Tuesday, March 1, 2011

A 30th Birthday Worth Celebrating–Akimi’s Story

When I was asked to make a designer purse cake for one of my hubby’s client BirthdayCakes011911 007I never believe I would be so touched by this amazing story of courage and hope. I have know so many who have suffered some form of cancer and did not survive even after fighting for many years, however, there are those who survival just inspires you.

Here is how Camilla shared her sister, Akimi’s fight with lupus, I could not have said it any better:

My baby sister was diagnosed with lupus while in college about 5 years ago. This was shock and awe to our entire family as she was always the pillar of health. There is no one in our family with the disease, but we had to consider our grandfather. He was a hemophiliac. Hemophilia refers to a group of bleeding disorders in which it takes a long time for the blood to clot. He suffered from this disease his entire life accompanied by rheumatoid arthritis which my aunt still suffers from today.

My sister life was in danger during the first period of her diagnosis, we almost lost her. With the proper medical attention and support around the clock from our family, she recovered. Today she has her own condo and works a full time job. She has completed school using online college and recently adopted a tea cup puppy. We celebrated her 30th birthday Feb 19th and as you can imagine our family was over the moon.

She has managed to go from 7 medications a day, too only 1. With determination and a high will to live as normal a life as possible, she has managed to mentally deal with the pain of this disease. For as long as I can remember my sister has always been strong willed and always had a strong mind. I believe she is where she is today because of that.

After getting a biopsy a few years ago for a lump in my breast before that I never gave cancer a second thought. Later a cousin die suddenly from cancer and became more cognizant of how much it affect our lives. So I was really happy to make Akimi’s birthday cake since it’s for a celebration which is worth celebrating.

Akimi’s 30th birthday cake is a vanilla bean cake filled with vanilla Swiss Meringue buttercream, covered with chocolate ganache and fondant. The cake was sculptured from sheet cakes.