Why Jim Button is an amazing human, and why you should help him fund a Chair for Pediatric Psychosocial Oncology!

If you do only one thing today spend 15 minutes and watch Jim’s Ted Talk: I am here. The question is why? And then use this link to donate, (okay so it’s actually two things to do today) in case you don’t make it to the end of this post.

My first blog post I wrote about the importance of hope / optimism / beliefs and the role those play in how someone responds to bad news, such as a cancer diagnosis. Within a couple of weeks of me writing about that topic, Jim Button started showing up in the news (Calgary Herald, Globe and Mail, CBC). It occurred to me, I hadn’t heard how he was doing in a while. As I returned to his blog: Gathering with Jim for updates and heard about his latest project, I realized that Jim embodies what I was trying to communicate in my first post. He does this by living with cancer, mentoring, inspiring others, supporting others, sharing what he’s learned, and continuing to build community like no one else I’ve ever met. As you’ll learn, his mindfulness and spirituality happen along side his trust in Western Medicine and are the reasons he is here.

I first met Jim in the taproom at Village Brewery, as I was sampling beers to put on tap (for those that don’t know, Jim is one of the founders of Village Brewery). I remember immediately sensing his sparkling and creative personality and felt the resonance when he shared the story of why Village Brewery existed. I won’t do the explanation justice, so you can google Jim to help you on that front. However, his ‘It takes a Village’ motto and Village Brewery’s support for community, the arts, and charity right from the beginning are an inspiration. If more businesses operated this way, the world would definitely be a better place – I know Village’s contributions have made Calgary a better place.

Although I’ve never really spent a lot of time with Jim, he has always had a positive impact on me and I like to think that maybe I’m one of the distant friends he’s gathered. We had an annual reunion in the green room of a certain music festival for several years running, until the year he told me they’d found a tumour on his kidney. Jim’s journey since then is one you can read about in Gathering with Jim.

His enthusiasm for community has always been infectious and in spite of the limited time we’ve spent together, he’s offered words of support at times when I really needed to hear them. One of those times was after closing a business I’d poured my heart and soul into, he reached out to ask if I was okay and to invite me to come to one of their monthly events at Village for a beer. There was another time I’d left a project I’d helped get off the ground and he said: Hope it wasn’t too traumatic, it won’t be the same without you. Most recently, it was when I heard about his latest initiative to try to raise Five Million dollars for this research Chair to be housed in Calgary at the Cumming School of Medicine. There was a fundraiser happening and I sent him a note, letting him know I was in medical school and that I wanted to help.

So awesome that you are going to medical school, makes me so proud. Hope one day you can treat me!!

Jim Button

Sadly, I was unable able to attend the fundraiser because I realized I had an exam that week and this med school journey has often meant prioritizing studying over things I really want to be doing, including living more like Jim and making every day count. Since then, it’s been on my to-do list to tell everyone I know, who doesn’t already know Jim, about why he is such an amazing person and why you should help build this legacy!

Please help me, help Jim & Tracey in their fundraising goal. . .

Jim, thanks for all that you do and for sharing how the interplay between Medicine and Mindfulness and Spirituality have helped you LIVE with cancer.

See this page for more info and to make a donation.

Looking for another way to contribute, read about #JimSocks and get your very own pair!

Jim, his wife Tracey, and their children.