Cancer survivors and families celebrate Cancer Survivors Day [Video]

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Avera invited cancer survivors and their families out for a celebratory picnic at the Prairie Center on Sunday morning for National Cancer Survivors Day.

The survivors were able to sign a tree that will be hung up in the Avera Cancer Institute.

The theme of this year’s celebration was “Celebrate strength and hope.”

“It was lung cancer. I was watching a movie on the tv screen with some friends. It was a very tense movie and I was just sitting forward and all of a sudden I got this pain going down my arm. It was just a pinched nerve in my neck but they discovered a small spot on my lung. Lung cancer doesn’t have symptoms until it has progressed pretty far. So I was really blessed this was discovered so early,” said cancer survivor Kathy Kersey.

This was the first time the event has been …