By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Sunday was, in Amy Zott’s own words, like attending her own funeral.
In an afternoon of amazing support and friendship, Zott greeted hundreds that turned out at Veterans Terrace for a fundraiser that will send thousands of dollars to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.
Many spent time talking with Zott, who was given a pancreatic cancer diagnosis last summer. Already, Zott has outlived the low end of her original prognosis – six months.
Now, as she rounds 10 months and heads on toward a year, she admitted Monday that the event was a chance to say goodbye.
“It’s like having your funeral early,” Zott said. “To get to see people I don’t get to see anymore on a daily basis.
“It was absolutely incredible,” she added.
Sunday’s event – which featured close to 100 silent and live auction items, food, beverages and live music – was the culmination of efforts by a group of friends called “Amy’s Angels.”
Zott wanted to do the benefit, but not for herself, aiming instead to help others suffering from the often-fatal diagnosis. And after initially setting a goal of raising $2,500, friend and fellow lawyer Kathy Muffitt talked her into a higher number – $25,628.
While Muffitt was still sorting out the final numbers on Monday, she knew that they had exceeded the $20,000 mark.
“That could easily be several thousand dollars more,” Muffitt added. “And there’s still money trickling in.
“It kind of makes chills go up my spine,” she added.
Almost a year
Zott doesn’t mince words when she talks about her cancer.
“I have all the bad stuff,” Zott said simply.
After being sick and spending days in bed last spring and summer, Zott went to the doctor. She had symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, but Zott said neither would have been a “textbook” diagnosis.
In addition, she’d had a scan the year before, and nothing had shown up.
Doctors thought the problem might be a bile duct issue with her gall bladder. Zott went through a number of scans and tests.
“Then everything changed,” she said.
On July 21 of last summer, Zott was handed the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, already in Stage 4B. The cancer was aggressive, and had already metastasized to the liver and her lungs.
Zott remembers that she didn’t get a number from doctors.
“They don’t ever want to tell you that,” she said, referring to how long she had left. The average time, though, is six months to a year.
Zott shuttered her law practice almost immediately, and started checking items off her bucket list – even as she started chemotherapy.
She has since moved on to harsher drugs, ones recently approved by the FDA. Still, she has her sense of humor.
“As a good thing, I don’t need to shave my legs anymore,” she explained. “That’s the best part of chemotherapy.”
On Sunday, Zott entered with a purple cap on her head. But when she had settled into a chair, the hat came off, revealing the small amount of hair she had left.
“We’re still hanging in there,” Zott said.
Taking care of others
The benefit wasn’t about Amy Zott – well, not exactly. While people came and spent time talking to her Sunday, not one penny of the money will go to Zott. Through her own successful law practice and her family, Zott can handle her own bills.
Sunday was all about helping others – what friends call one of Zott’s greatest gifts. Or as Jill Schoenberg explained before the benefit, it went to answering an important question for Zott.
“What to do with the time she has left?” Schoenberg said of the fundraiser.
The Burlington community showed up in force, ranging from politicians to area business leaders to past and present members of the Burlington Area School District staff and School Board.
But it went beyond that. An employee from the Racine County Courthouse showed up early, and declared that she’d passed the word about the event – and people would be coming.
And as more people filed in as the afternoon went on, it became apparent that many not only wanted to help raise money … but be there as friends of Amy Zott. For a little while, a baby played in Zott’s lap, smiling and grabbing onto her fingers.
Other friends sat and talked, sharing hugs and gentle moments. Little touches of Zott’s personality – right down to her loved minions from “Despicable Me” – were everywhere.
In the background, roughly 85 silent auction items were wracking up a huge number of bids, with some items going for close to $200.
When Zott heard the preliminary numbers, she lacked words to express how she felt.
“Indescribable,” Zott said. “Just so gratifying and just so, really, unbelievable that we’re going to make that much of a difference and be able to sustain it from that fundraiser.
“People were so generous,” she added.
Looking ahead
The coming months will likely not be easy. Zott’s friends know she has been fighting, though struggling, with her chemotherapy sessions and the toll the drugs are taking on her.
Amy and her husband, Jeff, are all too aware of what little time is likely left – and what Amy won’t get to experience.
“I’m losing the love of my life,” Amy said. “We had dreams and hopes. None of that will ever come true.
“I think that’s the other part that’s hard for me, leaving him behind,” she added.
Jeff said, “It’s obviously nothing we ever envisioned would happened. It’s nothing you can plan for.
“That’s the way life is,” he added. “Things happen, and you have to deal with them.”
Still, though, Jeff said he feels “blessed” for the time he has had, for the couple’s two children – Katie and Ben, both teenagers – and the friends and the family who have supported them in this journey.
“It’s just a blessing in some ways to have this time to appreciate everything,” he said.
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