Books & Boutiques: Event helps cancer center, features best-selling author

Lee Woodruff, best-selling author and “Good Morning America” contributing editor, will share her story of love, crisis and hope Tuesday, April 28 at the second annual Books & Boutiques Luncheon.

The fundraiser for Saint Luke’s South programs, held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Overland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd., benefits the Goppert Center for Breast Care.

Woodruff, currently promoting her new book “Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress,” wrote her first book, “In an Instant,” with her husband, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, about the struggles they faced as Bob recovered from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Iraq in 2006.

“When I talk to different audiences about our story, the story that we’ve come through and that leads into this second book, I feel a real commonality with any kind of survivor,” Woodruff said. “It doesn’t matter what the situation is – breast cancer, brain injury, death of a spouse or loved one – loss is loss, fear is fear, grief is grief, and anxiety is anxiety. Part of being a human being is that everybody will have something to deal with. I think it’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu who said, ‘Suffering is part of the human experience.’

“To be in a room of people supporting this cause is going to be an honor, because whether or not there’s people who have lost a loved one or who themselves have battled breast cancer, it’s a journey that so many people in this country have made and will make.”

Before and following the luncheon, guests can shop at mini boutiques set up by the following locally owned retail stores: feng, Rainy Day Books, Addie Rose Boutique, Ambiance, Amelia’s, Bella B’s Boutique, Eber Jeeber, Frankie & Jules, Girl Boutique, Keil & Co., Kathy Logan Jewelry & Design, Mady & Me, Shugars, Soho 119, Standard Style Boutique, Steelballet Sport Boutique, Style & Grace, and Two Chic Blvd.

Many retailers will offer discounts and a portion of the proceeds benefits the Goppert Center for Breast Care, as well as Missy’s Mirror, a nonprofit boutique for cancer patients based at Saint Luke’s. The boutique helps patients restore their appearance and self-confidence with makeover and salon services, wigs, prostheses, and skin care.

Breast health information also will be offered and Goppert Center staff members will be on hand to schedule mammogram appointments. The comprehensive center’s interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurses and technologists provides breast wellness screenings and diagnostic care, enhanced by the center’s partnership with Saint Luke’s Cancer Institute.

The center’s screening, diagnostic and medical media suites are core strategies in early detection. The environment includes calming structural design elements, sensitive lighting and noise reduction, and services provided include MammoPad soft mammography, ultrasound, diagnostic digital mammography and stereotactic biopsy.

During the luncheon, Woodruff will talk about family, marriage, friends and how life never seems to go as planned. Guests will receive a signed copy of “Perfectly Imperfect.”

She also attends a Patrons’ Party on Monday, April 27 in the Atrium at Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd. Guests can enjoy fashion show with “a touch of pink,” in honor of breast cancer awareness and the Goppert Center, and receive copies of “Perfectly Imperfect,” which Woodruff will sign.

“I always expected someday I would write a book, but I never imagined it would be autobiographical,” Woodruff said. “Some of the chapters grew out of the first book. There was so much material and information in that first book, it could not possibly be contained in one book. In some ways it sort of picks up where that book left off and some of the later chapters that talk about surviving. Everybody who’s been through a crisis knows there’s sort of a fall after the crisis, especially for the caregiver.”

Woodruff said a dream came true for her when Random House contacted her and said, “You really have a voice and you resonate with people. So what’s your next book?”

Woodruff said she loves to write, but as the mother of four she sometimes has trouble finding the time to write.

“Weird things hit me and I’ll write them down, but I don’t have a traditional journal,” she said. “At different points in my life I’ve done a lot of writing as I’ve come through a difficult time or a period where maybe I’ve been unsettled or anxious. I’ve kept really great notes. A lot of times I’ll be thinking of something in a moment of calm or quiet and I’ll just begin a chapter.”

In “Perfectly Imperfect,” Woodruff’s personal and funny stories touch on topics such as:

• Raising teenagers - “Now with a boy and girl on the precipice of serious adolescence, the bathroom door is sealed tighter than a government nuclear testing ground.”

• Her changing body - “Over the last ten years my own knees had begun to form those dreaded smiley faces, sagging underneath.”

• How she copes with tragedy - “Swimming surrounds me in the velvet wet of a bluish green world where I can dive deep down and sob with no trace.”

• Her sense of style - “I’ve always been more Leave It to Beaver than Sex in the City.”

Woodruff said she hopes her book offers lessons about surviving and finding humor in everyday things.

“I hope the funny chapters make people chuckle. That’s one of the wonderful things about any form of entertainment, to make us laugh, to ease the burden, to find the commonality,” she said. “I like to think the book really illuminates slices of all of us, as a mother or a sister or a wife or a friend. The highest compliment would be for people to read it and say, ‘Oh, I’ve done that’ or ‘I’ve felt that way’ or ‘I’ve had that observation.’ I hope that it just makes people laugh and think about their lives.”

Woodruff said the last chapter, “What I Know Now,” is a compendium of what she learned during her husband’s injury and recovery, and traveling for the last two years to promote the first book.

“In having the chance to meet many wonderful families and people, they’ve shared with me their own advice about how they got through hard times,” Woodruff said. “I hope that for people going through their own difficult time – no matter what it may be, a messy divorce, the loss of a child, battling a disease or an injury – that advice is helpful. Some of the best advice in that chapter is actually for people trying to care for that person, what are the right things to say and what are the right things to do.”

Fast Facts

Lee Woodruff is the life and family contributor for ABC’s “Good Morning America” and a freelance writer.

She is on the board of trustees of the Bob Woodruff Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides resources and support to the nation’s injured service members, veterans and their families, especially those affected by the hidden injuries of war: traumatic brain injury and combat stress.

Woodruff lives in Westchester County, N.Y., with her husband and their four children.

For tickets to the Books & Boutiques Luncheon, call Michelle Lawrence at 317-7559 or visit www.saintlukeshealthsystem.org. Registration deadline is Friday, April 17. Ticket proceeds will benefit the Goppert Center for Breast Care at Saint Luke’s South.

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