This week has been an emotional one for the Mulford Family of Georgetown, Ohio. Sue Mulford was planning on showing her gelding, Stay Shining at the Congress in the Amateur Pleasure Driving. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always go as planned. Due to Sue being diagnosed again with her third bout of cancer, she was in the hospital instead of in a cart. Her husband, Denny, took her place and showed in the class earlier this week.
Sue, a beloved mother and grandmother, loves to show in the amateur all-around events but her greatest love is pleasure driving. She was high point in the nation in pleasure driving in 2005 with Virtual Chocolate and won the AQHA Bayer Select World Championship in Pleasure Driving with Suchafine Investment in between her first and second cancer battles.
Mulford is a two-time colon cancer survivor, and she was hospitalized for a blockage in her small intestine in late September. She had surgery on October 7th to remove a portion of her intestine and repair a tear in her colon. Mulford was then diagnosed on October 10th with intestinal cancer–this time in her small intestine. Right now, she is continuing to recover on her farm in Georgetown, Ohio.
We asked Sue’s daughter, Lisa Campbell, where the idea of Denny and her friends wearing blue to support her came from…”That is the color of the driving outfit and hat she had intended to wear for the class,” Lisa explains. “It was to represent colon cancer. Just as pink ribbons represent breast cancer– the color for colon cancer is royal blue. We recently found out that the color for intestinal cancer is periwinkle blue. Ironically, the jacket she had picked out to wear for the driving class was royal and periwinkle. We had t-shirts made for the 2013 Tough Enough to Wear Pink Show that said, ‘I am tough enough to wear PINK’ on the front, and ‘but, I wear BLUE for Sue’ on the back. This was just at the end of her last cancer battle, so the shirts had been packed away in most cases, but family and friends began to get them out and wear them after the news of the third diagnosis. So, ‘Blue for Sue’ was a natural slogan for us for this Congress.”
So how did Denny come about showing instead? “We actually started joking in late September about how dad would look wearing mom’s blue hat and bright blue driving outfit, but didn’t really consider that she wouldn’t be out of the hospital to show herself,” her daughter told GoHorseShow. “Mom decided when the doctors said she would have to have surgery that he would have to be her ‘back-up’ driver. For a few days, we were all one hundred percent agreement of that plan, but when the cancer diagnosis came into the conversation, dad really didn’t want to leave the hospital to even go to Congress, let alone show. Mom told him that if he didn’t go and show, it would be letting cancer ‘win’ and we didn’t do that through either previous battle, so we couldn’t start this one out losing round one of the battle to cancer.”
Denny and Stay Shining (Shine) ended up third in the Amateur Pleasure Driving. “He was very pleased to place third and she was incredibly proud. We had a viewing party in her hospital room,” Lisa says. “I took a big screen and projector and hooked it up to my computer at the end of her hospital bed. She wore her blue driving hat and a blue robe and we watched with a hospital room full of friends. We were all cheering when he placed third and one of the nurses came in and asked if the race was over. My son, Cody, was in Columbus helping him and several members of our horse show family were in the stands wearing blue. Several people made pins and ribbons and signs to show support also.”
Lisa says that her mother continues to fight on and improve daily. She asks for everyone to continue praying for her mother and everyone diagnosed with cancer.
“We are huge supporters of the Tough Enough to Wear Pink Show (TETWP), held in Wilmington, Ohio every year. Although the proceeds benefit breast cancer, there are so many other devastating types of cancer that impact the horse show families everywhere and events like the TETWP show are invaluable to continued cancer research and support for cancer patients. Thanks to all of our family and friends for the tremendous amount of support through the last few weeks!”
If you would like to follow the Praying for Sue Facebook page, clicking here.
