A few weeks ago I had posted an important message on my facebook page and everywhere else I could think of, notifying all my friends and followers to make sure to tune in to the Tyra Banks Show on November 12th when a group of “inspiring teens” were going to be honoured.  What I saw on the TV when I watched a few days after the initial airing really bothered me.  The girl on the screen was not the Samantha I had hung out with several times and had gotten to know through hilarious one-liners on the internet.  The girl on the screen cried!  Samantha has every right to cry, but she rarely does, and only in private, I’m sure.

About to turn 19 this week, Samantha  has been living with bone cancer for the past 1 1/2 years, has had her left leg amputated up to her hip and is currently undergoing another round of chemo treatments for some more recently detected tumors. What is truly amazing about Samantha, and the reason she was selected to be featured on the Tyra show, is that during most of the last year she has been actively involved in the Make-a-Wish Foundation and with the Terry Fox organization as a motivational guest speaker and active fundraiser.   People can’t help but fall in love with her positive energy and inspiring spirit.  That’s not what they got on the Tyra Show.

It was supposed to work out like this;  Samantha and her family had been scheduled to fly to New York for the taping of the show, but less than a week before leaving Samantha got sick (H1N1!) and wasn’t allowed to fly.  Huge disappointment.  After a flurry of phone calls back and forth between NY and Vancouver, where Tyra herself even called to figure out a way to make it work, it was decided that she could do her interview via Skype and it would be spliced into the show.

Cheryl, my girlfriend who introduced me to Samantha, tells me she spoke to her right after the Skyping  and she was thrilled with how the interview had gone.  She relayed to Cheryl how she had had plenty of chances to talk about Make-a-Wish and all the wonderful things they do for kids with life-threatening illnesses and what they’ve done to support her.  She talked about her public speaking engagements and her stints on the radio.  And yes, she admitted there was one point where she got emotional and couldn’t help herself and she cried a bit.  Totally understandable.

Unfortunately, her friends and I think the editors at the Tyra Show were a little too frisky with the scissors and most of the interview wound up on the cutting room floor.  All the bits about Make-a-Wish and how grateful Sam was to them~ gone.  All the Terry Fox stuff.  Basically, everything that made Samantha a remarkable teen was left out, and what was shown were the segments where she shed a few tears or seemed to lament her situation!  Arrrgghhh!  The girl I know doesn’t let anything hold her back and she doesn’t wallow or look for sympathy.  She’s someone who will hop onto a dance floor, sans wig or headscarf, and rocked it out with just her one leg.  You have to be on your toes constantly because of her quick wit (she would have a crack to make about only having 5 toes to my 10, I’m sure). I wish the Tyra audience could have heard about that side of Samantha, and then I think they might have understood why this girl from Canada was receiving so many fantastic gifts arranged by the show.

Samantha and Cheryl at an EA Sports Event

The Tyra Show did some amazing things for Samantha that are truly appreciated.  They made so many of her dreams come true, like arranging a full scholarship to Kwantlen College, providing her with a top of the line prosthesis and having a gorgeous natural hair wig specially designed to match Samantha’s former look (she’s confidently modeling it in the top photo and looks great!), and for that she feels blessed and extremely grateful.  I know editing for TV is a necessity and that my humble little blog post will never come close to reaching the numbers of viewers of the Tyra Show that day, but I just wanted to find some way to let the real Samantha be known.

You are an Enlightened Goddess, Samantha, and much loved!