Like millions of Americans, Timonium resident Judy Davanzo was rushing around the day before Thanksgiving.
Just back from a "bucket list" trip to Europe, she went to the supermarket to buy fruit for a dish she was bringing to a family gathering at her sister's house in Olney. She also had to pick up her son, Trace, 8, at noon, because Pinewood Elementary School, where he is a third-grader, was letting out a half day early.
In between, Davanzo, 47, found time to sit for a newspaper interview about Caring On, a nonprofit organization that raises money to make life a little easier for the spouses or main caregivers of people who have stage 4 cancer.
Rail thin, she looked lost in the big leather chair in the family room.
"There used to be a little more to me," she said.
Davanzo was diagnosed in early 2012 with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and was given at most 24 months to live.
"I've outlived my expiration date," she said, noting that she goes to Mercy Hospital every week to have her stomach drained of fluid, among other treatments.
She is living on borrowed time and making every minute of it count as a mother of two and as the co-founder and president of Caring On. Its mission is to give caregivers gifts that offer them a little time for themselves close to home, such as a few hours of spa services, dinner and movie, a travel weekend for themselves, or tickets to sporting or entertainment events. They can get donated tickets to Ravens and Orioles games, but no one has taken them up on that yet.
"By presenting their caregiver with a gift of personal time, the patient is able to express their love and appreciation of what their loved one has done and is doing for them. And in return, the caregiver can enjoy this gift from their loved one without worry or guilt," states the group's website, http://www.caringon.org.
"We're not sending you on your wish list," Davanzo stressed. "This is just to rejuvenate yourself."
Davanzo knows from personal experience how hard it has been for her husband, Drew, a senior sales executive for a corporate services company. He has been helping her and the family since she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, when their daughter, Reese, now 14, was 1. Davanzo said she had a double mastectomy and that she thought she had beaten cancer, only to have it return and spread to her liver.
"My husband has been the caregiver twice now," she said. "He had to take on everything. It was pretty much him. I probably wouldn't be around to do it for him if (cancer) came his way."
Soon after her diagnosis in 2012, Davanzo, who used to work in marketing, got the idea for Caring On and bounced it off a close friend, who runs a family foundation.
"She really liked the idea and thought it might have some legs," Davanzo said
In the summer of 2012, Davanzo ran into breast cancer survivor Lee Kappelman, vice president of an arts consulting group, whom she had first met in 2003.
"We both felt like we had put cancer behind us," said Kappelman, of Lutherville.
But when they met again by chance nine years later, Davanzo was bald from chemotherapy.
Davanzo told Kappelman about her idea, too.
"Judy said, 'What is this doing to my husband? It's breaking my heart.'"
"She was intrigued," Davanzo said. "She was like, 'OK, I'm in.'"
"I found her spirit to be ferociously normal and positive," Kappelman said. "I thought this woman has a lot she can teach us, no matter how much time she has left."
They started Caring On with Davanzo's friend, Julie Hettleman, of Owings Mills, and formed a 501c3 nonprofit. They gave their first gift last summer, to a neighbor of Davanzo, who had esophageal cancer and wanted to give his wife a spa and lunch date. He has since died, Davanzo said.
Davanzo and Kappelman have given seven more gifts since and had to turn down a few applicants because the person they were caring for had died. According to Caring On's rules, caregivers must be caring for a person who is still living, in order to qualify. Also, both the caregiver and the patient must be 21 or older. Up to two people can be gifted, but not the patient, because that would defeat the purpose of giving caregivers time to themselves, Davanzo said.
For example, she said, her own family has taken some trips together, with mixed results. There were times that they went away and her medications weren't effective.
"That's another thing for (Drew) to worry about," she said. "And I didn't like to do everything that he liked to do."
Plus, Davanzo doesn't feel the need to tag along.
"For me as the patient, it's very enjoyable to give someone you care about a gift and see their enjoyment," she said.
"We called it Caring On because we wanted to create the notion that you're carrying on," Kappelman said. "Caregivers have to carry on."
Now, their goal is to hire a part-time executive director, who could run Caring On.
"We may have enough money to pay someone," Davanzo said. "It's getting there."
She might also make families dealing with other terminal illnesses eligible, too, to broaden the appeal of Caring On. And she said she has had offers from larger nonprofits to take over Caring On, though she is leery of that.
"This is my baby that I started," she said. "I would still like to have some say in what goes on."
Meanwhile, life goes on for Davanzo, who is planning a trip to New Orleans this coming spring.
"That's something to look forward to," she said.