Surprise, support for Knolls Vista teacher

MOSES LAKE — Knolls Vista kindergarten teacher Brenda Britton said she suspected something might be going on. A few friends from school invited her for an early-morning cup of coffee. And her husband Patrick said he’d take their son to school. And there was that email that went around summoning the entire KV staff to a meeting Thursday morning. About a school event, it said, but Brenda said she thought that had all been settled, despite her friends' insistence to the contrary. And Brenda was right - it was all a ploy, a ruse, to surprise her with a school-wide show of support. Brenda is fighting breast cancer, and staff members had T-shirts made in her honor and wore them Thursday morning. (Fifth-grade teacher Jack McLauchlan wore a pink shirt with a natty pink bow tie in lieu of a T-shirt.) Brenda’s kindergarten class also got T-shirts and wore them Thursday. Each teacher gets a small stipend from the Knolls Vista PTO, and her fellow kindergarten teachers donated their stipends to pay for the class T-shirts. “What a tremendous amount of support,” Brenda said. It wouldn’t be possible for her to keep teaching without the support of family, friends and fellow teachers, she said. Her prognosis is good, she said, because her cancer was identified early. But because of her genetic history the treatment is pretty aggressive. She is undergoing chemotherapy - two treatments down, four to go, she said - followed by radiation. Patrick Britton said he was thinking about supportive T-shirts and called Brenda’s fellow kindergarten teacher Kim Francisco to see what the staff thought about it. Francisco said the staff was already thinking along the same lines. Patrick Britton said if he had some advice to give, it’s “get those mammograms done.” Early detection dramatically improves the chances of successful treatment, he said. Brenda lost her hair as a result of treatment (she wears a wig to school), “so I shaved my head,” he said. As her treatment requires her to give up things, he does too, he said, as part of his show of support. “What she can’t do, I’m not doing either, because she’s not alone.” The support of family and friends is important, Patrick Britton said, so that patient knows they are not alone. The Britton family has set up a GoFundMe account under the title, “Brenda Britton’s battle with cancer" to help pay medical expenses not covered by insurance.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.