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Lisa Schneider-Cipriano: Co-founder of the Kelly Cares Foundation, Paqui Kelly is joining
us today. Paqui, your husband, Notre Dame Football coach Brian Kelly says that you have
never had a pity party. How do you stay so positive?
Paqui Kelly: You know, I just think you know what, people are wired a certain way
and I have always been the one saying, it’s not partly cloudy; it’s always partly sunny,
or the sun’s going to break out soon. I don’t know how to explain it; I just think,
I always kind of really hate to be cliché, but god gives you what you can handle and
honestly I think this was just planned for me to share that with people and take this
experience that some might see as very life-shattering or stopping and it doesn’t have to be.
I don’t think any experience has to be awful. I mean there are ones we obviously would like
to avoid if we can, but doing what you can to make good choices, I think that’s the
power of life. We all make decisions and we hope for good
decisions and going back to making those decisions about your health, they start with ‘are
you getting the backstage? You are not getting enough sleep. Are you eating right? Are you
doing your checkups that you should do? Those all come into play, and every day we
try. I am not any poster child of perfection of health for sure – I like french fries…
all that stuff too but the reality is every day, we have to work at that and to be better
people and be a better healthy person, if you will, but I like to try and share my story
because it does seem to help people, wrap around it and know that it's a beautiful thing.
Lisa Schneider-Cipriano: You’ve handled your breast cancer with such humor and grace,
tell us about the story when your wig goes flying off at the Christmas party.
Paqui Kelly: Okay, so I didn’t wear the wig very often. I usually wore at bigger
social events or the football team that we were in. We were in Cincinnati and we were
just coming back from dinner from our ball game festivities. There was three families
– coach’s families, the wives were in there and I was being sassy…and I don’t
remember really exactly what I said but you know, kids were giggling.
The one mom, the door had just opened that wasn’t on our floor, it just opened and
I said something sassy. She thumped me upside the head and literally when she did, my wig
flew like off my head and out the elevator door. So then we all just started busting
out laughing, 5 or 6 kids in there and 3 moms… and I stepped out and like I stepped down
into an atrium that was having Christmas party. So ohh, kind of looked like a deer and headlight.
So I just grabbed my hair and I go, “Well, that’s the way you are going to feel about
it”, and I walked back into the elevator and we started laughing even louder. Well,
I am sure they were wondering what the heck was going on because they only just saw this
bald lady come out pick up her wig and go back in the elevator. The kids are just
giggling so hard. I never really made a big deal of it. I
try to desensitize it only because I want the kids to understand that you know, sometimes
you would say, “Oh she is bald and she is sick”, and they take that tone. If I was
feeling fine, I want to make sure that they knew that I was feeling fine and that it was
okay to ask and it really helped I think my kids to get through some stuff in terms of
like at school, because you know, kids, they were young and I think one of the things to
take back as a memory and one of the moms told me this was when I left Cincinnati.
We were packing up and moving and another mom in the neighborhood got sick and was going
to be going through breast cancer and treatment and the third-grader who when he first met
me, I was…he was in the kindergarten. He kind of looked me with big eyes like ….where’s
your hair? It’s like a true kindergarten would and I said, “Well, it fell out, but
it’ll come back, don‘t worry." And sure enough it grew back in three years. And some
kid said that about this other mom, she said, "Gosh she doesn't have any hair." And the
boy said, “Oh don’t worry, Mrs. Kelly, she was bald too and you should see how long
her hair is now." So I feel it taught that kid, it’s okay.
It’s just part of a phase and part of the treatment but there’s still the same person
in there. So that made me feel good and the mom said, "I just wanted to let you know
that's how it impacted him" and I said, “Well I appreciate that.”
Lisa Schneider-Cipriano: Oh my gosh, I love that story. Talk about a perfect example
of taking lemons, making lemonade and adding a lot of kick.