Keeping hope alive

(ABC 6 News) – Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. When you have hope in the darkest of times, you can get through any obstacle life throws at you.

That’s what one Mayo Clinic patient is doing.

She’s overcoming all the odds.

It was a normal day for Kate Madonna Hindes, a Mayo Clinic Patient going to a medical appointment.

She saw a message of hope when she pulled into the Damon Parking Ramp and her life was never the same. It reads I love you, you got this.

“Words hold incredible power. I think the person who took their finger and wrote on the glass in the parking garage had no idea who I was or what I was coming to Mayo for,” Hindes said.

Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer in July of 2021. They caught it early and now she’s cancer free. But it was a long road to get to this point.

“What’s Your message for people this month?”

“I think it’s to remember that Cancer does not make you different. I was terrified of having breast cancer because I thought it’d make me less. And that wasn’t my first cancer, I’ve had cancer multiple other times. But for some reason what was the cancer that took me down,” Hindes said.

But Kate wasn’t only battling breast cancer. She was in an abusive relationship. She told a Mayo Clinic staff member, and they helped her in more ways than one.

“I was able to leave because of the grace of a message on a wall, which gave me enough courage to speak out about what was happening in my breast cancer appointment. She asked me a question like how are you doing today? And I just started crying. I was crying because I was in grief. I was sick of being yelled at and screamed at. She said are you safe and I don’t know? And sometimes for domestic violence victims and survivors is one of the most powerful questions you can ask,” Hindes said.

Kate overcame so much ever since she left that relationship, and now she wants to help others.

“I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing messages in action and in words to help other women, men and nongendered people in a situation like I was,” Hindes said.

Kate is living a life of purpose and she’s going to help people no matter what.