About Gail Parkins

At the young age of 56, Gail Parkins lost her courageous battle with ovarian cancer. On November 14, 1999 our entire family was devastated by the diagnosis of stage III C ovarian epithelial cancer. Within a few days, she would undergo her first debulking surgery and then begin her two year battle with cancer including consecutive chemotherapy and various clinical trials. Gail lived each day to its fullest. She refused to wait for death and her optimism and spirit live on through her children, grandchildren and most everyone who knew her. Your selfless participation in this event is synonymous with the selfless way she lived her life. The Gail Parkins Memorial Ovarian Awareness Walk is intended to raise the level of awareness for this disease, provide financial support to research efforts, and to pay tribute to those touched by ovarian cancer.

Fran Mikles

My mother had never been sick a day in her life until she was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer in May 2000. But her willpower was only superseded by her faith, and she was determined that cancer would not prevent her from living her life to the fullest. After surgery, she went through the initial rounds of chemo and had been in remission nearly a year when the cancer returned in her liver. Several more rotations of chemo kept the cancer under control for several years, and allowed her many opportunities to rib Dr. Berchuck when her beloved Tar Heels defeated the Blue Devils on the field or the court. For more than five years, she held on for dear life. She was an inspiration to so many people, either because they or their families were also fighting cancer, or in her witness of the joy that Jesus brought to her life. She went home to meet Him on a glorious Sunday morning, very peacefully with her family at her side. I will miss her with every breath I take.

~ Her loving daughter, Renee Hoffman

Vera Sedivy

Vera Sedivy was my mother and an inspiration to her family, friends and all who knew her throughout her life and long battle with Ovarian Cancer. She never let adversity stand in her way, whether it was leaving her native Czechoslovakia with a 2 year-old in tow in 1968 or leaving Australia 3 years later for the unknown promised land of America or moving to the “Deep South” from New York or battling this deadly disease. She was first diagnosed in 1996, just after learning that her first granddaughter was on the way. Although anxious, she was determined to survive and see her family grow. After 5 clean years, we were all devastated to learn the monster was back but she vowed to fight on. And fight she did for 5 more years before gracefully succumbing at home just after her 60th birthday. Her greatest fear was not death but being forgotten. How naïve. There is not a day that goes by when I do not think of her and miss her deeply. She left a husband of 41 years who is a far better man today after watching her example and dignity in life. She left a son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren who still laugh about the “fun times with Grandma” and share the loss. She left a brother who wonders what happened to his little sister and a mother who would gladly have traded places. She may have left our physical world, but she will never leave our hearts.

~ Robert Sedivy