Getting Back To What's Important. And Who's Important.

Oy. My head is spinning, what with all the chaos surrounding the Paula Brooks scandal (more via the link and my post from yesterday).

As more stories are hitting the web, Paula/Bill/EnterNameHere gets crazier and crazier. This person (supposedly a male, heterosexual, married man) disguised himself online as a lesbian and morphed from a surfer mom to a doctor to Rachael Maddow’s informant to working in a harassing office at the NSA to an employee of James Cameron in the span of four years (and I left some shit out).


This individual manipulated who knows how many people, built a website often sourced by media as the pulse of all things LGBT and was narcissistic enough to believe he wouldn’t get caught.

I actually think the words “Paula Brooks” need to become a verb for “you just got played.”

Right? Can’t you see it? “Dude, you just got Paula Brooked.”

Nothing could shock me anymore. Not even if the Washington Post uncovered the secret that Paula/Bill/EnterNameHere was truly a sock puppet with special powers.

He says he took on the persona of Paula Brooks because no one would take him seriously on LGBT issues as a straight man. He created heartbreaking stories (wife dying of cancer) and left a bunch of us wondering just who we can trust on the web.

But I don’t want to focus on this dimwit right now. I want to focus on someone who deserves it.

Someone who is who she says she is.

Lisa McGlaun.

A straight woman.

Someone who has been A REAL ally for LGBT people.

A person living with cancer.

Not pretend cancer like “Paula’s” made-up wife, Debbie.

The real kind. The kind that makes you sick. Takes your hair. Makes you re-evaluate your life.

That kind of cancer.

I first met Lisa when I started blogging back in 2007 or thereabouts. She authored a blog that reported only on heart warming topics and inspiring people. The blog, while understandably not updated frequently right now, can be found here.

Taken with the blog’s content, I soon began leaving comments for Lisa and vice versa. A true friendship developed which includes regular Facebook contact and the ever-so-important exchange of holiday greetings.

In November of last year, I noticed something different about Lisa’s Facebook photo. I clicked over to her Wall and read some of her status updates. My heart sank.

Immediately, I emailed Lisa and inquired about what I’d read. True to form, Lisa responded quickly, but only went into details after making sure I first knew how excited she was about the adoption process April and I are in the middle of.

That’s Lisa. Truly compassionate. No Paula Brooks faking here.

Lisa’s story moved me to tears.

In July of last year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, the cancer had not spread outside of the large tumor found in her left breast. The doctors were sure they’d found the cancer early and her prognosis was good, but still terrifying.

Chemotherapy is shrinking the tumor and while it’s leaving her fatigued and in some pain, it also sparked something amazing.

Not that I’m surprised. This is Lisa we’re talking about.

Lisa today and on the mend!

In Lisa’s own words:

“When I went to my oncologist’s office for the first time in August, I distracted myself by reading all of the signs posted on the walls. That way I didn’t have to think about what was coming down the pipe…chemo, surgery, radiation…all stuff that was out of my control.

One of the signs said, ‘Do you want to be a happy hooker?’

Well, that caught my attention! Turns out it was an invitation to join a crocheting group started by my doctor. These people get together once a month to crochet hats and blankets for chemo patients, which I was about to be one of!”

Lisa went to that Happy Hooker meeting and loved it. Instead of focusing on the side effects of her cancer treatment, like not being able to get off the couch if she wanted to, she made hats. Lots and lots of hats.

During an appointment at another cancer office, Lisa noticed they didn’t have a Happy Hooker group to provide a source of warmth for the bald-headed people coming in and out of treatment.

“My head gets really cold,” Lisa said. “I know other women who’ve lost their hair and feel like I do. There have been nights when I’ve slept with a hat on because even though I’m nestled under the covers, my shiny bald head is not!”

Lisa began to donate all the hats she was making to the cancer center. Yarn was getting expensive, so Lisa did some brainstorming to figure out how she could keep up with the demand she knew existed.

“I’d go to bed thinking about how I could afford to keep doing it,” she said. “I’d wake up at 4am because cancer patients who are on steroids never get a good night’s sleep! I settled on a buy one/share one program and my husband, Todd, came up with the name Hats Unto Others.”

Hats Unto Others.

Here’s the deal. Lisa is super creative and can crochet nearly any type of hat (and any color) that the buyer wants. After she’s done making the buyer’s hat, she crochets one that she donates (in the buyer’s name) to a local cancer center for a chemo patient.

It’s $27.00 for the two hats ($25.00 plus a $2.00 shipping fee). The preferred method of payment is PayPal and Lisa can give you all those details if you want to be a good sport and help her meet her initial goal of creating 1,000 hats.

I know it’s summer, but for a bald-headed chemo patient, a sweltering day in June can feel like ice. Get you a cool cap for the upcoming fall season and help a cancer patient out TODAY.

Here are just a select FEW of the hats made by the talented Lisa:

You know Apes and I each got one! We love them.

To contact Lisa about the Hats Unto Others program or to place your own order, you can contact her at hatsuntoothers@gmail.com.

Thank You

Lisa, thank you for reminding me, in the current atmosphere of blogger suspicion and manipulation, that REAL, HONEST connections can be made through this thing we call the internet.

I feel blessed to know you, to have learned from your journey and as a result of your positive outlook in the face of adversity, I know the power of the human spirit and I know that it is good.

Now, ya’ll readers go buy yourselves a hat and tell Lisa I sent ya!