any kicks to the chest. Melinda wasted no time making up for lost time. In her first two games back, she scored a combined 7 goals. Even though she missed a good part of the season, she still ended up as one of the leading scorers in the league as our team marched to the championship. ~Mark

Dating My Friend

Because we grew up in the same town, I have a few early memories of Melinda but my interest in her started when we were freshmen in high school. Melinda and I went to different middle schools and so our freshmen year was the first year we were together in school. I had asked a friend at church who went to the other middle school if there were any cute girls that I should track down once school started. He gave me one name: Melinda Watters. I took one look at her in choir class and decided that he was on to something. Since I was scared, I did the only thing I could think of - I asked my friend to ask her if she was interested in me. Anyone who has seen a picture of me from that year in school will not be surprised at the answer I got back - not interested. Anyone who knows Melinda will not be surprised at what happened next. In my embarrassment, I was determined to avoid Melinda at all cost. In my mind, she had rejected me. Melinda had other plans. She knew even then that you couldn't base romance on first impressions (thank goodness for me!). She made me get over my embarrassment by forcing me to be her friend.

Over the next few years, Melinda became my best friend. We occasionally went on "dates" together during our freshman and sophomore years - mainly when neither of us were dating anyone else. In some ways, I had given up hope of ever really dating Melinda because I assumed that her initial feelings for me continued. At some point over our sophomore and junior years, Melinda's feelings for me changed from "just friends" to potential dating material. I was too thick headed to see it but fortunately she didn't give up on me. I remember going on one of our "dates" in December of 1992. I don't recall where we actually went but we were dressed up - she wore a velour green dress (I probably used a line like "Is that felt? Well now it is" as I rubbed the material between my fingers). At the end of the date, we kissed - just a quick peck. Even I could figure out that we were no longer just friends after that moment. A few weeks later, we went on our first real date. I took her ice skating in Tulsa at the Williams Center. She wore a pink sweater and I remember accidentally causing her to fall by trying to show off my skating skills. She forgave me and between Christmas and New Year's Eve, we agreed to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I'm convinced that the early years of our friendship made us the couple we were. From the moment we started officially dating, I never felt more comfortable with a person - nothing like the awkward teenage relationships that most of us remember from high school. She was so wonderful.
~Mark

The Mega Wedgie

We cam to visit Melinda and her family in June and we went to Whitewater Bay, a large outdoor water park in Oklahoma City. Near the end of our visit, she challenged Mark and I to ride the Mega-Wedgie - a 277 foot steep slide with a 64 foot near-free fall slide. The slide looked daunting, but at the beginning of Melinda's ordeal last year, I vowed that I could be at least as tough & brave as her. I've never had to face what she had to face, so I don't know if I am that brave. But I could at least face the same huge waterslide. She went first of course, then mark, then me. Let's just say they don't call it the Mega-Wedgie for nothing :). She has also been my inspiration while training for the Race for the Cure. A rough day on the treadmill doesn't begin to compare to a rough day of chemo or radiation. She'll hopefully always inspire me. -Jason Evans

Getting Off The Bench

I have a few memories of Melinda that I wanted to share.

I hope I never forget the Christmas that she organized our life groups to adopt a family for Christmas. She took the time to call the parents and find out about the needs and wants/interests of the kids. Then she talked with each life group family and assigned us a family member to buy Christmas gifts for. We all got an extra state tax refund that year and we committed to using that money for this family's Christmas. Chasity, Melinda and I took our kids to deliver the gifts. It was such a wonderful feeling to give to this family in a meaningful way. Melinda helped bring together several families to do a good deed, and she included her children in the act of kindness. She took time to get to know about that family and to talk with them about what Alameda had to offer and invited them to join us at church. I don't know if they ever made it, but I feel certain that the time spent and the thought in the gifts touched that family more than we will know.

Just typing all this has given me an amazingly strong desire to call Melinda and chat. There is a part of me that always wondered if she would go back to nursing after the kids were in school. I am a family doc and thought she would be a great nurse to have! She was so excited for me when I started looking for a job closer to home and she encouraged me along the way. This was all during her diagnosis and treatment last year. When I finally found something close to home, she was so happy for me and encouraged me even more. I miss her. She has really inspired me to "get off the bench" as Rusty put it. I am a better person for having known her. There was a time when I was really dissatisfied with my job and shared with my life group that I was feeling kind of depressed. Melinda was a great listener. She then sent me a card out of the blue one day to encourage me. It was so sweet and really uplifted me. She had a great knack for knowing what I needed at different times. I am so thankful.

In April of this year I developed a mass in my neck. The ultrasound was inconclusive, and the radiologist suggested a biopsy to rule out lymphoma. I was pretty nervous. The first thought was, "My kids need their mom" and my second was, "How will I afford to fight cancer?" (Being the family breadwinner was not one of my incentives for choosing medicine!) Although I didn't tell many people, I needed to tell Melinda. I knew that she would pray for me, and I suppose I felt that she would know best what I really needed, as she had been through the biopsy phase before. And, she knew what was on the other side, and I needed her intersession, because I wasn't really sure how to pray. She hugged me and said, "Thank you for telling me. Let me know how it goes." She thanked me for sharing my burden. This was around her PET scan time, so she had already been through so much, and she still wanted to share my burden. Thankfully, it was only a thyroglossal duct cyst and not lymphoma. I chose not to have it removed, as it went down and I didn't want to have that surgery unless it was absolutely necessary. Melinda was even great about that, not making me feel petty or spoiled that I could chose whether or not to have a surgery that altered my appearance and put me out of commission for a couple of weeks. She had no choice about a sensitive appearance-altering surgery and the major inconvenience of chemo and radiation. What grace!

Thanks for this outlet. I hope that these are helpful in the story-gathering endeavor and can be used to help form the picture of who Mommy is to Marli, Marcus and Manning as they grow.

Misty Hsieh

Please Share Your Memories

While I wanted one place to put several links to some of the online resources recently developing about Melinda, I also wanted this site to become a place to post memories about Melinda. Please share yours with everyone. You can of course comment on any of these posts, but if you have your own memories you'd like to share, please email them to me at jevansfp{at}gmail.com (substitute the "at" symbol for the {at} in your email software).

I'd also like to highlight another blog - the Melinda Evans Update blog. This provided valuable updates on Melinda's condition as it unfolded in the hospital the last few weeks. Now it is a rally point for efforts to raise money and awareness to fight this disease. Find it at melindaevansupdate.blogspot.com.