63. Rebroadcast: Lori Muir with 'Ironman Q Foundation' and Supporting Cancer Families

After a 5 year battle with cancer, Quinton Muir passed away in 2017 at the age of 16. Now his parents, Jeff and Lori Muir are running a foundation called the Ironman Q Foundation to honor his memory and to help other families who find themselves navigating a cancer diagnosis.

This of course was a tender interview as Lori shared her memories of Quinton and some of the reasons they felt motivated in different ways to begin this foundation and help other people in honor of Quinton. She shares how they started out by offering scholarships to kids graduating from the high school Quinton attended, and then moved on from there to doing a variety of things to help other cancer families…including donating quilts, organizing Christamas boxes, giving away Jazz tickets, or even organizing retreats for angel moms.

The Muirs are my neighbors, and I am so inspired by their example of acting on thoughts and promptings to help others, even while they themselves were still grieving the loss of their boy and navigating their own hard days. I loved how Lori shared it doesn’t take much to help someone and make a difference and we can all ‘be that someone’ for somebody else.

This episode originally aired May 16, 2023 (which is actually Quniton’s birthday!). Since then, I haven’t featured any other organizations that have a mission of helping people affected by cancer…but I would like to because I know there are many doing good things just like the Ironman Q Foundation. Send me a email at dosomethingmore.podcast@gmail.com if you have a good idea for one I should feature.

Links mentioned in the episode:
Ironman Q Foundation Website
Ironman Q Foundation Instagram
Ironman Q Foundation Facebook

Follow the podcast on social media:
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Do Something More Facebook
Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

Melissa: After a five year battle with cancer, Quentin Muir passed away in 2017 at the age of 16. Now his parents, Jeff and Lori Muir, are running a foundation called the Ironman Q Foundation to honor his memory and to help other families who find themselves navigating a cancer diagnosis. This, of course, was a tender interview as Lori shared her memories of Quentin and some of the reasons they felt motivated in different ways to begin this foundation and and help other people. In honor of Quinton, she shares how they started out by offering scholarships to kids graduating from the high school Quentin attended, and then moved on from there to doing a variety of things to help other cancer families, including donating quilts, organizing Christmas boxes, giving away jazz tickets, or even organizing retreats for angel moms. The Muirs are my neighbors, and I am so inspired by their example of acting on thoughts and promptings to help others, even while they themselves were still grieving the loss of their boy and navigating their own hard days. I loved how Lori shared it doesnt take much to help someone and make a difference, and we can all be that someone for somebody else. This episode originally aired May 16, 2023, which is actually Quintons birthday. Since then, I havent featured any other organizations that have a mission of helping people affected by cancer, but I would like to because I know there are many doing good things, just like the Iron Man Q Foundation. Send me an email at dosomethingmore dot podcastmail.com if you have a good idea for when I should feature welcome to.

Melissa: The do something more podcast, a service oriented show where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Thank you so much for being here. Well, welcome to another episode of do something more. And today I have my good friend Lori Muir is going to be sharing with us about the foundation that she created in memory of her son, Quentin. And it's called the Ironman Q Foundation, and it helps families with cancer. So we're going to get a little bit more into that. But that's what the show is about today. But first, Laurie, I just want to say welcome to the show.

Lori: Okay, thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. I listen to a lot of podcasts. This is my first time being on one, so we'll see how it goes.

Melissa: I'm sure it will go great. And that's great to come full circle. Just as fun to be on one as it is to listen to. So, Lori, why don't we just start out, just introduce a little bit about yourself. And then also just a little bit about your foundation.

Lori: Okay, excellent. I have to give my husband the most of the credit here. He is kind of the brains behind the foundation, but, yeah. Um, so his name's Jeff, and I'm Lori. And our son Quentin, was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor when he was eleven. So we had this normal eleven year old running around playing baseball or basketball, just doing the normal eleven year old kind of boy stuff. And then all of a sudden, he had kind of a curved spine. We didn't know where it had come from, and they found that there was a tumor there, and so they did a big surgery, and he was in the clear for about 18 months, and then it kind of came back with a vengeance, as cancer tends to do. And after three months of the most intense chemo, he was paralyzed and a quadriplegic for about two years before passing away at the age of 16. So when he passed, we really felt like Iron man was a great symbol for him. He had, like, the chemo port in his chest that was kind of remind us of, like, the Tony Stark thing that goes on. And he loved Iron man. He would tell all the nurses that Iron man was his favorite Marvel character, and he would always say that reading Marvel comics or watching Marvel movies was his favorite pastime. So it became a thing, though, right after he passed. We hadn't ever really called him Iron Man Q or anything, but it was really shortly after he passed that when we were kind of planning his funeral, we decided everything should be Iron man themed. And so we made bracelets that said Iron Man Q. And so when it came time to kind of start this foundation, we already had that symbol of him in our head, and we just refer to him as Iron Man Q sort of in our head at that point. So we were hoping that we'd get the legal rights to use Iron man in the name of our foundation. And it pulled through. So, wow. Even with the, I guess, the restrictions you might have on, on branding or something, but it came through, so it was, it was kind of special for us to, to be able to name the foundation after him.

Melissa: That's really neat. Yes. Anyone that knew Quentin knew that he loved his Marvel comics and was willing to chat about it or the movies or anything. So that was a fun part of who he was.

Lori: He loved it. If anyone, like, needed to know something about any of the Iron man movies he teaches, little cousins, they'd be like, Quentin, what? Why? Why is this happening? And he loved to explain it. He had a lot of t shirts. He just sported this stuff all the time.

Melissa: And I love that you shared, you know, a little bit of his journey there. So that was five years that your family was supporting him with his cancer battle?

Lori: Yes. There were some times where things were going a little bit more smoothly in the battle, and then, obviously, times when different crises would happen. I feel like by the end of his journey, we had gone through a little bit of everything. We've had skin surgeries and hospitalizations and chemo and radiation and surgeries and paralysis and wheelchairs and physical therapy and just gone through a whole gamut of things.

Melissa: Wow. Yeah. Everything. Yeah, sounds like.

Melissa: So when did the idea of the.

Melissa: Foundation kind of start to come about? I just think that's a huge thing to do after going through such an experience like that as a family and with your son. So when in that process, where did that ideal start and kind of what did you do to kind of act on those thoughts and feelings you got on it?

Lori: I guess the first thing was he passed away in February. And I work at a high school, so I was his english teacher, and every year we'd kind of go to the end of year senior assembly where they'd give out scholarships. And we knew that they gave out a lot of scholarships in honor of people. And as we had done some fundraisers and as people donated for his funeral expenses, we had built up a little account for him. And so we really felt fortunate that we hadn't had to dip into that account that much. We'd been able to manage most of his medical expenses and things pretty much with using our family budget, and so we had kind of saved up as much money as we could from what people had donated. We felt like it was kind of sacred funds, like, you know, and we felt so honored to have received it, but we knew that we wanted to do a scholarship, and that was really kind of the seedling of the idea. And so we talked to the school, and that was kind of the first step as we just opened a scholarship for him, and we had students apply, and we just. We didn't have a foundation status yet. We were just using funds that we had. So we did that for our first year, and then as we were kind of going about soliciting more donations so that we could continue the scholarship, I think a lot of it was some of the people who were so generous, who worked with my husband, wanted to donate to us because they felt like it was such a good use of funds, but they kind of wanted the tax benefits for it. And so they wanted to be able to, you know, write it off if they were going to donate large amounts, which some of them were really considering doing. And so Jeff went on and kind of, he used legal zoom and figured out how to create the foundation.

Melissa: Wow. You just really started on your own learning all the. For sure the step by step legal and. And even what you did to get the name legal. So did it take a long time to be able to go through that whole process?

Lori: Yeah, much longer than we originally had anticipated. You know, we just. We didn't know too much about it, but it was pretty in depth, and it took Jeff a long time. I think during that time, I was wiped out. If I had to say, oh, yeah, I'm going to go out and do a bunch of service. At that point, I was not up to it. I was teaching full time, and so the grief was just almost overwhelming, and I just have to come home and kind of take a nap every day. I wasn't thinking about, you know, let's start a foundation. But I think where Jeff's skills, and I think that's just the nice thing, is we could kind of combine our skills and our energy and our gifts together to kind of create this. But I was at a place where I was not having the energy to do it, but he did, and he had a little bit more of the motivation. Like, we got to make this official so that we can keep getting a lot more donations and. And do a little bit more with it. So, yeah, it took probably. Probably a year, maybe a year and a half to get it fully functional from the time we kind of started the paperwork.

Melissa: And I think that is completely understandable to need to take a step back and work through that grieving process. But amazing for the things that sounds like fell into place for your husband to be able to keep moving forward with it. So I love that. So I would love to hear. Now, you mentioned you did a scholarship at the high school that Quinton attended. So for the graduating seniors each year. And so I'd love to hear some about that and maybe some of the other things that you've been able to do with your foundation.

Lori: Yeah. So the first year, we just. It wasn't very well publicized. You know, nobody knew too much about it. We had one boy apply, and so he got the scholarship, and we had three or four girls, and we. We decided it would be one boy, one girl, and so we. We gave those out. And it was really touching to just be able to stand up at that, you know, assembly and kind of share a story and share why we were giving this scholarship. And then it just felt very validating to be able to do that and healing and a touching part. We were very early in the grieving process at that point, but. So Quentin was a junior when he passed away, and we knew that the next year would be huge. We thought about him graduating. We, you know, it was. It was a very painful time, but it made it so much easier on us emotionally to be able to give out. And so we took a pretty big chunk of money at that time, and I think we had a lot of his friends apply or people in our ward, and so we gave out six that year.

Melissa: Wow.

Lori: It was just a beautiful thing to call them each up one by one and to see the little tears on their faces or the happiness in their eyes that, you know, they were going to be able to go to college in honor of Quentin and that maybe their college experience would mean a little bit more to them knowing that this boy who didn't get to go to college is now going to college with a lot of these kids. You know, I've heard of experiences from people who are close to us that they've thought of him when they were taking tests or when they were learning material, and they think, Quentin would have loved to know this. He was so curious. So the scholarship just feels like a really, a really right thing for him because I could really picture him doing well in college and thinking, you know, just loving to learn. And so it really fit with Quentin and who he was and. And so we've given, you know, some years, two, some years, four or five scholarships each year. Yeah.

Melissa: That's a beautiful legacy for him and for your family. And, and I love hearing how that's obviously those that have received it have been touched by those experiences as well. And I just think that's such an admirable thing to do when your family is grieving and going through those things, to use that grief to launch some other young adults into what can be a crazy time of life and to give them something to carry forward. So that's beautiful. Well, I know you've also used it now to also help other families that are kind of going through the same experience have children that have been diagnosed with cancer.

Lori: Yeah. So the summer after we received the foundation status, I kind of sat down to build a website and hadn't built one before, but just thought, we need a website to kind of manage this foundation stuff. So as I built the website, it was kind of a process for me to say, what, what do we really want to do for kids with cancer? So we've got these kids going to college, but we really want to help kids with cancer. I think there's a general authority quote that's like, if you can have the strength to help somebody else in the same circumstance you've been in, that it's super healing and super admirable or, you know, it's something to aspire to attain to. So it's like, yeah, we're going to. We're going to try to help these cancer families. And so we just kind of, we had already done maybe at that point, like, some Christmas boxes where we just kind of get information on the ages of the kids fighting cancer. There's a Facebook page for moms who go to primary children's who have kids with cancer. And so I used that Facebook page to find people who might apply for our Christmas program. So we kind of had the Christmas program, we had the scholarship, and then we just kind of added another component of just care packages that we could send out more randomly or more when a child is diagnosed or when they really need it, when maybe they're experiencing a resurgence of the cancer. So I just. I kind of set that up and, and made it so we could give. One thing about Jeff is that he really loves to buy gifts and toys for kids, and so he'll shop all year round, and he's gonna be a good grandpa. He is. He really. It's just kind of up his alley. I don't know. I'm not great with gifts or, or toys, but he likes that. And so, yeah, we decided to send boxes to make them care packages and boxes, and we send gift cards and other things to help the families financially, sometimes checks, but we, we just have them fill out a Google form and kind of see what their needs are and see what we can do to help them at that time. And we go from there, and he's really good about, like, matching their interests and their, their favorite color or their favorite animal, and he will go on and find just the right game for them. And we just tried to draw on experiences of what it was like to have Q in the hospital and what kinds of things he would like, would take his mind off of things and try to send the family a big package of that kind of goodness. And seems like they really give us a lot of positive feedback. That's a fun experience for their whole family.

Melissa: That's great. Yeah. I could imagine that after your five years of supporting your own child through that experience, you would have an idea of what families might need, and also that it's varied. There's so many different needs while someone's going through something like that as a family.

Lori: Yeah, I think every family, you know, definitely needs different things and likes different things, but we just try to. Try to figure it out. I know. I think moms need something special, too. And so one thing I've done with the grieving moms is we've had the foundation sponsor a kind of a retreat for, for other angel moms, and we will spend a night having dinner and talking and sharing things. And it's been eye opening to me how quickly you can form bonds with these moms who you share so much with right off the bat. So every member of the family kind of needs something a little bit different. We try to meet some of these various needs.

Melissa: Even siblings at times, too.

Lori: Oh, absolutely. We love to figure out something that we can send to the siblings that they might like because we look at our daughters and how kind of left out they feel, and, you know, we knew at the time that they did, but there was not much we could do about it. And I don't know, we just like to try to involve the siblings because that's a big deal for them.

Melissa: I love that. And I love how you've just looked at this from every angle, it seems, and tried to help in all of the different ways that families might benefit or need, so. And I love that idea of retreat how, what a powerful thing for women to be with other women that just get it probably, that know what you're going through and you can connect in that way.

Lori: Yeah. It's funny, I think the spirit really helped me figure out how to do that. I, like I say, I'm not a real go getter. I'm not. I don't love to just plan things for other people. I don't, you know, it didn't seem like something that was going to be in my wheelhouse, but I remember just reading again. We have another Facebook group for mom, who are angel moms? And so many of them were saying, it's Christmas time, and I'm. I'm just drowning in grief and I don't know what to do and can we please get together? And I was about to just scroll past it and be like, oh, it's so hard, but, and I get it, but I was about to just kind of keep scrolling and not really think about it, but something told me, just throw it out there. If I do a retreat, will you come and we did. We had moms. Even though it was the Christmas season, we had moms come from St. George, and it was a big deal. And it was really so healing for a lot.

Melissa: And I love to hear it seems, how you and your husband, Jeff, have just followed through and acted on some of those thoughts and ideas. So maybe not all of us will have the experience you've had, but I think every one of us in our own realm of experience or the things that we've gone through, we get those ideas. And it's just so impressive to me how both of you, even during hard, grieving times, have followed through with those and acted on them.

Lori: Yeah, it's undeniable, you know, it's. You think, I can't do that. That's not me. But it's like I say, it only takes a moment to stop scrolling and think about someone else and think about what they might need. Or we think, oh, no, that's just a weird thought. That's not the spirit working on me. But it's so obvious to me that that's where our best promptings come from, and it's. We just have to rise to the occasion a little bit, pull yourself up and gather the confidence to be like, yeah, I can be that person to just fill this need. I can step out of my comfort zone and organize something. I don't have to be perfect at it, and it doesn't have to be wonderful, but I'm going to do something.

Melissa: On that note, I know we were talking beforehand how this could be a tender interview because all these things are done in memory of your son. That's passed on. But just on that same note, one of the goals of this podcast is to do that, is to inspire others to do something more, to act on.

Melissa: Those thoughts that they've had.

Melissa: And I know there might be some listening that have had friends or family members that have had a child diagnosed with cancer, and they might be wondering or pondering what to do and not sure what to do. Many of us that haven't been through an experience, that's kind of what we do. We want to do something, but we don't always know. Is there any advice or thoughts that you would share with someone who is in that situation? They just. They want to know how they can help, even in the simplest of ways.

Lori: I think you just got to use your talents and your skills and. And do what feels right. Maybe I'll start with our neighbors, and then I'll kind of answer your question as we go. Maybe. But our neighbors can make quilts, and they made them using different methods. They used to put it on frames, and we'd go and help them tie. And as they've gone on, they've gotten more advanced and more advanced. And these are neighbors who were Quentin scout leaders. And so they're using their talents in sewing, which I heard was on your first episode. But they make a quilt to send with every package that we mail, or almost every package. And so our cancer families can get these beautiful quilts, and they're just so tender. He. He quilts them on a machine quilting thing, and he puts cancer ribbons on them, and he uses Iron man fabric, and he puts it together in a really unique way, and he embroiders Iron Man Q on there. So he's a good example of someone who can just kind of be like, okay, well, my talent is sewing, so I'm going to figure out how I can help people with this talent. And he loved Quentin, and he, you know, it just was a natural progression of, I have this talent, and now I can share it with people, and we work that into the foundation. But, so that would be my first thing, is to just make it unique, make it something you like to do, but even something as simple as I think back to, like, the first time Quentin came home from the hospital, from his big surgery, and people had made posters and, I don't know, put balloons up in our yard or something. I don't know. Even those kinds of simple things mean the world. And, yeah, there were people who came and visited us at the hospital, but not everyone can receive visitors at the hospital. I know cancer patients will be very. You want to be very sensitive to any childhood cancer because their blood counts will go so low that they cannot handle any sickness. And it's a big stress to the parents as to how to guard them from those sicknesses. They're usually inundated with family who wants to be with them, which is so natural, and you want to be there in person to comfort, to provide, you know, relief, but they can't be around a lot of people just due to infectious diseases. And so you have to get creative, and. But I would definitely recommend that if you know someone who has been diagnosed with cancer, to be very cautious and in offering your in person, be respectful of those boundaries. Be respectful of those boundaries. Absolutely. But make the posters and do the things that we, you know, how during COVID we had to get so creative in ways. Yeah, just get creative again and. And see how you can offer your assistance from a more remote perspective, I guess. But we loved. We loved everything that different people would do. And the more unique it was to that person and shared that person's gifts and talents with us, the better and the more memorable it was. But every act just goes so far in sharing how much love you feel during those times. You can feel people's prayers for you. And I've been in the other circumstance where friends of mine have been, their kids have been diagnosed, and I feel so helpless.

Melissa: Right?

Lori: And I go, man, all I can do right now is pray. And that's not very much, but honestly, it really does. I think you talk to anyone who's in that kind of circumstance, a crisis moment, and they can feel the prayers. And so don't sell yourself short on prayers. Send a lot of those up because they, they really, the families really do feel that.

Melissa: Yeah, I've heard that from others that have gone through some of those hard situations is that it's the cumulative, cumulative of all the things, and it can be something as small as a text, too, or just. But all of those things together can help you feel so lifted and seen and loved during a hard time. So I love that. Well, I know on that same note of just every little bit helps, I'm sure some listening might want to give to your foundation, and I'm sure every little bit helps there as well. So what can you just give us where they can find you on social media or on the Internet?

Lori: Yeah, we have, people can donate through Venmo, and we have a website, like I talked about, that I set up. Our website is the easiest place to find a lot of the information, and that's just ironmanq.com and. But we have our Venmo listed there, we have our address there. You could send us a check and we could send you back a receipt. Our Facebook is Quentin Muir, ironman Q Foundation, and our Venmo is ironmanq Muir. So, yeah, we love it. We love to get donations. We really, we do jazz tickets, we do care packages, we do these quilts, we do a lot of fun things for these cancer families that, that hopefully lifts their burden a little bit. So any donation helps, little or big, it all works together to come together to help these families. So any donations, we love to receive them. So bring them on in.

Melissa: Thank you so much. And I will put links to all of those in our show notes for anyone listening that wants to go and follow through on that. So. Well, thank you so much, Lori. Thank you for being a little bit vulnerable. I know, like I said, this can be a tender subject, but I just, I been so inspired to watch the way your family walked through that journey. I know I'm not the only one. I know many in our neighborhood and ward felt the same way. And then to also see the good that you and your family have tried to do with it and wanted to do with it. And I know you are doing. So thank you so much for coming on to share that with others.

Lori: Oh, thank you. I feel like any chance I get to talk about Q and to share a story is a blessing to me and, and is very healing. So even just a quick conversation like this, it means a lot to us. So I'm really happy that we got to do this together tonight. I feel your support, I feel your love, and I'm excited for this podcast you're doing. I think it's so wonderful. You're going to do a wonderful job.

Melissa: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. And, and yes, thank you for being willing to share. So.

Lori: Absolutely.

Melissa: That concludes my interview with Lori Muir, and I'm just so grateful for her willingness to share and that all of.

Melissa: You listening got to learn more about.

Melissa: Her son Quentin, and also the things his family is doing in his memory with their foundation. I'm so impressed with the example Lori and her husband Jeff are following through on the thoughts and promptings that have come to them and using their experiences to bless others. I know it's not always easy for any of us to do that when going through hard things or experiencing grief or loss, but I love how Lori shared. It can be so healing to do service. And on that note, if while you.

Melissa: Were listening to this, you felt touched.

Melissa: By the things you heard that they're.

Melissa: Doing with this foundation and would like.

Melissa: To donate in Quentin's memory, you can.

Melissa: Go to their website again.

Melissa: Lori mentioned this, but I'll share it again. You can go to ironmanq.com. scroll down to the bottom and it will show you the various ways, including their venmo, that you can donate to their foundation. So I will also share links to.

Melissa: Those in the show notes, and we'll include their Facebook page as well, their.

Melissa: Ironman Q Facebook page link as well, if you'd like to go to their social media. And I would also love to invite.

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Melissa: And I want to end with a reminder that I hope this week you can find a way to do something more to lift, help inspire, or make a difference.