SUPERIOR – A Lake Nebagamon woman is giving back to cancer patients by donating bags of comfort. Each chemo comfort bag is packed with a new cancer patient in mind who is learning a lesson no one wants to learn.
Tina Prior, owner of Shirts Unlimited in Superior, shares the items and tips that helped her through two separate rounds of chemotherapy.
Maria Lockwood/Duluth Media Group
Prior and her best friend, Sue Nash of Superior, started the initiative this year. The idea came to them after Prior learned she needed chemotherapy again three years after her first battle with breast cancer.
“I was ready, even though it was the toughest chemotherapy you can get… I had everything in me,” Prior said.
Because of her first chemotherapy treatment, Prior had sugar-free candies, an oncology mouthwash to prevent wounds, and a large cup for water.
“I was crying,” Nash said. “She had her little bag and she kept pulling things out. It’s like the kindergarten kid who now in first grade knows exactly what to put in her lunch, in her backpack. It was like no one should know. No one should know. That’s why we want to prepare people for this.”
Maria Lockwood/Duluth Media Group
The first Chemo Comfort Bag was presented to a patient on Thursday, August 8th, and his friend posted a picture of it on Facebook.
“It was the best feeling ever,” said Prior. “It was very touching. It made up for everything.”
Initially, the friends hoped to raise enough money to donate 50 Chemo Comfort Bags to Essentia Health, where Prior was undergoing chemotherapy.
“And now there are over 100,” said Nash, owner of Northland Adult Foster Care in Duluth.
With the support they received, the duo expects to be able to fill and deliver 150 bags this year.
Shirts Unlimited and Kro Bar in Brule hosted a golf tournament at Botten’s Green Acres in Lake Nebagamon on Saturday, August 10th to raise money for the bags.
A GoFundMe campaign was also launched in July and has raised $14,000 so far.
Brad Wermter of the Log Cabin Tavern in South Range will host a raffle in September to raise another $7,500, the friends said.
All funds raised will go toward bags containing items ranging from toothpaste for gray teeth to a Minky Couture blanket that Prior says will “wrap every corner of your body.” The cost of each filled bag is $150.
Maria Lockwood/Duluth Media Group
“We’re not going to cure the cancer, but we’re going to make the inevitable treatment a little easier,” Nash said. “Our goal was to find the tricks that helped her through it, which we had to discover when they came along.”
Prior remembers getting a call in October 2018 telling her she had cancer and needed to start chemotherapy.
Maria Lockwood/Duluth Media Group
“Chemo? That’s the worst word you ever want to hear in your life,” she said.
Prior has done it twice. And she hopes that her recipe will help others survive the effects of chemotherapy.
“As Tina says, everyone has experienced the experience of someone they love or know getting cancer. It was such a helpless situation that it left us with this legacy. We shouldn’t waste that experience when we can help others,” Nash said.
For more information, visit the Chemo Comfort Bags LLC Facebook page. Donations are being accepted at Shirts Unlimited and online through the Support Tina and Sue’s Chemo Comfort Bags GoFundMe page. Gift cards for gas and groceries are currently needed.
If anyone knows someone who needs a Chemo Comfort Bag, they can also contact Prior and Nash directly through the Facebook page.
Maria Lockwood reports news from Douglas County, Wisconsin, for the Superior Telegram.
