Angela & Mike's Victory - My Cancer Journey

I Feel Like Busting Loose

2011-01-13T14:24:00.002-05:00

It's Day 15 and my counts are on the rise even more to 1.3. The doc said it looks like I will be released on schedule next week. Wahoo!! My mood has improved drastically with this news. I'm really excited to see what news will be tomorrow. This is getting exciting.

Today my brother flew back from MD to see me and tomorrow Brian's brother flys in from in FL and Gail is coming from from Austin. We're going to have to manage all these visitors so I don't get exhausted.

Today the evil doctors gave me lasik, which makes me pee like a race horse. It's to make sure I don't retain extra fluid and believe me I don't on this stuff. Evil people! I think it's just about of my system.

Day #14

2011-01-12T17:30:00.002-05:00

Things are certainly on the upswing today. The nurse woke me up to tell me that I have officially ENGRAFTED!!! Meaning my WBCs have hit more than 0.5 at 0.6. I exceeded my own expectations and i can hopefully moving up until i hit the perfect which would signal my release. There could still be a couple of bumps, but things are looking up. I've increased my water intake because that's another condition for me to be released by the 19th. Woo hoo!!!! There was a collective happy dance here in Houston this morning.

I've also found a happy medium on medication that doesn't make me loopy or anxious so it's all good now. I also look forward to the neupogen shots that help me generate the WBCs I need. I'd take 2 0r 3 a day if i thought it would help!!

Day #13

2011-01-11T20:01:00.002-05:00

Things are finally starting to look up. After having my counts make a minor jump from 0.0 WBC and then falling back to 0 for a few days, I wasn't doing so well. This place makes me stir crazy and I had a panic attack the other night - not pretty. I'm ok falling asleep but if I wake up, then I have to calm myself down all over. ABBA's Mama mia helps but I listened to it for nearly 4 hours the other night. However, I think my team has come up with a solution which involves Ativan every 6 hours through IV and then another sleeping pill only at night. We started it today and I already feel calmer.

The other bothersome thing is that my vision starting blurring the other day so I can't read, watch tv, play games, mess with my iPad or do much of anything which I'm sure didn't help the anxiety. We saw the Ophtamologist yesterday and they thought the vision would improve on its own as the WBC improved - so disappointed. However today, I looked up at the tv guide and could READ!! It's not perfect but I can watch tv and see the computer.

I've also had a good afternoon - took a couple of walks and found the exercise bike and i feel like i have a little more energy. What a good day in the end. Praise God!

Day +3

2011-01-01T12:16:00.002-05:00

It's been 3 days since my transplant. Cousin Liz is starting to feel better and I'm so glad. She felt like she'd been kicked by a mule in her lower back from the procedure. She is my hero for all that she's been through.

I'm doing well the doctors say. Today my voice is coming and going because of the chemo but I feel fine and I'm thankful for that. I spent the morning watching a movie on iTunes so I wouldn't have to talk. They're giving me cytoxin today and tomorrow (6am-9am!) to help my body accept the transplanted marrow vs reject it. The downside is that I'm requird to pee a lot to help get rid of the toxins from the cytoxin so I'm getting plenty of exercise going to the bathroom!

Oh yeah, HAPPY NEW YEAR! It doesn't quite feel like New Years, but I did wake up around 11:40 last night to watch Carson ring in the new year. I'm hoping for a healthier 2011 for sure. Several people sent along New Year's party supplies so we wore the hats and took lots of picture (on Facebook). Fun!

Mike is napping since he was up late "partying" in the family room with my brother. They were up until 2am finishing a puzzle! Those crazy guys. I actually called him because I thought they might have left and found a bar somewhere.

Pictures

2010-12-28T13:54:00.005-05:00

Mike and Cousin Hunter hanging out at the Rodeo Benefit for me

Here's Me, Mike, and Juicy!

Day -1

2010-12-28T13:35:00.002-05:00

After this I'm going to need a brain transplant because I keep forgetting my password to this site. Tomorrow is Day 0 or TRANSPLANT DAY. I'm nervous, anxious, excited, and more to get to this day. My cousin Liz is here today to get ready for her end of the process when she gets knocked out and donates her healthy marrow to me. I guess all of my bad marrow is now gone as I've gone through 4 days of induction chemo before today. I'm super grateful to Liz for stepping up and doing this somewhat painful process for me. She really is giving me a new opportunity for life and hopefully many more years. It's an amazing thing and amazing that science and medicine has gotten many patients through this same process. MD Anderson does 700 transplants a year! Amazing when you think about that - almost 2 every day.

I've been feeling okay. The biggest issues are nausea and the pneumonia everyone's worried about. The nausea sucks and I just tossed my cookies again after I ate lunch. I can eat some days but not others. The pneumonia is freaking everyone out because I started coughing again on Saturday and my Mom came down with something last Thursday but was coming around here until Monday when the Infectious Disease doctor essentially kicked her out until she feels better. Dad is down here too but now he's got the cold and I haven't seen him for a couple of days.

So the word is that Liz will have her procedure around 8am tomorrow morning and then sometime after I lunch I'll receive her fresh marrow through a central line (IV), which is kind of like a blood transfusion. I think it takes 1-2 hours for the whole process and I might feel a little sleepy. I just hope this is the cure I need and that it works for a long, long, long time.

Happy Turkey Day

2010-11-26T00:45:00.002-05:00

It's been a little while since I've blogged, but I forgot my password and it took us some time to figure out how to reset it. Now I'm back just in time to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. We're here in Houston celebrating with Mike's family including his mom Gail, Aunt Pam, and of course Uncle Steve and Aunt Valerie along with his cousins Jason, Travis, and Abbe. His brother Brian and his girlfriend flew up for the occassion too. It's nice because it's been a while since we've had a holiday with some of his family. My family went to my Grandma's today.

I'm extremely aware today of all the things I am grateful for: family and friends who love me and Mike. The amount of support and love we have received from everyone has been amazing. Not only has my cousin Gina thrown a rodeo and a BBQ in my honor to raise money (nearly $10k!) and sign people up to be marrow donors, but she's driven four hours to see me. She's so awesome and I love her so much. I wish I could spend more time with her because she is just so energetic and being around her always makes me happy. We just laugh hysterically each time we see each other. I'm also extremely grateful for my cousin Liz: my half match donor. I literally owe her my life. For her to sign up to donate marrow for me (a somewhat painful process), is something I will never forget. I had a feeeling we would be a match just based on some genetic similiarities, but I honestly had no idea. She is amazing.

I'm also grateful and ecstatic that my brother Michael and his wife Shaunda are expecting twins (on my birthday!). When he told me, the first thing that popped into my head was the "Circle of Life" from the Lion King when they held up the baby cub. Hearing the fantastic news gives me a lot of hope and a surge of energy that I so dearly need to get through the next few months. I'm so excited to meet the little ones and they're expecting a boy and a girl! I just can't wait to be an aunt and spoil the little ones as much as possible.

I finally have my transplant schedule. After battling pneumonia and waiting weeks to recover from that horrible episode, we met with the transplant doctor on Tuesday and now my schedule is completely booked up. We've been lucky the past few weeks and only had to travel to the doctors once a week instead of 2-3 times a week, but that luxury is gone. Next week I meet with doctors and have a whole bunch of tests to make sure my body is able to handle the transplant (plus to see how many blasts I have in my marrow now). Next Sunday (12/5), I check into the hospital to begin my pre-transplant activities and to start my 30 days of isolation. On 12/14, I'm scheduled to start the transplant - otherwise known as Day 0. After that, the next 100 days are critical and it's going to be intense. I'm nervous and scared, but it's what I came to Texas to do so I'm anxious to get the show on the road. However, having pneumonia and still coughing even today scares the crap out of me. Hopefully, it will not complicate things any more than it already has.

Roller Coaster Week

2010-11-04T20:49:00.003-04:00

I went to bed Sunday with a slightly scratchy voice, which I attributed to allergies but my body had other plans for me and Monday began the downward sprial. I woke up at 2:30 with a headache so Mike suggested I take my temperature and it was 100.7 - close to a fever but not necessarily something that would get me in the hospital. About 45 minutes later Mike woke me up so I could take my temperature: 103.9. Now THAT necessitated a trip the MD Anderson ER. We quickly packed up 2-3 days worth of clothes in a sleepy haze. My brother was leaving on Monday we had to wake him up so we could figure out how to get to the airport. Luckily, Mike's Mom was still there because she was also driving back to Austin so I suggested she drive him, which she did, and we headed to the ER at 4am. Mike sped through the darkened town and we made good time getting here (no traffic!). Unfortunately, we could not find the MD Anderson ER very easily to we circled the streets several times -finding the Children's hospital ER, the Methodist Hospital ER and every other ER but ours. We finally found it and I checked in. They immediately hooked me up and drew blood. They were admitting me, but it took them 16 hours to find me a bed. Yikes! I was pretty miserable and their hard-as-a-rock bed didn't help.

After I finally got moved to the 12 floor, my day didn't get any better. I spent the first few days fighting fevers, nausea, and a teerrible cough - which gave me fevers and the urge to puke. It was pretty rough and I didn't sleep well because of the coughing spasms, which went on and on for about 20 minutes. They gave me 4-hour and 6-hour cough medicine, which worked for the first two hours and then just stops working. On Tuesday, they sent me downstairs for a chest x-ray because they heard a touch of pneumonia when they listened to my chest and I hacked up a lung. A nurse walking by commented that I should try sucking on some hard candy to stop the cough. She brought me a couple and it worked! When I got back to my room, I asked cousin Gina to pick me up some mints at the store.

Cousins Gina brought Liz up here so the doc could do some tests on her, which turned into a full day of bloodwork, an EKG, and urine testing. She also met with the doc (Mike came down for that since I was completely wiped out. She is a complete haplo-identical match and they're going to do actual bone marrow donation vs the stem cell transplant. They're going to knock her out under general anesthesia. I didn't want so scare here, but I did give her the facts. It doesn’t hurt a bit, but the pressure is the worst part. I've had 5 of them and I was fully awake. I think being knocked out will completely help control the pain. I think they're going to put it into me as soon as they are done withdrawing from her. I wonder if I'll be awake with my ativan pills? We'll have to see. The want to start 11/12, 11/15, or 11/18 - but it depends on me kicking these fevers down and have more than zero white blood cells.

The worst day was yesterday. I started out normal, but I had a couple of fevers. Then my blood pressure dropped and kept getting lower. When it hit 70, it scared the crap out of my team and they called in the ICU team. The first story was that a member of the ICU was going to come up here to closely monitor me. As she was heading up, they told me that I was being transferred so Mike rushed to pack up all of our crap so we'd be ready when she got here. She arrived and hooked me up to check my heart rate and a whole bunch of other things. I had tubes coming out everywhere! Plus the ICU scared me, but probably not as much since I was feeling so out of it. The ICU nurse monitored me while they looked for a bed. At the same time the were dumping a ton a fluids in me to help the blood pressure rise. A couple of hours later, my blood pressure started going up to 90. When it hit 100, they decided not to transfer me. Yay. They monitored me overnight and my blood pressure remained in the 100s.

When I tried to sleep last night, I coughed so bad I didn't get much sleep. I started hallucinating that random nurses were coming in my room to talk to me so I kept waking up just to check. My hallucinations were asking me questions and either I'd answer then or there'd be nobody in the room. It was a lonnnng night.

Angela wrote the above words, but has been unable to finish the post, so I (Mike) will step in.

After the ICU scare, she has continued to progress in the positive direction. Her vitals, blood pressure, oxygen levels, fevers, have all gotten better. Hard to tell exactly why, but I think that once the doc's found out for sure she had pneumonia - they were able to address that with a more targeted approach.

Over the last 2 days, her vitals have been stable, no fevers at all, coughing is under control and diminishing, and she is getting lots of sleep - which she desperately needed. For the last 2 nights she has slept much better (not great) but better. Additionally she has been able to sleep during the day. The one thing that has not gone away is her hallucinations. The doctors said that it was a side effect of one of the antibiotics. So hopefully they will go away soon. I just got an update on the hallucination….they are a side effect of the sleeping pill we gave her to help her sleep. It should wear off today!

The doctor also said that her “counts” (blood work and immune system) are on the rise. Her white blood counts (WBC) was 0.0 for about 2 weeks so it is ABOUT time. Yesterday it rose to 0.3 and should continue to more than double every day. The doc’s also said this morning that she “should” be released this coming week. WE HOPE!

11/9 Update – Yesterday the doctors said we were going to be released this morning. However, Angela had another coughing fit last night that we couldn’t get control of and it caused a fever. When the doctors saw the fever they said they wanted to keep her here another day for monitoring. As bad as I want to leave, it works out because Angela had a bone marrow biopsy and a chest CT scan today. It would have been late when we left the hospital anyway. The biopsy is to verify (hopefully) that the Leukemia is in remission and the chest CT is to check the status of the pneumonia. Additionally, the doctors promised us (again) that we will be going home (texas) tomorrow.

Training for a 5K

2010-10-20T22:16:00.002-04:00

My knee is finally better! I've walked 16 laps around the floor today, which is a vast improvement over any day this week when the most laps I did was three total. I've also kicked the walker to the curb and am able to just hang on to my IV pole. I keep joking with the staff that I'm training for a 5k.

My morning was a little trying. Since I had the fevers a couple of times yesterday, I had sweated a lot in my bed and I smelled funky. But to take a shower, the nurse has to unhook me from the IV pole and wrap my PICC in plastic (press-n-seal saran wrap works best from what I hear). Unfortunately, my PICC line had done some funky twist in my chest and they weren't able to use it until it got fixed so I got stuck with an IV yesterday. Because the PICC line was compromised, I spent the morning waiting for the IV team to come by to fix it. After "power flushing" my line with a bunch of heparin, they realized it would just have to come out and be replaced. Not a bad process, but not fun either. I managed to get through it without any sedative. It's not painful (the numbing part hurts more). After they re-did the PICC (from my hospital bed, BTW) I had to wait to be transported for a chest x-ray to make sure they fixed it. After a while, I finally got down to the x-ray area and waited for the actual x-ray. By the time I got back upstairs to my room, it was nearly 11am.

I was still waiting for my shower. I had asked the nurse much earlier that morning if she could get me ready for the shower. A tech came in and wrapped up my PICC, but she wasn't allowed to unhook the IV so we had to wait for the nurse. I had my saran-wrap arm wrapped for two hours by then and was eager to get my shower. I knew the chemo was supposed to start at noon so I had a very small window to get my shower in, but I knew I could do it. Unfortunately, the nurse didn't come into my room until 11:50 so she started the chemo and I waited another hour. The good news was that my PICC was fixed so they could use it again (which means tomorrow morning's blood draw should be a LOT easier). I finished that chemo and they had to flush the line and do some other things, but I finally got unhooked from the IV and into the SHOWER!! Hallelujah! The angels sang and the stench lifted! Since I still have my hair for now it felt great to wash it.

I just did the math on my baldness (typically +16 days after chemo), I should be bald by Halloween. Paint me orange and put a tiny green "stem" hat on me and call me the Great Pumpkin! I could have some fun with this. :)

Houston, We Have Arrived

2010-10-19T22:32:00.003-04:00

I saw Dr. Wallmark on October 8th and based on the results of my blood work, he called the doctor at MD Anderson to express his concern that things were "heating up". After they talked, Dr Wallmark said I had an appointment with MD Anderson on the 12th and he suggested I take it. We spent the weekend packing up our stuff, dealing with what to do with our tenants, and figuring out who would take care of Shelby and Riley. It was a rough weekend and so hard to say goodbye to the boys. We left on Monday and arrived late at Mike's Aunt Valerie and Uncle Steven's house. I had another bone marrow biopsy on Tuesday and the news was worse than I thought - my blasts, which had previously been at 5%, had jumped to 20% and I was diagnosed with leukemia. I met with the leukemia team on Thursday and they admitted me on Friday. I started the first 5-day treatment on Saturday as an inpatient. If things go well, I may not need another round so we'll see.

It's been rough since I arrived. My knee started aching the weekend before I left and it got worse with the plane ride on the way down to the point where I had a hard time walking. Mike pushed me out of the airport in a wheelchair. When we finally got admitted late Friday night, Mike had to push me again in a wheelchair through the long, winding halls of the hospital with a small suitcase in tow. The first night, we didn't get any sleep between the PICC installation at 1am, the chest x-ray at 2am, and the usual rounds of vital signs at all hours. They wanted to start the chemo at 4am, but Mike begged them to reconsider and they relented. Despite that, we still barely got any sleep but at least we got more than we would have. They were then supposed to start chemo at 6am but then changed it to 9am.

Since then, I've had a few rough spots here and there. Because my knee was hurting so bad, they gave me morphine in my IV line and I threw up my smoothie about 30 minutes later. No more morphine for me! I took a pill form of morphine with no problems. I had someone from physical therapy come in and give me stretches and a walker to I could walk. My knee finally started to feel better yesterday and I've had a couple of setbacks but it's a vast improvement from where I was. I've run a couple of fevers today and felt crappy from it, but I'm doing better right now. This morning was also rough - my mom asked if I wanted toast for breakfast and I threw up in the trash can. I finally nibbled on crackers and felt better. Oh, and one of the chemo drugs gave me a HUGE headache yesterday which caused me to throw up too. Today they gave me some meds before the chemo to prevent the headache and it worked.

I did get some great news today. They found a 9/10 donor match who agreed to do the match. They're going to run some additional tests to make sure we're a good match but I'm relieved to have found someone. We're waiting for the test results of my cousins to see if any of them are also a match. A related half-match is better than an unrelated match - but I have options!

Show Me the Money - $10K for Your Life

2010-09-29T10:48:00.002-04:00

More bad news – my brother is not a half match either. There’s a 1:2 chance that he would be a half match and apparently one of us was switched at birth because he doesn’t match. Mom is completely dumbfounded because we looked so much alike at birth and as little kids (we really did) so how can he not match me at all?

The doctors gave me a very small glimmer of hope by asking to type my cousins as there’s a 1:8 chance one of them could be a donor match. I have four cousins so let’s see what happens. My insurance will not pay to type my cousins so that cost will be an out of pocket expense to me at $435 per cousin. Next, my insurance will also not pay to do a search in the National bone marrow registry and that expense will cost me $10,000. You read that right - $10K. At first I was floored by the cost to do a search in a database – how can it be that expensive? After thinking about it and talking to a few people, I’ve come to realize that cost must include searching for a donor match, carefully screening the person (full health workup), and then prepping them for the donor process (which includes Neupogen shots to maximize their stem cells to help me on the other end). That makes me feel better, but $10K is a lot of money. We’ll find the money somehow (now up to $12K if you included the cost to type my cousins), but how do people do it and why doesn’t insurance cover the cost? They’ll cover the transplant, but not the search process and the search is part of the transplant. Without the search, there is no transplant. It boggles my mind.

On top of all this, NIH did a preliminary search (which is free) and found no 10/10, or “perfect” match for me but did find 50 9/10 matches. I’m trying to be positive that 50 9/10 matches are better than no match at all, but I’m floored that there aren’t more out of the hundred thousand people in the database. I really don’t need to be that special and I want to find that perfect match who will help me live.

I’m having a really tough time this week dealing with this news plus the doctor in Texas started rattling off mortality rates and statistics with a half match versus a 9/10 match. I know the prognosis for MDS is not that great, but I didn’t need to hear it on the phone at work. I’ve decided I need another doctor with better bedside manners and one who will tell me that I have a tough road ahead and it’s not going to be easy, but he or she will help me FIGHT. I don’t need some research doctor to give me the stats and make me feel like I’m up against the impossible before I even start this journey. I've asked my doctor here for recommendations and then I'll call the advocacy center to see if they can give me someone else. I just can't deal with a bad doctor too.

I'm also trying to figure out whether I need to fly back to Texas to meet with their lymphoma doctor. I am scheduled to go back on Monday, but I'm trying to determine if I really need to go or can we work it over the phone with my local doctors. If the lymphoma is back, then maybe we can work the treatment locally? I just pray that the lymphoma is not back - one problem at a time.

Back from Texas

2010-09-24T18:11:00.002-04:00

I went to MD Anderson last week to meet with their transplant specialists. I was also scheduled to have another bone marrow biopsy (super!), an echocardiogram, and some kind of test where I breathe into a tube to test my lung capacity to make sure my body can handle the rigors of the stem cell transplant. They changed my schedule around and added a PET and CT scan on Thursday and Friday. Not only that, but they moved the biopsy from Wednesday to Tuesday and since I hadn't planned on that, I left my Ativan back at Mike's Aunt's house. I started to panic at lunch when I realized it and worked quickly to get their nurse to prescribe me one pill so I could take it before the biopsy. Then I had to rush the pharmacy to get it in time. I managed to pick up the medication and take it 30 minutes before, but it was probably a little too late for it to take full effect. Mike wasn't allowed into the room with me (even though he didn't pass out during my last two procedures) so I grabbed my iPad for a music distraction, but I couldn't remember how to turn the dang volume up and had to give up so they could get started.

The procedure didn't go so well. I've either had a biopsy or an aspiration, but they combined both into one procedure - double ouch. The aspiration part is a funky kind of painful feeling and hard to describe. I think they pull the fluid out, so it's just a weird sensation. After the aspiration, they did the biopsy and that's when the tech ran into trouble. She couldn't get the need out of my bone. It was stuck, no matter how hard she pulled. I know this because she was telling me. She tried several times and while I thought about passing out, I also had visions of walking down the hall with the dang needle in my hip. She finally got it out, but the piece of bone she needed for the biopsy wouldn't come with it so she had to stick me again. Luckily it went better the second time - no stuck needle. It was not fun. That's why I hate bone marrow biopsies. Next time, I'm taking TWO Ativans.

I met with the doctor. He was/is concerned that my lymphoma is returning (and freaked out on me). I told him to talk to Dr. Wilson at NIH but he seemed to blow me off and said he'd talk to their lymphoma expert. Their lymphoma guy reviewed my records and agreed with Dr. Wilson that he doesn't think the lymphoma has returned or I would be sick by now and in the hospital versus walking around. They went ahead and scheduled the PET and CT anyway just to be sure. I get that and I know they need to be sure because that would certainly change my treatment plan.

Now I'm waiting for all the test results and trying to figure where I should go for treatment: MD Anderson or Hopkins. MD Anderson also thought that a haplo-identical (half match) would be the best option. They're going to re-test my brother just to be sure and I heard yesterday that they want to look at my four cousins too as there's a 1:8 chance that they could be a haplo-identical match. Once the insurance clears it, test kits will be mailed to everyone. I just have to think about which conditioning regiment is the best as both hospitals have different approaches for the pre-conditioning for the transplant. I need to determine which has the best success rate and which is the best for me (that's of course if I have a half-match in my family). If I don't have a half-match, then I need to keep looking for the 10/10 or 9/10. Too many things to consider, and the clock is ticking away on when to start the process.

Dr. Wallmart is My Homeboy

2010-09-08T17:46:00.002-04:00

Dr. Wallmart (name has been changed) is a godsend. In 2007, Mom wanted me to see him for my lymphoma treatment but since I had already been admitted into NIH, I decided it was easier to just keep going there (and easier on my wallet since the treatments were free and no messy co-pays involved). Mom loves Dr. Wallmart and raves about him all the time. Now that I'm in limbo bouncing around between doctors and hospitals, I've been really stressed with all this thinking, planning, and information gathering. It's a lot of work and I've been going crazy. I've been looking for a hematologist or someone to track my weekly blood draws and it's been just stressful trying to get it all worked out. I had tried on my own to get an appointment with Dr. Wallmart's office, but his scheduling and new patient coordinators hadn't called me back. Mom went to see Dr. Wallmart on my behalf and told him about my new situation and asked if he would see me. He told her that he would work me in his schedule, just tell the scheduling people. When the scheduling person finally called me back, the first appointment available was September 27. I tossed down the gauntlet and told her Dr. Wallmart had said to work me in. Magically, I was able to secure an appointment yesterday (9/7).

I've decided Dr. Wallmart is my homeboy. He is awesome. He's going to help me decide where to go once I get back from MD Anderson and help me map out my game plan. He also said he would track my blood work and help me gather the information I need to make this ominous decision. He knows the Hopkins doctor and will chat with him about his findings. I was really impressed when he called Dr. Wilson at NIH while I was finalizing my next appointment. Dr. Wallmart is ON TOP OF THINGS!! I already feel some of the load lifting from my shoulders. I have a homeboy. A teammate. A cheerleader. He's exactly what I need. Thanks, Mom.

Doctor's Visits

2010-08-30T17:04:00.002-04:00

I am unlucky...that's putting it mildly but it's unfortunately true. First, I had NHL and was treated with chemo, which is a natural treatment option for cancer. It turns out that the Adriamycin in the chemo regimen can cause post-treatment MDS and I'm just that unlucky one to have it happen. Adriamycin is a pretty nasty chemo drug (aren't they all?) but this one they really watch to make sure patients don't have a bad reaction. I never liked that Adriamycin stuff anyway, it reminded me of that Adriana character on the Sopranos (Christopher's girlfriend). She was pretty unlucky too. In my case, I have a weird-to-treat "9/11 T chromosome" type of MDS, which is not the "standard" MDS so a little harder to treat. Unlucky me.

My brother is not a match. Today's doctor asked if he was a half-match and I don't know the answer so I've got to contact NIH again to ask for all of my records in the last month so I know exactly how much an "un-match" Michael is. I met with Hopkins today and they do half-match transplants, or haploidentical, and they also do matched unrelated donor, or MUD, transplants. However, their program is geared more towards the haploidentical transplant. Dr. Gore was very personable and I liked him very much. He's going to present my case to the team tomorrow to see what their consensus is for treatment.

I have a couple of options at Hopkins. Their goal would be to get me treated and into remission from the MDS prior to doing any transplant. The first would be taking Vidaza on an outpatient basis at Shipley Hospital, which is closer to home, for six months until remission is achieved. The second is going for the gusto and treating me with hard-core chemo for a month at Hopkins prior to starting the transplant (bye-bye hair). There are pros and cons to both. Obviously, with a six-month treatment on an outpatient level I could continue to work and live "normally". However, is that really going to kick MDS to the curb later when I undergo the transplant? I don't know if going the "soft" route is what I want to do. On the other hand, what if the hard-core chemo makes me really sick prior to transplant and I don't recover enough to do the transplant? I didn't handle chemo really well the last time and was down for the count with low WBCs and RBCs all the time. Then there is the other side where the Vidaza could buy me more time to find that perfect 10/10 match. The doctor's concern is that this "thing" could rear it's ugly head at any time and become leukemia and then it's harder to treat. I don't want that either.

I meet with the doctors at MD Anderson in Houston in September. I'm curious as to what their treatment options will be. After MD Anderson, I will need to make a decision soon before something terrible really does happen. I have so much to think about and every meeting with a different doctor gives me new information that only adds to the general confusion. None of this is easy, that's for sure.

The only lucky thing I have going for me is that I have Mike. We celebrated 12 years yesterday with a nice weekend in Ocean City. I'm extremely lucky and greatly blessed to have found someone like him. This can't be easy for him either and I'm grateful that I have him in my life.

To-Marrow, To-Marrow, I Love Ya To-Marrow

2010-08-03T19:42:00.002-04:00

First, I stole the title of today's blog from a friend. It was too awesome not to use again. I have officially been diagnosed with a pesky little sucker called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and I'm going to need a bone marrow transplant (BMT) in the near future. My friends Blair and Julie are either registering with the national marrow registry (http://www.marrow.org/) or signing up everyone they know to help me out in finding a match. In addition to me, my friend Traci's 13 year old nephew desperately needs a minority match to save his life from leukemia.

Most people, including myself, tend to think that donating marrow is painful but I've found out through lots of reading that most marrow donation is taken through an IV, much like donating plasma, rather than the older procedure where they tap your hip bone. In fact, they take the blood through an IV, separate out the stem cells, and give the donor back their own blood - all in one sitting. I think more people might be willing to donate if they knew it wasn't that bad.

Registering is simple - go to www.marrow.org and fill out a simple questionnaire that asks your medical history. Then a couple of weeks later you're receive a packet with some cotton swabs. It takes about 2 minutes to swab your cheeks. Then you send the swabs back to the registry program. It's THAT simple. If you are already registered or regsitered a long time ago, you might want to call the National registry people to make sure your contact information is up-to-date so they can find you if they need it.

I know I would appreciate it and I'm sure Traci's nephew would appreciate it too. He was on tv last week looking for a match. All he wants to do is get better so he can play football next year with his high school team.

Life's a Dance

2010-07-21T21:41:00.002-04:00

As I prepare myself for tomorrow's NIH visit I'm thinking of two country songs: Garth Brooks, "Standing Outside the Fire" and John Michael Montgomery's "Life's a Dance". Both are ultimately about living life to the fullest and when we take a fall, we need to get right back up and jump back into life for more. I am using the lyrics from both of these songs to give me the courage and strength to fully understand what the doctors may tell me tomorrow.

From all the research I've been doing, if I have any form of MDS it will not be an easy road to recovery. Tonight I don't know the details: if I do have MDS, how severe it is, and what treatment I will need. Tonight is the great unknown for tomorrow may bring great relief or great sorrow. I just hope I am able to handle the results and be able to understand what all of my treatment options are. I also hope the doctors have their answers and have come up with some sort of game plan and that this is treatable.

These past few weeks have been a struggle. I've had doubts and am facing a number of fears. It's been much harder than when I was diagnosed with NHL. For the past few years post-chemo, I've been feeling healthier than ever. I've run a number of 5k races and an 8k (and have beaten people younger than me). I work out twice a week with a trainer and have gone so much stronger. To have all of of that taken away from me in such a short amount of time has been difficult. There's another song on the radio now called, "Billionaire" and Travie McCoy sings about how he wants to be a billionaire, be on the cover of Forbes Magazine, and smile next to Oprah and the Queen. Well, I'd give anything to have good health. I don't want to be a billionare. I just want to grow old. Is that to much to ask?

Life's a Dance Lyrics
The longer I live the more I believe
You do have to give if you wanna receive
There's a time to listen, a time to talk
And you might have to crawl even after you walk
Had sure things blow up in my face
Seen the long shot win the race
Been knocked down by the slamming door
Picked myself up and came back for more

Life's a dance you learn as you go
Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Don't worry about what you don't know
Life's a dance you learn as you go

The Asteroid

2010-07-18T11:07:00.002-04:00

I feel like I'm in one of those asteroid movies and I'm standing on the beach waiting to see if the asteroid is going to hit the planet or if Bruce Willis is going to blow it up in time. I had a CT scan on the 8th and then went to clinic to meet with the doctors in the afternoon. George, who performed my biopsy, was the fellow who examined me. He peppered me with all sorts of questions while examining me and I knew I was going to see Dr. Wilson to explain the biopsy results.

Dr. Wilson explained that I might have something called Myleodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). Essentially my bone marrow is showing damage from the chemo, which they had not seen on the EPOCH protocol. It's also typically seen in adults over 60 and in men. I am an anomoly. He used a lot of big words that I didn't quite catch, but they needed to do more tests to determine how servere it is. On the less severe side, I could have no problems for years but the more severe side could into acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). In addition, my medialstinal and my liver are enlarged. Since my NHL started in the medialstinal, I had a PET scan last Wednesday to check for cancer cells. He also talked about possibly needing a bone marrow transplant, so I had genetic testing done last Monday and another bone marrow biopsy/aspiration. They also mentioned my brother, Michael, might need to get genetic testing to see if he's a match.

I go back to NIH on Thursday to find out the results of all of my tests. I am understandably shaken by this news and I am having a hard time dealing with this news. I am hoping Bruce Willis blows up this asteroid before it gets here. Mike has been a rock as usual, but he is just as shaken as I am. All of our summer plans are on hold until we know what we are facing.

Here's a link to MDS to explain it:
http://www.marrow.org/PATIENT/undrstnd_disease_treat/Lrn_about_disease/MDS/index.html

That's Not All...

2010-07-06T13:39:00.002-04:00

So, I had an MRI with some funky stuff on it and finally decided to follow up with my nurse practitioner after my disastrous 5k race where I did just fine for the first mile and then felt like someone sat on my chest for the next two. I could not breathe and even when I slowed down to walk I felt like my lungs were the size of dimes. Near the end of the race I started talking to myself and trash-talking my tumor (Priscilla, if you remember) and threatened to kick her butt if she planned on coming back. I threatened her with a good beat-down, so let's hope it worked. I finished the race in a run but in tears as I seriously thought (think?) Priscilla may be working her way back. So I called the doctor's office the next week and made an appointment.

Betsy, my beloved NP who sent me to the cardiologist's back in 2007, listened to my issues and read my MRI report and suggested I get some blood work. I got the results back the next day and she said the results were "not normal, but not terrible". Everything was low: platelet count, hemoglobin, WBC, absolute neutrofils...you name it - LOW, LOW, LOW. I called Doug at NIH (and Peggy my caseworker) and read them both reports. In the end, Doug called back at the end of the day on Friday and said the team needed me to do a bone marrow biopsy.

After a few scheduling issues, I was set for the biopsy on July 1 with a follow-up on the 8th. Since my 6 month check-up was supposed to be the 15th, we moved it to the 8th so I could get the CT done and all the results on the same day. I did the biopsy in the special procedures unit - I'd been there before (for a PICC line installation that thankfully never happened and something else I don't remember). George is the NIH bone marrow biopsy rock star so he and an assistant (who kind of sucks) did the procedure. Mike found a chair and perched above to watch the whole thing. He didn't pass out, although I thought about it myself. It was painful, but not a sharp pain but an uncomfortable kind of pressure that went on for far too long. Mike said that they assistant wasn't strong enough to muscle it and she was having a hard time getting through my bone. Plus I felt a small sharp pain and one point and she said, "Oops, I missed a little". NOT what I want to hear. George finally stepped in and it got a little better, but not much. Also, since I work out and am in pretty good shape it was much more difficult for them to get through my bones. Lovely - one downside of working out.

I got it done and was sent home with instructions to take Tylenol if it hurt, which I did that night. I was also not allowed to immerse myself in water for the past 7 days (no swimming or hot tubs), which sucked considering I went to the Chester River on the Eastern Shore for the 4th - swimming, tubing, water skiing, jetsking. Not for me. So, now I wait until Thursday. I am nervous and worried, but I really try not to think too much about it. Mostly, I think about how I will react to bad news and what that would mean. I really just hope that I'll need some kind of shots to bring up my counts and I will take that over chemo any day. Either way, I will deal. I have to. I'm just hoping for a Happy Birthday next week - and that's the best I can do.

Results are In...

2010-06-11T22:09:00.002-04:00

I saw the neurologist on Thursday about my EMG and MRI tests and the results look pretty good. In other words, no neurological reason for why I have bad leg and foot cramps. What was interesting was that the test picked up on some marrow issues and that I could have some anemia issues - I'm sure all related to my NHL since it was a blood cancer. The doctor didn't mention it, but I saw it on the report and I'm sure the test was just picking up my previous stuff. I will mention it to NIH and bring the report, just to be sure.

So, I'm back to the drawing board on the cramping issue. The doc did say to do what I've started doing anyway, which is drink more water and electrolytes, eat more bananas, up my magnesium intake, and stretch. My friends have forwarded me articles about how drinking pickle juice shots could help too so I'll be trying that remedy next. I'm not sure what to do next or if I should bother with another doctor (what kind would I see anyway?) I'll just keep on trying different stuff and see if it helps.

What Golden Girls Means to Me

2010-06-07T20:29:00.002-04:00

With the passing of Rue McClanahan, I want to reflect for a moment on all that the Golden Girls means to me. I loved the show when it was on in the 80s - a bunch of sassy, real, older ladies were a great role model for me. Typically, you'd think of your grandma as a pearl-wearing, cake-baking woman in an apron and a housecoat (and really, only one of my grandma's even fits that bill) so this show opened up everyone's eyes that older ladies ROCK. The humor was biting while also emphasizing friendship and family. I loved it.

Back in 2007, during my self-named "Summer of Chemo" I used to watch re-runs of the a lot. It made me laugh when I didn't often feel like laughing. It transported me away from either the lonely couch at home or the hospital bed and took me to a happier place. In fact, one day I was hopped up on a combination of Ativan and some other sedatives the docs had given me so they could install the IJ line without me freaking out, I drifted in and out of a fog and figured out if they remade the Golden Girls into a movie who would play each character. The details are fuzzy, but I think I debated about whether Lindsay Lohan would make a good Blanche (if she would only stop being such a diva). I had the rest of them picked out, but I couldn't figure out who could play Dorothy. Like I said, I was hopped up on meds!

Now only the fantastically-terrific Ms. Betty White remains. She is amazing (I loved her on SNL) and I hope she will be able to continue rocking it for some time to come. Farewell, however, to the other Golden Girls: Rue McLanahan, Bea Arthur, and Estelle Getty. May you all rest and peace and thank you for being a friend.

Saturday Ramblings

2010-06-05T20:14:00.003-04:00

The initial results from my EMG look good. Both the "zapper" technician and the "jab me with a needle" technician said everything looked good, but I have a follow-up appointment with the doctor on Thursday. My running coach suggested eating more leafy greens because maybe it's because I'm low on magnesium. I figured what the heck, eating more spinach can't hurt so I made spinach and artichoke heart stuffed calzone for lunch today (which was super delish) and a spinach steak salad with a side of my infamous stir-fry broccoli for dinner. My body is probably saying right now, "Woah! What's up with this healthy stuff?" I found out that my dog likes broccoli too. I gave him a piece that I was chopping and he scarfed it down so I gave him all the broccoli bottoms that I wasn't going to use. He loves carrots, apples, peaches, pears, and now broccoli.

I "ran" this morning. We did a test run of the course for our race on the 19th and I ended up walking most of the last half. The heat and humidity kicked my butt and I also got lost because my group ran ahead (not that I blame them at all) and the rest of the slower runners didn't catch up to me. I finally found a lady running the first part of the loop the other way and she gave me her map so I could find my way to the finish line. I am so frustrated that I couldn't run 3.2 miles since I just did 4 miles a couple of weeks ago. My race is in two weeks. This is not good. I'm getting up early tomorrow morning to run 20 minutes just to get back into gear. I also haven't been able to run regularly between working late hours and volleyball on Thursdays. So, I'm just gonna have to suck it up and get used to the heat/humidity and keep plugging away. I do NOT want to walk on race day. Plus, I'm planning on jumping into the 8k program and I won't be able to do that race if I can't finish a 5k.

Bzzzzzzt!

2010-06-02T20:36:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow's the 'big' day - my EMG. I kind of forgot all about it and remembered on my way out the door from work that I'll be in late tomorrow. At least my manager remembered! I've been so busy between Memorial day plans and working that I haven't had time to think about it let alone be nervous, which is a good thing. I have bigger things to think about tomorrow, like whether I'll actually get my proposal printed before 11pm. That would be nice.

We had a nice weekend in Ocean City for Memorial Day. We took off Friday (well, except for some pesky work stuff I had to deal with at home before we left) and headed over to Amber's house (Mike's co-worker) in Kent Island for a crab feast and BBQ. She knows how to throw a full-on party and it was a lot of fun, which was exactly what I needed. Mike went out on her husband's boat with a couple of other guys to go pick up a part for the boat and they ran out of gas. They made it back after bumming gas from someone. I think they managed to float over to someone's dock and beg. There aren't too many women who would jump on a boat without first checking to make sure they had gas, but I digress.

The OPA speedboat races were in town, which we didn't know ahead of time, so I got to see my first high-speed boat race. Wish I could say I actually saw it, but since it's out on the water it's hard to see the whole thing. I saw a bunch of cool boats go by really fast followed by a bunch of helicopters filming the whole thing. I would love to be on one of those things just to see how fast they go. That would be amazing.

We heard a great band at Sunset Marina Sunday night. They mostly played "chick" band stuff like Melissa Etheridge, Janis Joplin, Go Go's, Alanis, and more. Really good band right on the water overlooking the marina and all the big expensive yachts.

Family

2010-05-25T20:23:00.003-04:00

My cousin, Hunter, was injured in a dirt bike accident on Sunday. He fractured his C7 vertebrae (the neck area), broke his ribs, and bruised his lungs. He is most certainly lucky to be alive. He has feeling in his legs and arms so thank God he is not paralyzed. I'm thinking about him, his wife, and his two young kids. I talked to Gina, his sister, this morning and she thinks he might be able to come home on Thursday. I am so relieved. It's so hard being this far from him. He's in Texas - like the majority of my cousins - and I can't go see him. However, Mike's going down next week on business so I may ask him to go visit in my place. What's also rough is Gina's going to Vegas this weekend for her son's birthday so she's stressing about getting ready for the trip and Hunter.

Saturday Run

2010-05-22T10:32:00.002-04:00

I made it - four miles, baby! I haven't run in at least 2 weeks so I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to keep up, but I did. I walked a couple of times, but I kept up with the group (until the last bit). I had some minor issues: my back's been bothering me and my new water belt kept jiggling around until I moved it to the back and cinched it up. It started raining just as we started to run and apparently some of the ladies in the other groups left - wimps. We are runners: we run in rain, snow, wind, heat, and whatever else mother nature throws at us! Luckily, it stopped raining somewhere along the way and the temperature stayed cool. It turned out to be a perfect running day.

After Prom was last night (at my HS) so I helped out for a couple of hours. Blair and I were nominated to get ice so we found ice machines in the locker rooms. We both commented on being in the locker rooms - I'd never been in a boy's locker room before (must say, the girl's locker room smelled better!) The best part was finding the ice machine in the boy's bathroom, next to the urinals. Ewww - that is just not right! My favorite part about After Prom is seeing how little has changed at my HS since I graduated. It's like taking a trip back in time with the hideous gold and green paint all over the place. After we got all the ice back inside the gym and the soda station ready to go, I left around 12:30am so I could get up get up for my run today.

Electric Avenue

2010-05-21T14:35:00.004-04:00

Today I saw a neurologist in an attempt to figure out why I wake up at night with cramps in my calves and feet. He thinks it might be related to my back problems (from nearly 5 years ago) so he ordered up an MRI (Monday) and an EMG (June 3). He explained the EMG as a test where they will strap a bunch of electrodes to my leg and zap me with volts of electricity. Part two involves sticking a bunch of needles in my legs. FUN. Mike volunteered to give me the test just so he could zap me. I may have to take my last ativan to get through it!

Calm after the Storm

2010-05-20T16:31:00.002-04:00

If you haven't seen me around much in the last few weeks, it's because I've been working like a dog. I haven't run, played volleyball, worked out...nada. My proposal was delivered on Tuesday (with a WHOLE bunch of issues. Try burning a CD with the cost volume in a parking lot. FUN). Anyway, I worked out yesterday with Ludmilla, my trainer. We focused on stretching (which I so "sorely" needed-HA!) but I also lifted some weights - chest press, squats, dead lifts, and more just to get me back into working out again. I play volleyball tonight and hopefully we won't have any issues (I was ready to put a beat-down on my captain last time I played!) I'm supposed to run tonight, but I'll do that tomorrow so I don't wear myself out before vball - but I'll be running on Saturday for sure.

I have an appointment with a neurologist tomorrow to hopefully help me figure out why I keep getting nasty charlie horses in my calves and foot cramps. I think one of the nasty chemo drugs (vincristine is my bet) left some lingering damage and I just want to know what is going on. It's worse when it's cold outside, but I have a feeling that's what caused me to tear my calf muscle last fall. My calf cramped up all the way home from work, I went straight to volleyball without warming up or stretching, and WHAM! tore my calf muscle. I have charlie horses several times a night that just wake me up out of a dead sleep. Last time I was at NIH, my electrolytes and potassium counts were normal -which is what everyone says. I just hope I found out something tomorrow.

Today I drove to Annapolis to renew our boat registration...only to find out that we had already renewed it and it wasn't expired. At least it's finally gorgeous weather here - 80 degrees and sunny! I picked up new stickers for the boat so now we are all set to take it out. Except it's Mike's turn to work like a dog. Anyone know how to hook up a boat to the truck and haul it to the Potomac? ;)

Running with My Peeps

2010-05-04T20:28:00.003-04:00

After a long couple of days at work, it was nice to hit the trail and go running with my "girls" in my running group. We ran for 35 minutes and with the heat and humidity, it was difficult at times to remain motivated but I stuck with it and I'm so glad I did. It's only going to get more hot and more humid as the days go on, so I need to suck it up now and deal! My running coach broke up with her boyfriend over the weekend so we heard all the juicy details during the run, which helped distract me. I'm having a good time running with some women who are 10 or more years younger than me...and I'm keeping up just fine!

This weekend is Mother's Day and I've already started "sending" out the invites to my family for a BBQ over here. We didn't communicate very well over Easter and some people didn't know we had moved our plans from PF Changs to Carrabbas. I felt bad and decided that we'll just have everyone over here. We did a trial-run last weekend by having our friends, Andy, SK, and Casey over for bacon and cheese-stuffed burgers and dogs so we'll probably stick with the same tried-and-true menu. Last weekend was supposed to be our inaugural run with the boat, but we realized too late that the boat registration had expired in December so until we get that taken care of, there will be no boat rides on the Potomac.

Update

2010-05-03T17:32:00.003-04:00

Okay, I've been chastised again for not posting in a while (this is for you, Greg!) so here's another update.

My last post left off with low white counts and a suspicious mole. I had a blood test the week after NIH and the WBC's were up slightly so the doc said they wouldn't worry since I typically had low white counts but if I had any fevers or anything weird like that to call them. It left me wondering about what I should do if I get the flu or something, but luckily that didn't happen this winter.

However, the mole turned out to be an atypical mole and I had it removed just in case. After I went in and had it biopsied, I got the call at work a couple of weeks later when the lab results came in. I answered the phone and their nurse asked, "Is this a good time to talk?" I've learned the hard way when they say that, nothing good can come of it. I laughed and steeled myself for bad news - which wasn't as bad as it could be. WHEW! The surgery went well and I left with stitches and a big band-aid full of gauze with strict instructions not to do water aerobics or volleyball that week in case I ripped the stitches. The following week I went back and had the stitches removed. Since I now have an allergy to latex, after a week of putting a big band-aid in the same spot my skin looked like it had been burned in a big square band-aid shape. I hadn't realized my allergy was that bad! After that episode, I have to report back to the dermatologist every year for a thorough check-up.

The week after I had the mole removed, Mike and I went to Key West for a long weekend before my next big proposal at work hit and before his schedule went wacky too. We stayed at an awesome hotel down on Duval/Front Street which was a close walk to everything. Even though it was a little chilly, we took a jet ski tour around the island (and paid for the windy weather with back aches from the rough water after we returned!). We also rented bikes one day and rode over to the southernmost point and took our picture at the marker, like good little tourists. We caught the sunset at Mallory Square a couple of times but decided to watch the sunset from our hotel balcony the last night because the view was just as good there. One of our volleyball friends and her family was in Key West at the same time, so we finally caught up with them at Irish Kevin's one night. Unfortunately for Mike, the singer was country. He suffered but I had a good time. Afterwards, we wandered over to the Hog's Breath and stumbled into an excellent concert by a band called 'Simplified'. They were awesome and we bought the CD and went back to see them the next night. They're from Charlotte and mainly play in that area, but they've been to DC a couple of times (apparently, they're friends with OAR who are from Rockville). If they ever come up here again, we are there.

I ran the Cherry Blossom at the beginning of April as part of my personal 3-year diagnosis day "cancerversary". I hadn't trained as well as I would've liked so I was slower than last year, but I finished. It was a little frustrating because I started at the front pack and got passed by a ton of people. Since then, I've joined a women's running group with the MoCo Road Runners' Club (MCRRC) and I'm training for the Run for Roses 5K in June. I'm running a little faster now, but I feel better about running. I'm also in the fastest running group, the Manolo Blahnik's (which totally cracks me up!) and we have a nice group of ladies. I think there are about 60 women in the whole group and about 15 in my group. When we do our Saturday runs, I feel sorry for anyone out on the trail who comes upon this 'herd' of women hogging the path. After the 5k in June, I plan to jump on over to the 8k program and do the Rockville Twilight run like I did last year. Maybe I'll do a 10k in the fall, but I'm toying with that idea.

Another New Post!

2010-01-18T21:37:00.002-05:00

I am on a roll - two posts in less than a week. So, my NIH docs recommended I get another CBC (complete blood count) and let them know the results. My white counts were a little low, but they don't think it's anything to be concerned with. I finally made my appointment but it's not until next Monday. Due a full workload at work this week, I didn't want to come in late or leave early (especially when I have to fast ahead of time). Next Monday a.m. works perfectly as my project ends on Friday. They also suggested I get a mole on my back looked at by a dermatologist (I asked him what he thought about it). The doc recommended one who used to be a NIH fellow, but I'm not sure I want to battle traffic getting into Bethesda. I'll call tomorrow to find out their hours to see if I can even make it there, otherwise I'll ask Mom and M for the names of their dermatologists. Hopefully, it's nothing at all to worry about but I will be diligent about getting myself checked out. Don't need any more worries in my life.

Work has been pretty hectic since I started my new job. I've been there since August and have won at least one proposal (and possibly another). After the last one was finished a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I need to focus on a better work-life balance so I jumped back into working out with a trainer and I added back water aerobics and volleyball to my schedule. I've gained a couple of pounds (that I didn't need) so I need to be sure my health is a high priority. We'll see how well it continues, but I already feel a little less stressed even though I'm working on my 4th proposal since I started. Ommmmmmm. I will also start running again very soon as I'm already registered for the Cherry Blossom 5k on April 11th. Now that the weather is warming up, it will be easier to hit the road.

My Day

2010-01-14T22:05:00.002-05:00

My day started with the phone ringing beside my bed at 5:45am. It was Dad asking if I was on the road yet because a tanker truck had overturned on a bridge above I-270 and the highway was shut down. Normally, I get up around 6am and leave around 7:30 but today was different - it was time for my 4 month checkup at NIH. I groaned and told Dad that about my doctor's visit. Unfortunately, to get to NIH I have to go exactly by where that truck was so I got up and started watching tv to try and figure out what was going on. Thankfully, the fire burned out before we left but traffic was being shut down on and off so we made our way down I-270 with thoughts of jumping off to go another way if we had to. On our way to NIH, we passed by the spot and saw that traffic was backed up on the southbound side because the exit was shut down. It was crazy! There were also two other accidents on other nearby roads and I thought for sure that the doctors and other staff who work at NIH would be late.

We managed to get there without too much trouble and I got into phlebotomy pretty quickly. Perul, my favorite phlebotomist drew my blood and I waved to Ronnie and Raj as they went by. I was happily suprised to see that they had finally renovated the area. It looked really nice. Afterwards, we headed over to CT and settled in for a long, long wait. I didn't even know they "served" mochachino barium and it wasn't too bad. I tried to convince the guy next to me who I had recommended it to (over the banana or berry) that if he closed his eyes, we could be at Starbucks. He wasn't buying it but he said it wasn't horrible. I was supposed to be in the CT machine at 9am, but it was closer to 10 before I got in there. My clinic appt was as 11:15 and I managed to make it upstairs by 10:30. Once I settled in, I broke out the chocolate croissant Mike bought for me that morning and pigged out.

I finally made it to the back to see the doctor around 12:45. Nothing like waiting around for hours... Doug examined me and said I looked good. He noted that my white blood count was a little low and he went off to talk to the team to discuss what it could possibly mean. Dr. "McDreamy", my Irish doc, came back in to give me the wonderful news. My scan was clean and there was no sign of a recurrence. He went on to say that all of the other patients in the clinical trial except one were doing as well as me. He did ask that I get another CBC next week to see what's up with my sluggish white blood cells, but he didn't think it was anything to be too concerned with considering that my counts were always a little on the low side.

So, that's my GREAT news. I know I haven't posted in a while so I will try to do better so all of my faithful followers can check up on me. :)

Telling the Family

2009-10-13T20:35:00.002-04:00

The latest episode continued the saga of Kitty and her cancer. She was diagnosed with stage III NHL, given only two treatment options: R-CHOP and some other protocol in Boston, and sent home. Contrast to my experience, my cardiologist sent me immediately to the ER for an emergency CT scan before I even knew it was cancer. I had state IIb and my situation was so severe (not dire, just severe) that I stayed at the hospital for a full week before I eventually left to start chemo at NIH. Meanwhile, Kitty goes home and her family debates on whether she should have standard R-CHOP or some other protocol (I've never heard of it). She goes wedding dress shopping, has dinner with her family (where she eventually tells them all), and looks pretty good for someone who was just diagnosed.

I liked the way the writers handled the storyline for the most part, but there were a lot of things that irked me. I also felt that they made it political and part of the national health care debate with their discussion of the Boston clinical trial and how the FDA is so slow to approve new treatment and such. I was just annoyed because they tipped their hand as to their "agenda" when they could have focused on what a newly diagnosed person feels and goes through. Thankfully, they moved past that pretty quickly.

I wish the oncology doctor had also explained the treatment options a little better. I understand it's tv but her explanation felt really rushed and short. She also said there were only two options and it's not true. EPOCH is highly regarded in the National Cancer Institute as an effective treatment over R-CHOP. The success rates have been very good (and I'm proof!) There are other treatments out there so they could have just said that and then said the standard is R-CHOP. Another option is radiation and they didn't even mention it.

Let's see how they handle the rest of it. I am glad to see them try, but please be a little more realistic and educate the viewers. Unfortunately, a lot of people have experience with cancer and we will all be watching carefully.

Kitty has NHL

2009-10-08T19:41:00.002-04:00

I don't know if you follow "Brothers & Sisters," but the writers have "given" Kitty (played by Calista Flockhart) diffuse large b-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. My first thought was, "No!" It's too close to home. Mike looked at me like he thought the same thing. Seriously? Exactly my cancer. It's interesting to note that not only does Kitty have NHL, but Lynette on "Desperate Housewives" also had it a couple of seasons ago. I felt the same sucker-punch in the gut when Lynette was diagnosed. I know they are fictional characters, but it's like watching it happen to me all over again. All of the memories came rushing back.

I watched the story unfold and thought about it a bit more. October is breast cancer awareness month and as a NHL survivor, I always feel a little like my cancer and others are overlooked. I support all cancer research, but I feel just a teeny bit jealous of all the pink (even the NFL has gone pink). I hope Kitty's diagnosis will educate others about cancer - any kind of cancer. People who don't know what it's like, got to see first-hand Kitty getting a bone marrow biopsy to stage the cancer.

Out of curiosity, I checked the blogosphere earlier to see the reaction to the cancer diagnosis. Most people think it's to boost ratings (and it probably is), but at the same time I hope the show educates viewers. I was the most bothered by some bloggers who assume that the writers are trying to kill off Kitty with the cancer diagnosis. Yes, cancer is terrible and people die every day but it's not an automatic death sentence and I'm living proof. Again, I hope the writers educate people on what cancer patients deal with in fighting the terrible disease but also on how to live with a cancer diagnosis.

One final thought. I will be watching closely to see how they write it into the show. I didn't like how Kitty was told her diagnosis in the doctor's office and then sent home. I was sent to the ER for an emergency CT and was admitted overnight. I stayed in the hospital for a full week until I was supposed to start chemo (went to NIH instead). The doctors told me that large diffuse b-cell is a pretty agressive tumor and can grow quickly so they moved fairly rapidly to get me started on treatment. Things moved slowly on last night's show. I just ask that they be fairly realistic in how they portray it. I want to see Kitty lose her hair, puke her guts out, and lose her energy - that's the reality. Grey's Anatomy has done a fairly decent job with Izzie's brain cancer so I expect the same from these writers.

In the News

2009-09-28T22:03:00.003-04:00

I surprised to read that my former company was acquired today. I never would have pictured the combination of those two companies (and apparently a lot of people in the blogosphere agree with me). What also struck me is I had recently been offered a job there, but I decided on my current company. If I had taken the offer, would I have been out of a job soon after this announcement? For now, I've been reading the Internet about the acquisition and discussing with former co-workers (including Mike) about the news. They were recently going to head back into Federal government contracting and I wonder what this means for that division now.

I spent seven years there and met a lot of great people during my time. I worked there in my late 20s/early 30s. Mike and I didn't meet there, but he helped me land a job which helped springboard me to where I am today. We were engaged soon after I started and many of our co-workers attended our wedding. We're still friends with quite a few people from there and we keep in touch. Although I was a little bitter when I left (my division had been acquired by another company that let my group go), I have a lot of happy memories from that period of my life.

It will be interesting to see what happens next and whether the company name will be a thing of the past.

Another One Lost

2009-09-15T10:15:00.004-04:00

Patrick Swayze died last night from pancreatic cancer. I have a special place in my heart for him because he's related to me somewhere on my mom's side. My great-aunt is an avid genealogist and she discovered the relation just after Dirty Dancing to everyone's shock and surprise (and glee). She didn't know who he was, but the young ladies certainly did. At every reunion afterwards, we wondered whether he might attend one but he never did. I don't think he was ever really invited, but wouldn't that have been cool?

Patrick's star never really rose above his 'Dirty Dancing' or 'Ghost' days, but he had a good career and didn't have public meltdowns or stints in rehab like so many celebrities today. My heart goes out to his family and his wife of 33 years (you don't see much of that these days, either). May he rest in peace.

Changes

2009-08-11T17:03:00.002-04:00

So, I started a new job last Monday slightly closer to home. I'm ecstatic that my commute is down from what had been taking 1+ hour to just a tad over 30 minutes and who doesn't love that? It was especially satisfying this morning when I heard about a vehicle fire and a separate accident near the exit to my old office. Whew, glad I wasn't in THAT mess. With that being said, I miss my old office and my former co-workers. It was a homey, warm environment and my co-workers there were just great. It had a free Flavia machine that dispensed not just coffee, but milky way-flavored coffee, cappuccino, three flavors of tea, and more. We also had flavored creamer in the kitchen area, splenda, equal, and sweet-n-low in addition to regular cream and sugar. The actual cafe area had 4 chairs placed in front of a flat screen TV where I used to watch TV if I had the chance. The chairs also had swivel arms where you could put your lunch while you watched TV. The people in my office also organized a Wednesday lunch group where each person brought a potluck item to go with the theme of the week (like Caribbean or salad or whatever). Every Friday, someone would bring in either donuts or bagels. The previous Executive VP had painted the office in very unusual, but warm and cozy colors. It was just a beautiful place to be and I miss it tremendously, but it was time to move on.

My new job is a little hectic and I'm just starting to figure out where the bathrooms are. The kitchen area is tiny and no flavia machine - we have to pay for coffee. No splenda or equal in sight - just plain old sugar. No flavored creamers either. There's a cafeteria in the basement, which is a nice bonus and I've eaten there quite a lot in my first week + 2 days on the job. I have my own office instead of a cube and I'm itching to decorate it, but haven't started yet. I wish I could bring in some paint for the walls to make it a little more homey but in the meantime I'm trying to figure out a way to add warm colors without paint. The co-workers I've met all seem very nice and I hope in time to forge friendships like the one I had at my old company.

As Cheryl Crow says, "A change will do you good", but I can't help but miss the way things used to be. Hopefully I'll get settled in soon and won't even think about the flavia machine!

Canserversary

2009-07-30T19:09:00.002-04:00

Today was my 2-year checkup and I'm overjoyed to report that my CT looked "really great" according to the doctor. I met one of the newer doctors at NIH who gave me the results before the doctor officially told me and I was very appreciative of that. It's always a relief to hear good news. I really liked this doctor. He had a great sense of humor and he chatted with us about how I learned I had cancer, but more on a personal level than a clinical level. I would hang out with this doctor and have a beer - he is that cool. When we left I thanked him for having a good sense of humor because when I had been sick, I really just wanted someone with a sense of humor to lighten the mood sometimes. It's bad enough to have cancer, but sometimes I just needed to laugh and he would have been awesome to have around back then.

I also had an echocardiogram to measure the strength of my heart. I had that test before I went to the clinic so I kind of had an inkling that there was nothing serious lurking in my chest because the technician didn't find anything during the echo. Mike and I saw my heart on screen and heard it beating away - so contrary to what some people may think I DO have a heart. ;)

I graduated to CT exams every 6 months! So, for years 3 & 4 it will be every 6 months. Then in year 5 I will have an exam every year (not sure if CT every year or general exam with blood work).

Night Before First 8K Race

2009-07-17T22:18:00.002-04:00

My big race is tomorrow - the Rockville Twilight 8K. The festival begins at 7pm and my race starts at 8:45pm. My goal is to finish in less than 50 minutes (or a 9:30 minute mile). I've been training for a couple of months now and we did a practice run of the course last Saturday so I think I'm ready. During last week's practice run, I noted a couple of *@#!* hills in the middle of the course that I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. We complained heavily during the run that whomever came up with this course is not a runner - what a jerk! The good thing about race day is that the 1,099 other runners keeping me company will motivate me to do my best and keep going when it gets rough. I just hope I don't end up near the juggling runner guy that Meghan encountered during one of her races. I mean who can juggle and run a race at the same time? That would just annoy me! I'd have to run up and try to trip him or something. :)

I hope it's not too hot tomorrow night, but I'm drinking my water as I type so I will be sure to be properly hydrated (and I'll probably be up all night in and out of the potty!) I am looking forward to seeing how I perform. YEEHAW!

Mike and I joined Shuk-kwan, Andy, and several other volleyball friends tonight for Shuk-kwan's 40th birthday. She was kind enough to share her celebration with me since we discovered last month on the way to the volleyball tournament in OC that we both turned 40 in July. Of course, I thought she was much younger than me and not just by 4 days! It was a great night filled with yummy food, good company, and topped off by a sky-high chocolate cake and bread pudding (with 10 spoons) for dessert.

Fabulous 40s

2009-07-12T16:13:00.002-04:00

It's almost here. I am 39 years and 364.5 days old. So long 30s and hello 40s. Has it been 10 years already since I turned 30? Where did the time go? I had a mostly great time in my 30s - went to Hawaii twice, learned how to water ski, tried to learn how to SCUBA, took up rock climbing, started running, got fit, had cancer, got fitter, went to Vegas and the Grand Canyon, took a cruise to Key West and Mexico, went to Maine, found a career, witnessed Mike and Dad's college graduations, saw my little brother and my cousin both get married, went to Jamaica, and learned to embrace life. I packed quite a bit in this past decade - and I hope to pack in even more over the next decade.

Here's to my next FABULOUS decade.

Pomp & Circumstance

2009-06-26T21:56:00.002-04:00

It's the day one waits for - when that special person finally grows up and graduates from college. They set out into the world with high hopes and a new degree tucked under their arm. It's a day of celebration for this wonderful achievement.

Tomorrow Dad graduates with a BS in Information Technology from Strayer University and I couldn't be more proud. He's been taking classes off and on for as long as I can remember, but he's really buckled down the last couple of years and worked hard to get to this day. Aunt Anne helped him with his math homework and I helped him write or edit his papers. He left family functions early our couldn't come at all because he had to do his homework. Tomorrow, Dad becomes a college graduate. Congratulations, Dad!

Dad is not one to rest on his laurels now that he's come this far: he's already signed up for his first class on his way to earning his Master's degree. I suggested that he take as many classes as he can before he decides to retire so he can get his company to pay for it!

Michael Jackson Memory

2009-06-26T08:14:00.002-04:00

First, poor Farrah Fawcett. She was my childhood icon and I wanted to BE a Charlie's Angel. I loved Farrah's hair. I wanted to learn to skateboard because I had a poster of Farrah on a board (didn't happen for me). Later I saw her in "The Burning Bed" and was blown away be her acting chops. When I heard she had cancer, my heart went out to her. May she now rest in peace.

Poor Farrah must be ticked off. Yesterday was supposed to be her day and the King of Pop stole her limelight. Who would have ever thought Michael Jackson would round out the trifecta of celebrity deaths? (Ed McMahon, Farrah, and now Michael).

In the summer of 1988, Michael Jackson performed at the Munich Olympic Stadium and my brother and I were there. I've never seen a performer completely fill an entire stadium from the field level to the nosebleed seats. Americans had already started to turn on Michael just a bit by that time, but the Germans were all out HUGE fans and I thought what better place to finally see this King of Pop whose music marked my childhood. The concert ROCKED and it was truly the best concert I've ever seen. Michael Jackson knows how to put on a show and he gave it his all. People around me were screaming his name and fainting like Elvis himself was in the house. I was truly stunned by just how good it was. My brother and his friend pushed their way to the front near the stage while I hung back so I wouldn't get crushed by the crowd. During one dance number, Michael took off his hat and flung it into the crowd. My brother reached up and grabbed it! Unfortunately, the crowd fell on him and ripped it apart so all he had left was a small piece of felt. It didn't matter: it was a magical night and an awesome show.

For all of Michael Jackson's faults and troubles, I am saddened of this loss. He was a fantastic performer and a one of a kind. May he also finally rest in peace.

Volleyball Post

2009-06-21T16:59:00.002-04:00

Last season I dropped from BB to B (the lowest level in my league. I sucked it up and played, but wasn't thrilled about it. I ended up with a pretty good team of about three other players who had also dropped down a level. We had a decent season, but fell apart during playoffs. This season, they were short captains at BB and asked me at the last minute in the middle of tryouts (of which I was also trying out) to be a captain. I agreed and then asked the league commissioners for the list of all the players and started watching tryouts a little more closely so I could pick my team. During the draft, I had to ask a lot of questions about the skill level of the players because I didn't know a lot of them. I knew Ben from my B team the previous season and Kay because I had played with her before, but none of the other players. From the first game, I knew I had managed to pick a really good team of unknowns and we had a most excellent season with a 20-1 record. It was truly exciting to be play with such a great team. The other captains started asking me how I managed to pick such a good team and I told him it was all by pure luck. We continued to play well during playoffs, but still had a couple of close games. Then Tim dropped the bomb on us the week before finals that he was heading off to London and would miss our last night of playoffs. Tim's one of our strong players and I worried what it would mean.

During the final night of playoffs, we fell a little flat. We lost our first match and struggled as a team. Our faces were downcast and our hearts were weary. Our opponents beat us the first game, but we rallied beautifully in the second game and snatched the win from them in a tense nail-biter of a game. Without Tim, we struggled mightily and felt his loss greatly. The third game was just as much of a struggle and they fought valiantly to defeat us, but we all stepped up our play and in the end we were victorious! What a sweet end to a sweet season!

Two years ago I dropped out of the season to focus on defeating my tumor, Priscilla and now I have the Spring 2009 Champion t-shirt to show how far I have come. I am back!!! (Picture to be posted as soon as the volleyball website posts one)

100 Miles

2009-06-14T21:33:00.002-04:00

Mike biked 100 miles today for the Diabetes "Tour de Cure" event in Reston, VA. Well it started in Reston anyway. I waved him off at 7:45 am this morning and realized I had his cue sheet with turn-by-turn directions. I had planned on volunteering for the event, but we arrived late thanks to me setting the alarm for the wrong time. I decided to try to find him at the first stop (and hoped he would make it there without getting lost). I headed off down the road with the cue sheet and my somewhat trusty GPS (nicknamed "Bree" like hoity-toity Bree from Desperate Housewives). Bree could not find the first stop at Carolina Brothers BBQ so I tried to hone in as close to the street name listed on my cue sheet. On the way there, I passed a small group of bikers on the side of the road who looked totally lost so I stopped and asked if they needed help. They asked if I was a volunteer and I said, "no, but I'm out looking for my husband." I tried to help them find their way back to the trail because they had made a wrong turn (someone had deliberately moved or removed some of the signs, I later found out). I used the cue sheet and Bree the best I could to help, but they had to turn around and find the trail. I got in the car and proceeded to try and find Mike but because the street ended at the trail where I couldn't take my RAV, I never found the rest stop. I managed to call Mike on his cell phone and said I'd meet him at the second rest stop in Leesburg.

I waited at the second stop for at least 30 minutes, watching all of the bikers roll in for a water or food break. The volunteers clapped and hollered for all of them. It was pretty impressive. I pulled out the cue sheet and realized that there were only 6 miles in between stop 1 and stop 2 so Mike had probably already been by this stop so I called and said I'd meet him at the fourth rest stop in Purcellville. I drove through the beautiful countryside and caught glimpses of the bikers (not Mike) along the way. It was nice today and not too hot - great for the bikers. The Purcellville stop was the halfway point for the 100 milers and it was really busy when I arrived. I waited a long time for Mike, but figured out where riders needed to go to continue on their way or head back to Reston and ended up helping quite a few with directions. By the time Mike got there, I was an expert!

I finally caught up with him and the other MSM crew from his office (Glen and Greg) and provided them with more goo for the road. Mike didn't need the cue sheet after all so I kept it. We heard how bumpy the next portion was so I said I'd meet them back at the rest stop in an hour and a half in case they had a flat tire or something. It was a good thing I did because the volunteers were packing up as I arrived back from lunch. I told them that there were three riders still out there who were going to need water. They stuck around until the guys arrived (luckily about 15 minutes later) and asked if they wanted to ride back since there would be no more support on the way back as all the rest stops were shutting down. Of course they said no and we made sure they had water and I gave Glen and Greg some Gatorade from the car since the rest stop was all out. They chowed down on some cold pizza and headed the 27 miles back to Reston.

I drove back to Reston and did a little window shopping at the Town Center while I waited the 40 or so minutes from them to arrive. Once again, it was lucky I was there because they started shutting down the finish line activities and packing up all the food and water. I said that there were still riders out there and they gave me three goodie bags and I loaded them up with apples, bananas, granola bars, and water. I walked over to the trail end and saw volunteers pulling out the signs and told them too that riders were still out there. I was getting annoyed that they were so quick to shut down. Then I met up with another MSM staffer who had only done the 33 mile loop and we waited together for the guys who finally crossed the finish line at 4:3opm. Woo hoo! Yay, they made it 100 miles!

Mother Earth Doesn't Like Me

2009-05-09T10:48:00.003-04:00

You think that after all I did for Mother Earth, she'd treat me a little better. I mean I picked up trash twice, I drag my empty coke cans home from work to recycle, and I don't litter. Mother Earth gave me poison ivy. I broke out on my neck on Tuesday (two weeks after the last clean-up, mind you) and now it's on both sides of my neck, my left arm, and on my face. We cleaned up on a hot day and I must have touched my hand to my neck to push the hair off it because the marks look like a hand print. I don't know where exactly I picked it up because I don't remember seeing the stuff. Luckily my hair is just long enough now to cover up the big, red, welty-splotches of poison ivy but the hair makes me itch! Every night I load up on the pink calamine lotion and every morning (and all day at work) I put on the clear stuff. I just hope I don't spread it, but this morning I noticed I've got some splotches on my right arm. They don't itch...yet.

Pony Girl

2009-05-03T15:03:00.002-04:00

Today I was playing with my hair and realized I can make a ponytail again. It's not much of a ponytail (about 3") but I have enough hair now to pull it back. Yay me! Mike's watching the Kona Ironman on the DVR (his latest obsession) and I remarked that I look just like one of the athletes on tv now. :-)

It's nice to have hair again.

Earth Day Part II

2009-04-29T19:48:00.002-04:00

So for my second time helping mother earth, I decided to stay local and help in a neighborhood trash pick up on the main road. This was much better than getting up early to trek down to the zoo and in fact I left my house 5 minutes before I was supposed to meet everyone. That wasn't such a good thing as I didn't exactly know where the house was that everyone was meeting at, but I walked up the road until I found them. My neighbors are organized! We received a bright orange vest (so the nutcases who drive too fast on the narrow road would see us), plenty of trash bags, gloves, and long-handled trash picker-upper thingies. I was super excited to use my new tool since I'd never had the opportunity to use one before.

I set off up one of the side roads because when I walk Riley over there I see a ton of trash and I was rewarded with plenty of trash (unlike the zoo where we fought over the trash!) I used my new tool to grope in the bushes and was rewarded with discarded cans, empty fertilizer bags, and much more. After I cleaned up that street, I turned around and headed back to the main road where everyone else was. We had a pretty good turn out and there were plenty of people helping to clean up the road. However, I was disappointed to find lots of cigarette butts and cans still littering the road where our crew had already been. They must have been picky and only looked for what I call "glamorous trash" meaning large, relatively clean stuff. I go for everything, especially nasty cigarette butts - my number one pet peeve, especially since I had my super-cool tool and wore gloves. On my friend FirePhrase's blog, my other friend Washington Gardener suggested that cigarette litterers should be made to pick up discarded butts for a full day. I quite agree. I was pretty ticked off at these litterers as I made my way down the road.

We've lived in this neighborhood for four years now but this was my first time participating in the clean-up and I'm glad I did. I really got to know some people and we're talking about throwing a community BBQ for our small cul-de-sac of 10 houses. I also helped mother earth breathe a little easier and that feels pretty good.

Cougar-iffic

2009-04-26T19:12:00.002-04:00

So I heard Vivica A. Fox on the radio the other night with Billy Bush (who I met in person a long time ago when he was just a DJ on a local radio station) talking about her new show about a Cougar looking for young love. I've heard the term 'Cougar' before but never realized that apparently I'm on the cusp of cougar-hood. The only qualification I don't meet is that, well, I'm married (but Mike is 4 months younger so maybe I am a cougar after all!). Anyway, I always thought of Cougars as much older than me but Ms. Vivica said it's a 40 y.o. woman. She also said that baby-boomers are turning 40 now... Um, Ms. Vivica my MOM is at the front of the baby boom and she's just over 60. The tail-end of the baby boom is turning 50 this year. She should get her facts straight - Gen X is turning 40 this year. Is that scary or what? Gen X is the new cougar woman.

I'm not even sure I really like the term 'cougar'. I mean really, when a 40 y.o. man dates a 22 y.o girl, he doesn't get labeled anything other than 'stud'. How fair is that? Ms. Vivica then said that the 50 y.o. ladies can be Pumas - I kinda like that better than the over-used cougar. She also said that 30 y.o's are bobcats and 20 y.o.'s are leopards (or something). Um, if a 20 y.o girl is dating someone younger than her I think they call that jail time.

I have no intention of watching her new show. I mean it sounds even lower than some of these other reality dating shows (but less skanky that Bus of Love!)

Earth Day is Easy

2009-04-19T13:14:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was Earth Day so I headed to the National Zoo in DC with Stephanie and Courtney (girls rock!) to help clean up Rock Creek Park behind the zoo. We met at the metro at 7am (whoo, that's early on a Saturday) and headed downtown. The zoo volunteers organize this clean-up every year and lots of people besides us showed up to help. Once we checked in at the zoo, a shuttle bus took everyone over to the clean-up site where we had our choice of easy, medium, or difficult terrain. Being tough girls, we took the hard route. They gave each of us a trash bag and a bag of gloves and pointed us in the right direction.

The difficult route lived up to its name and we couldn't find much trash on the steep hill. We started making our way down the hill, but since it had recently rained the muddy trail gave way and we had a hard time keeping our traction on the hill. There was so little trash, that we started eyeballing the other volunteers' trash bags and asking them where they found their trash. I guess that's a good thing we weren't finding a lot of trash, but it's a little disappointing when we traveled so far to pick up trash. Courtney decided we could find more trash down below on the bike path next to the creek, so we slowly made our way down the muddy, steep hill. She was right and we happily found much more trash to clean up. I found a small suitcase along the side of the banks, which I dragged back to the bike path since it was too heavy to drag it back up the hill (I alerted the zoo volunteers as to its location). I also found a shopping cart buried in mud so deep that there was no way to get it out. It had been there a while, judging by the small tree growing through the metal.

After we managed to pick our way back up the hill and figured out how to get back to the volunteer station, we sorted our trash so it could be recycled. We headed back to the zoo grounds to see the animals, particularly the elephants and the pandas. It was crowded with lots and lots of people and strollers by then. It was almost a little too crazy and people in large groups like that tend to lose any sense of manners they might have had alone. People suddenly stop in front of you with their large stroller to chat with each other, oblivious to the fact that you're behind them and now can't get around them. I have no patience for these kind of people - pay attention, people! We managed to fight our way to the elephants in time to see them showing off their balancing skills at an elephant training demo. Later, we picked our way through the crowd to see the newest panda, Tai Shan climbing trees, somersaulting, and galloping around his yard. What a cutie and he put on quite a show.

After lunch at a really awesome cafe in the city, we headed back home tired and a little dirty from our Earth Day adventure.

NIH Day

2009-04-11T09:09:00.003-04:00

My scans came back clean - I am good to go! My next visit is in August and that's the official 2-year mark as far as the doctors are concerned. That's when I finished chemo.

I managed to stun both doctors I saw. During my assessment, they asked me how I was feeling or if I had had any problems. I answered with "Great! I ran the Cherry Blossom 5K on Sunday and came in 5th in my age group." Their shocked looks made me giggle. Not that I should be bragging because I'm sure there are other cancer survivors who have achieved at least what I have and more (Meg in Austin who survived a much-worse treatment and did the Cap-Tex Triathlon with Mike is someone more amazing than me). Nonetheless, it's pretty cool to make your doctors sit up and take notice that you've not only survived the worst, but that you're back out there and stronger than ever. I am Cancer Survivor Chick and I am STRONG!

My day at NIH was long: filled with waiting and waiting and more waiting. When we arrived at phlebotomy at 10am, workers were patching the ceiling with plastic and duct tape and all the chairs had been moved out of the way because a pipe had burst earlier that morning. Parul, "my" phlebotomist, said this happens all the time. I love NIH, but they need to fix up that part of the building - the main part is all shiny and new but the back part where phlebotomy and the nuclear medicine area are need a serious face-lift. It kind of looks like the DMV back there and my DMV looks better.

While waiting 3 hours for my CT (and starving), we met an interesting couple from Delaware. The husband was probably only 50-something but he looked a lot older. He kept going outside for a smoke break while his wife waited for her CT to check on her melanoma. They talked about deer hunting and whether Montgomery County allows buckshot or only bow hunting (I think it's bow hunting, but what do I know?) His wife made a comment that she only had 6 of her own teeth left because the rest had been pulled out. The husband said he didn't have any teeth. Apparently, he needed one tooth pulled but because it cost the same to pull all of his teeth as one tooth, he had the dentist yank him all out. Wow. He seemed quite proud of himself.

After my CT (at 2pm), Mike fetched me a sandwich and we waited to see the doctors. The slightly greasy ham & cheese sandwich with potato chips might have been my downfall because my tummy did not like it at all. I was sick on the way out of NIH and again when we got home. I took a long nap and felt better when I woke up, but it was not a pleasant afternoon. I didn't eat a lot for dinner. I always have some sort of reaction from the barium and contrast dye, but not this bad. I'm going to have to bring my own sandwich next time and hold the grease. No potato chips either. When am I going to learn?

2 year cancerversary

2009-04-06T17:15:00.004-04:00

Today is my 2nd cancerversary - I was diagnosed two years ago today. I'm celebrating because two years later I'm still alive and kicking! Two years ago I was in the hospital waiting for the test results from my first (but certainly not last) CT scan, not knowing that the scariest time of my life was just around the corner. I'm certainly grateful and glad to be here today, writing this post. I will most certainly celebrate a little more on Thursday when I come home from my next visit with my NIH team with what I can only hope and pray will be another clean bill of health.

Sadly, my aunt's sister is dying of ovarian cancer as I type this. Aunt Carol left last night or this morning to be with Chris in her final moments. Both Carol and her sister have had breast cancer and Chris had ovarian cancer not too long ago, which she fought with chemo but the cancer came back and now she's dying. I only wish for peace for both of them - Chris as she leaves this world for a better place and Carol as she will need so much comforting and love to handle her loss.

Cherry Blossom 10 mile/5K

2009-04-05T13:24:00.003-04:00

We just got back from the Cherry Blossom race down on the tidal basin at the Mall in DC. We had gorgeous weather this year (although it was a little chilly at 6:45am when we got down there). The alarm went off at 5am and it was rough getting out of bed that early. Mike remarked, "Getting up this early is one reason not to like racing." Even Riley seemed a little out of sorts when I got him up to go outside. Normally, we're up around 5:45am which isn't that much different but it sure felt like it!

Meghan picked us up and we were off to the metro. There were quite a few people at the station with us and we picked up more and more people as we headed into the city. By the time we got off at Metro Center to change trains, it was packed and we had to squeeze into the metro like a bunch of sardines. I remarked that at least we were packed before the race versus afterwards when we wouldn't smell so good! At the next stop the lady next to me asked her friend if that was their stop, so I joked that she should just wait to see what stop the 9,000 other people on our car got off at. We were packed so tight on the train that it took us a few minutes to get to the door to get out.

We finally pushed past the huge crowds and made it above ground to the Smithsonian grounds on the Mall. We met the MCT Credit Union people who were able to get us an entry into the race after the online registration closed. We took a couple of group pictures and headed over to the course. We decided to stop and use the port-a-johns before the race and there was a lonnnng line - so long that I thought Mike and Meghan would miss their 7:40am race start. Afterwards, we all rushed over to the 10 mile start so they could get into the corral of runners. There was a sea of people as far as the eye could see, all crammed into one small area for the start. Mike went up front to his blue wave of runners and Meghan went a little further back to the orange group. Soon they were off and running!

I headed over to check in our bag with Jen from MCT before the 5K start and then we wandered over to our starting point. We chit-chatted with another lady from Montgomery County and then at 8:40am, our race began. There were so many people, I had to zig left and zag right to get around them. I passed a bunch of slow walkers (move to the back, people!) and some slow runners. I finally got to a point where I could cruise and enjoy the run. The cherry blossoms were in full force along the road and it was a beautiful run. We ran down Independence Ave and turned left to run over the Potomac River on the Memorial Bridge. I made sure I took in the gorgeous scenery as we ran over the water. Beautiful trees ringed the tidal basin, a helicopter buzzed the bridge, and volunteers clapped us on our way. I passed the one mile marker - hurray - only two more! We ran towards Arlington Cemetery and a water stop, I hoped. I was getting thirsty and a little warm. I thought we only had to run around the traffic circle on the other side of the bridge, but noo, we had to run a little further up the road closer to the cemetery entrance before we turned around (and got to the water stop). I grabbed two cups of water and chugged the first one, getting water all over my face, and held on to the second one for a bit more. I sipped the second cup for another minute or two before tossing my empty cup on the ground. Yeah, the second mile marker was in sight. I was running pretty fast and my lungs were burning. The last mile was tough and I couldn't wait to see the finish line. I passed more people and kept on pushing through my desire to walk. Is that it up ahead, no, not yet. How about now? No. Am I done yet? There it is! I couldn't even surge ahead at the end since I had given my all during the race, but I picked up the pace a bit to the finish line. I finished in approximately 28 or 29 minutes (I forgot to start my watch so I don't know my time yet. I'll check that online tonight). I finished! I finished! I finished!

After I grabbed some more water, I headed over to the 10 mile finish to find Mike and Meghan. Sadly, I didn't see them finish because there were just too many people. I heard that 12,000 people registered for the race so it was pretty crowded. I did see Rich from Mike's TNT running group cross the finish line and I ran into Claire later in the crowd. I caught up with Mike and Meghan after searching for at least 30 minutes. We all did pretty well - Mike finished his race in approximately 1:30 and Meghan in 1:47. We hung out for a bit before heading back home on the metro, exhausted, a little sore, and happy.

***Race Update***
I finished in the top 10% overall! I came in 71st place out of 1,056 people and #5 in my age group. I finished the race in 27:50 at an 8:58 pace. That's the fastest finish time I've ever had. Woo hoo! Mike finished his 10 miler at 1:34:38 at an 8:49 pace, which is pretty awesome and his fastest 10 mile race.

Finally Friday

2009-03-06T18:24:00.002-05:00

It's finally the weekend and I'm so glad. Work hasn't been too bad this week, but that changed Thursday morning when I find out that my proposal that was cancelled several weeks ago might be back on and I might have to head to NC next week to get the team back together and work on it. If it's back on, next week is going to be a long week filled with late nights. That's why I'm trying to put everything out of my head now so I can enjoy this weekend.

We're dog-sitting Nanette, a white poodle puppy for Melissa while she's on vacation in Florida. Riley's had his share of dogs in the past month with Wiley for a long weekend in February, followed by Cocoa the next weekend, and now Nanette. I think he's fine with the doggie parade, but I'm not so sure our cat Shelby likes the pooches invading his space. He's already swatted Nanette a few times today (luckily, no claws were involved...yet). Nanette will be here for almost two weeks so Shelby better get used to it.

The temps climbed into the low 70s today, which is shocking considering we got seven inches of snow on Monday. We still have a teeny patch of snow in the corner of our front yard, but I bet that will melt before too much longer. Riley certainly loved the snow so I feel kind of bad for him that it's all pretty much gone. But, I love this weather and am making plans to run outside as much as possible. Last Saturday I ran on the treadmill at the gym because it was so cold - this weekend it's 70s. I love it.

Speaking of Riley, he's standing here licking the laptop as I type so he must want to go outside. I don't blame him. Anyone in the DC area reading this, back away from your computer and get outside! Enjoy the weather.

Race Time

2009-02-27T22:11:00.002-05:00

We thought our chance to run in the April 5th Cherry Blossom 5k/10m was gone: registration opened in December on the day we were on a plane to Texas. You have to register quick because it fills up within two hours sometimes. We found out that Meghan works at the credit union who's sponsoring the race and last week she got us and my acupuncturist and his wife entries into the race! So, we're running the Cherry Blossom with 5,000 of our closest friends. I hope it's not cold and rainy like last year. It's still a pretty course along the tidal basin and around the monuments, usually at the height of the cherry blossom "bloomage". Now I've got about 7 weeks to train for the race and hopefully knock another 30 seconds off my personal best (PB) time. (Oooh, I sound like a runner!)

Did you catch the Oscars? Me neither, but I've been catching up on the winners and the fashions. I heard Hugh Jackman did a good job (and looked awesome too). I haven't seen any of the movies but I'm hoping to at least catch "Slumdog" soon and maybe "Milk". The problem is Mike's not big on Oscar-type movies so I'll either have to see them on my own or grab someone on the planet who hasn't seen them besides me.

Let them eat Pancakes

2009-02-24T13:40:00.001-05:00

Join The Leukemia & Lymphoma at IHOP for National Pancake Day 2009!

On Tuesday, February 24 dine at your local, DC-area IHOP restaurant and enjoy a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes*.

In lieu of paying for your delicious IHOP packcakes on this special day, please consider making a donation to support LLS and the fight against blood cancers.

To locate the IHOP restaurant near you, visit www.ihop.com.

*Dine-in only. Not valid with any other discounts/offers. Limit one per customer.

I love me some pancakes, so you'll probably see me at IHOP tonight. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Fabulous 40s

2009-02-09T21:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not talking about me (although that will be me soon enough). My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary yesterday and we took them to dinner last night. They celebrated on their own by driving to the Bavarian Inn in West Virginia on Saturday and trying to order in German from the poor waitress who wasn't German and didn't speak a word of German. That's my parents! I'm in awe that they've been married that long - I reminded Mike that we've "only" got 30 more years to go before we hit that mark. My grandparents were married 60 something years before grandpa passed away, which is really an amazing achievement. Congratulations, Mom & Dad for making it so far!

I'm finally on Facebook and it's been fun tracking down old school friends. The other day I found some class photos from Kindergarten and 1st grade. I have to admit, I was pretty adorable back then! :-) I was so pleased to find them that I had to show Mike. It's pretty exciting to flashback to my childhood.

Spring has Sprung!

2009-02-08T15:47:00.002-05:00

After our bitter cold weather last week, with snow and ice, we have some spring-like weather for the weekend. Temps were in the 40s/50s yesterday and lots of people took advantage of it and headed outdoors. I helped Jeff move stuff out of his house into storage so he and Kelli can sell it and buy a new house, now that they are newlyweds. He picked a great day for it because I didn't mind being outside for the 2 hours it took to help out. All I can say is Jeff has a LOT of heavy books.

Today was another nice day so Meghan and I joined Mike and his Road Runners group for a run on the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda. Meg and I aren't technically with the group, so we decided to start before the huge crowd started running at once. It was a beautiful day and thankfully since it was 8am when we started, all of the other runners, bicyclists, walkers, moms with strollers, and people with dogs weren't out on the trail (but there were quite a few). I've only been on the trail once before, but I heard it can get crazy. Bicycle police have been known to police the trail, giving out speeding tickets to bicyclists going too fast. Like I said, it was early so it was pretty peaceful out there. It's a beautiful trail that starts out in the heart of Bethesda and winds its way through the woods all the way into DC, but we didn't run that far - only 5 miles. Mike ran 10 so we waited for him back in town at Starbucks. How yuppie can you get - run down a trail and come back for a latte!

After we returned, I felt bad for not taking Riley for a walk yesterday so I took him out for a nice long walk that he thoroughly enjoyed. He sniffed every blade of grass and every pile of leaves. He met up with his doggie buddy, Maddie and a new lab/husky mix named Samantha. Being outside today, made me yearn for spring and planting flowers. I can't wait to get out there and dig. Now that we're back home, he's sleeping soundly (along with Mike!) I will probably sleep like a champ tonight! What a great day.

Sugar Shock

2009-02-04T18:26:00.002-05:00

Today was the General's 65th birthday at work, and as is customary, we celebrated with cake and pizza. Yes, he's a real retired 4-star general and one of a handful of African American's to achieve that rank. Not only that, but he's really nice, a great senior leader, and he calls me "AJ". The pizza was good and the cake was delicious, but within 30 minutes of finishing my meal I felt the first pang of sugar shock. I've noticed in the last couple of years that I just can't handle that much sugar like I used to. I get a queasy feeling and the slight shakes. I just can't enjoy my Friday morning donuts like I did in my youth when I used to eat a "black cat" - chocolate glazed filled with custard - from Montgomery Donuts. Of course, guess what I'm having for dinner - crepes with the Jaycees. I just can't stay away from the sugar!

Jeff & Kelli's Wedding

2009-02-01T08:15:00.002-05:00

Since Blair asked...

Friday - After a long car ride, we arrived in Charlotte about an hour and a half before our first event, which was a cocktail reception at our hotel hosted by Jeff's parents. The highlight of the party was the Steeler's groom's cake for Jeff. He was so excited about the cake that he showed it to us as soon as we walked in the room. He was practically giddy. Melissa gave him her camera to take a picture of the cake since he's so tall and could get a better angle from the top, and he snapped off six pictures!

Saturday morning - The bride's friends hosted a brunch in the morning before the 4pm wedding. Jeff seemed a little nervous, like it was all starting to sink in, so we chatted with him about everything but the wedding to calm him down. Jeff's sister was there and I'd heard all sorts of things about her, so I asked Jeff's dad to introduce us. After a very brief conversation with her in which I realized why Jeff was reluctant to introduce me, I ran back to the kitchen for more food. Not much personality - he's not like his sister!

After brunch, we headed back to the hotel and Mike and I went for a run since it was nearly 60 degrees out. I walked/ran about 4 miles and Mike did 8. We ran together for 2 miles and then I turned abound and headed back. I saw Jeff and his best man coming back to the hotel to get ready, so we teased him about heading to the airport instead of the church. Kelli, would kill us if she knew! After the run, Melissa, Keith, and I headed over to the awesome mall next door for lunch. This is one of the nicest malls I've seen and if Mike had a job, I could have done some serious shopping!

Saturday evening or The Wedding: After figuring where to park, we headed into the beautiful old church. Nicole warned us right away to not take any pictures because the mean church lady already yelled at her for taking a picture. The lady also wagged her finger at Melissa for taking a picture too, even though she wasn't using a flash.

The wedding started and Jeff walked out front to wait for his bride. He looked a little flushed and nervous, but happy. The flower girls and then the bridesmaid came down the aisle. When Kelli took her place at the top of the aisle, Jeff broke out into a wide grin. Kelli practically sashayed down the aisle towards Jeff. During the ceremony, Jeff didn't stop grinning and his face turned redder and redder (two sure signs of his nervousness). We were proud of him during the vows - he spoke loudly and clearly, something we had teased him about at breakfast. When the pastor pronounced them man and wife, Jeff swooped in for the kiss, she leaned back, and he gave her a quick peck. The groom's side collectively groaned and giggled. I called out, "do over!" She didn't want to mess up her lipstick. We gave them crap at the reception and made them do it again - with similar results. Oh, Jeff and Kelli we hope you got the kiss right later that night!

The reception was in downtown Charlotte at a museum. The food was good and included a potato bar with mashed regular potatoes and sweet potatoes with lots of topping choices served in a martini glass. Mike enjoyed some huge, tasty shrimp and we also filled up on prime rib and roast beef. Since we were in another room from the main room, we practicaly missed the first dance and the cake cutting. Both times, we managed to run out to the dance floor area to catch the end of the activity. Soon, the reception was over and Jeff and Kelli headed out through the gauntlet of ringing bells for the honeymoon in St. John's.

Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel with our Jaycee table, parked the cars, and walked to a nearby bar for some margaritas. A good time was had by all.

Sweet Carolina

2009-01-23T07:24:00.002-05:00

We're roadtripping to Charlotte, North Carolina today with Melissa and Keith for Jeff and Kelli's wedding tomorrow. I've known Jeff for maybe seven years when we met at a volleyball clinic. The class was made up of who I dubbed "young people" (those under 20) and "old people" (those over 30), so I organized the +30s to work together and because we were better volleyball players too. Jeff's still laughs about me "flashing" him on the court - I was wearing a sports bra under my t-shirt and I didn't even lift my shirt all the way up. He thought it was funny and we've been friends ever since. I introduced him to the Jaycees (he became President a couple of years ago) and brought him along to another volleyball league (our team won a couple of seasons ago). He was single when I met him, then he met Kelli (through the Internet), and now they're tying the knot.

I'm looking forward to the trip and to finally seeing him get married. We've been bugging him for a while about when he was going to propose and he finally did only a few months ago. After honeymooning in St. John, they're going to settle in separate places for a while until they figure out where they're going to live. Jeff's job may tip the scales towards here. Kelli has lots of family and friends in NC so this will be a difficult choice. I wish the best for both of them. I better go finish packing so we can hit the road!

Inauguration Eve

2009-01-19T17:23:00.006-05:00

Big, fat, fluffy flakes started falling this morning around 8:30am, turning everything into a winter wonderland. This is our first real snow of the winter season and since today is a holiday, I could stay home to enjoy it. I did have lots of things to do and errands to run and I headed out around 9:45. My first stop was the library, then I pumped some iron at the gym, and then to the mall to buy a wedding gift for a friend. The slumping economy was certainly evident at the mall and I was only there to get a gift and look for some cheap shoes for the wedding - no shopping spree for me.

As I was walking down the long hallways of the somewhat unfamiliar mall, I stopped in my tracks when I heard the thundering oratory of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on a nearby television. I wasn't the only one to stop and soon a small crowd gathered around to watch and listen on this historic day, as we prepare to swear in the first bi-racial U.S. President tomorrow. I'd never heard the entire speech, but I've heard pieces of it and heard it quoted. In its entirety, it's moving and amazing. I kept thinking of tomorrow's swearing in and how MLK Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 46 years ago and now Barack Obama will be a straight shot up the National Mall tomorrow at the U.S. Capitol being sworn in as President. How things have changed since 1963. MLK would be proud.

After the mall, I came home and played in the snow with Riley. He "helped" me shovel our driveway and I threw his favorite toy, an empty plastic water bottle. I also took him for a walk, since this is the first time in a while that it hasn't been freezing cold outside. 32 degrees feel so much warmer than 7 degrees, I can tell you that. Riley enjoyed his romp in the snow and we saw some neighborhood kids out playing with their dad. I love snow days!

More Travel

2009-01-12T20:01:00.002-05:00

Just as soon as I got back from vacation, I jumped back on a plane and headed back down south. This time I headed to Fayetteville, NC for a kickoff meeting with our proposal team. It was one of those trips where everything that could go wrong, practically did. For starters, the trip was hastily arranged during New Year's week when everyone was on vacation so I didn't get a clear idea of the agenda or exactly when the rest of the team was traveling. Someone else made my travel arrangements since I don't have a corporate credit card. I first heard that I would be leaving on Monday and coming back on Friday, so Monday is what stuck in my head. However, when I tried to check in at the airport on Monday they said I wasn't booked on that flight. Yep, my itinerary said Tuesday! After making a few phone calls, I went home. Luckily I had gone to my Columbia office so I hadn't driven from far away to get Baltimore. Plus, I was a little relieved because I just wanted to be home another night.

On Tuesday they were predicting ice and dangerous conditions. Luckily, it never got that bad here and I headed back to the airport. However, across the country flights were diverted or cancelled. (Anyone traveling to Philly that night was out of luck). We boarded the plane on time only to sit on the runway for about 40 minutes. Ugh. We sat there so long that the lady next to me who had fallen fast asleep woke up confused and disoriented, "Where are we? Did we land or did we ever leave?" She looked bummed when I said we hadn't even left yet!

We arrived in Charlotte and I rushed to catch my next flight but then we sat on that runway for at least an hour. Ugh again and the flight turned out to be about 35 minutes so we sat on the runway longer than the flight itself. I was annoyed and it was 10pm when we arrived. Since we were at a military installation, there were a lot of military personnel on my plane. I love GIs. I think they're awesome fighting for our country and all that, but they hogged up all the room on the plane! Yep, half the plane's luggage got bumped for their equipment (who knows what was in those big, locked heavy-duty plastic footlocker thingies?).

I decided to wait around since the next plane was supposedly 30 minutes behind ours and a) I didn't know how far the hotel was or b) what time they would drop off the luggage. I had an early meeting the next day and my jeans and sneakers wouldn't cut it for a meeting with the General. I was prepared to find a mall if necessary, but I didn't want to spend money or time buying new clothes. The next plane was delayed and didn't arrive until after 11pm. By this time, I was groggy and annoyed at the whole travel experience. The plane landed and all the luggage came out, but not mine. As I stood there deciding whether to give up and go or just cry from frustration, the guy who took down my missing bag report asked what my suitcase looked like, then went in the back and grabbed it for me. I should have been a lot nicer to him. I did say "thanks" but it didn't come out like I really meant it.

I arrived at my hotel just after midnight and managed to get to bed around 1am. I didn't sleep very well and I was getting up at 7am to meet some of my team for the first time downstairs in the hotel for breakfast. I woke up at 6am and could not get back to sleep. I worried about having bleary, bloodshot eyes, but I didn't look too horrible. I made it through the whole day with two cups of coffee and a lot of coke.

The team was great and I really like our partner company - they are really nice retired Army guys and we all got along well. I have a much better understanding now of how the Army maintains and repairs certain types of equipment and I'm proud of work that my company does to support the soldier in the field.

I like to travel, but I'm glad to be home.

Christmas Part Dieux

2009-01-06T12:11:00.002-05:00

Since we were in Texas for Christmas, we held a belated Christmas gathering at home with my family. I had asked Mom to let everyone know since the date and time since we were out of town and everyone was gathering at the hospital for Grandma E. She managed to tell everyone but Aunt Carol. In the end Carol and my cousin didn't come because they were sick or something, but we had a great time anyway. Aunt Anne, my parents, Michael & Shaunda, and Frank, Sophie, and little Gathien joined us for good eatings with a slight twist. My brother Michael came over early to set up the deep fryer so we could deep fry the turkey, but his thermometer wasn't working so I ran out to the store moments before everyone was due to arrive and picked up another one. He injected liquid Cajun spices and rubbed the bird down with more Cajun spies. I was really excited that we didn't set the house on fire! Mike was so tired of turkey and wasn't looking forward to eating at all, but he really liked the way it was prepared.

Michael brought his Rottie puppies, Gretchen and Gator over for some puppy playtime with Riley and it was quite the romper room around here. They all received a rawhide tug toy and Gretchen and Riley looked and sounded ferocious as they tugged away. Finally, Riley ripped the toy from Gretchen's mouth and as it went flying, little Gator picked it up and ran! They were all tuckered out by evening's end and Gator kept trying to curl up to sleep, but we wanted him good and tired so he'd sleep through the night (instead of waking Shaunda up at 2:30am to go out). Riley was exhausted and slept hard through the next day. We'll have to get the doggie cousins together again soon!

It was a marvelous day and we especially enjoyed all of the gifts we received and exchanged. Mike got lots of coffee and we both received Starbucks travel mugs (mine is appropriately green for my favorite color!). We love everything and are so thankful for great family!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T21:26:00.004-05:00

To celebrate the first day of 2009, we ran a 5km race this morning! The local Road Runner's Club put on the free race not far from our house, so we couldn't resist. On our way to the New Year's Eve party last night we drove over to look at the course, and it wasn't bad. The only downside to the race was the temps - it was 25 degrees at race time, which is what it was when I did the Jingle Bell run last month. I figure when I decide to do a 5k, the weather decides to make me suffer for it! We bundled up good this morning in preparation. Thankfully, registration was inside a local gym and all 300 runners were able to hang out there until just before race time. After we registered, we decided to head back to the car so we could leave our winter coats in the car because we don't run in them. It was cold for sure after that!

Even though we saw the race course last night, I still didn't exactly understand it because last night it looked too short to be 5k. I didn't understand that we were to run down Gaither, make a right and run over I-370 on the bridge, run down the hill to the court and loop around up the hill, continue back over the highway, make a right on Gaither again, run to the end of the road and loop back, and then make a left back on the road going over 370 - twice. Yep, we did the whole loop twice. The uphill part wasn't too bad the first time, but we both felt it on the second loop. I grabbed an ice cold cup of water on the second lap and held on to it partly up the hill, which helped. The guy in front of me was running so slow, I thought I was going to run into him! It was fun seeing the fast runners. I was heading into the first loop around 3 minutes after we started when I saw two guys racing for first. I couldn't believe how fast they were! I realized that they would probably finish well before I even started my second mile. I did wish I could run faster so I could finish faster and get out of the cold!

Mike didn't keep pace with me, but since the race looped around so many times we cheered each time we passed each other. We both did well today. Mike ran his personal best and blew his old time out of the water. I ran about a minute slower than the last race, but still not bad. After Mike finished, he came back to run to the finish line with me. When I saw him I smiled and did a little gig as I ran (seriously, I did!) because it meant a lot that he came back to push me across the finish line. He urged me to pick up my pace at the end and finish strong. I gave it my all, but boy was it tough!

So, what'd you do today? :-)

Home Again

2008-12-28T19:32:00.005-05:00

We arrived back in Maryland this afternoon and stopped by the hospital to see Grandma E. before we went home. She's doing much better today after being unable to talk or eat food for the past week. Yesterday the lady in the same room passed away and no one removed her body for several hours. When someone could find a nurse to ask the hospital to please remove the body, they were unresponsive. Finally, Aunt Carol called some patient care hotline and someone showed up to move the lady. It was a very uncomfortable situation that the hospital will definitely hear about (plus the nurses didn't check on Grandma for at least 4 hours.

Our final day in Austin yesterday was nice. Mike's seriously contemplating doing the Longhorn Half Ironman next October so we grabbed his cousin Jason and drove out to Decker Lake to see the course. Unfortunately, the park service charges $8 a vehicle to get into the lake and from what I could see, it wasn't worth an $8 admission fee - especially to be there for less than an hour! We called Gail and she listed the bike course over the phone (we forgot to print out the map) so we drove the 56 mile bike course. It's got some pretty steep hills and some pretty bumpy roads. Mike's going to have to do some research to find out what kind of tires other racers typically use on this course or his thin tires will most definitely pop. We tried to capture the route by taking pictures with our camera, but I don't know if the steepness of the hills will be that obvious in the pictures. It was a picturesque drive through the countryside. We saw longhorn cattle, horses, goats, and a Brahma bull. Mike and Jason had never seen a bull that big before - they can weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Miraculously, out in the middle of nowhere, we found a professional-looking sand volleyball court with seven nets, lights, showers, and nice (is there such a thing?) port-a-johns. We almost drove right by, but I spotted it and so we stopped to take a look.
That's a picture of the course - notice the ruts in the road and the long hill...

When we got home, we soaked in Gail's hot tub for a while (until I broke out in hives from the hot water - this happens to me now post-chemo). We also went to dinner with Gail and Michael and enjoyed some really tasty ribs at Cheddar's. MMMM, they were good.

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth

2008-12-25T15:43:00.003-05:00

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and lots of Christmas love! We hope you are enjoying the holiday with family and friends and hope Santa brought you something nice!

It's a beautiful day in Austin - temps about 55 degrees. Mike's sitting poolside doing a crossword puzzle and I'm enjoying sitting inside with the door open. Earlier we went for a run - I ran 36 minutes and Mike ran about 45 minutes. It's nice to run alongside quiet roads that were bustling with cars just yesterday. Nothing is open (except, surprisingly, Starbucks around the corner) and all is calm. There were a few other runners and bicyclists enjoying some Austin beauty too. We plan to eat around 4 or 5pm, as soon as the turkey is ready. I made two apple pies yesterday, Shaunda's mom brought sweet potato pie, and I'll be making green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole soon. Mmmmm, good!

Here's a picture of the table...

Two Days 'Til Christmas

2008-12-23T23:32:00.004-05:00

Today we braved the crowds and traffic to go shopping - ugh. The roads are jammed here in Austin and because every corner has an ill-timed traffic light, it took us a long time to get into the parking lot. Once inside, Sam's was surprisingly not too busy and we were able to make a quick purchase and get the heck out of dodge. On the way over to Steinmart's (loooove that store), Mike stopped at Scooter's for me so I could have a chai latte (he's a great guy). I've been itching to go to Scooter's since I arrived, but that location has been closed for renovations and finally opened yesterday (I know, I've been checking every time I drive by!)

I was supposed to drive to San Antonio this morning to see Aunt Kathy, Grandma, and my cousin Heston (and his 4 kids), but Kathy called this morning because it was really foggy and wet out there. I decided to hold off on my trip because it was foggy last Thursday and some tractor trailer overturned, causing a 2 hour delay in Buda - which I pass through on my way south to San Antonio. I'm hoping to make the trip on Friday or Saturday.

Meanwhile, I saw on the Internet and CNN that back home a 60" pipe burst on River Rd. in Bethesda this morning. I couldn't believe the pictures - it looked like white water rapids. I watched a video of a brave helicopter rescue of two ladies trapped in their SUV. I don't know how they managed to climb out of their car into the cold, wet, metal basket hanging below the helicopter. It's 17 degrees there today and I can't imagine how cold that water must be. I'm glad everyone trapped in the water is okay and only had mild hypothermia at most.

Michael, Shaunda, and her parents came down to Austin for dinner. Since Gail's not feeling up to moving around too much, they stopped by here before dinner. We went to Pappadeux on the north side of Austin for some Cajun seafood and Greek salad (me). I haven't seen Shaunda's parents since her wedding and it was great to see them again. We enjoyed some good food, wine, and company. After dinner, we got stuck in a major traffic jam on I-35, but we jumped the curb and took a side road home!

I'm making apple and pumpkin pies tomorrow and doing some other Christmas dinner preparations. Tomorrow night, I'm dragging Mike to Zilker Park for the Christmas lights. We saw them from the road on the way to dinner tonight and it looks beautiful. We're also supposed to go to Michael's parents for fondue tomorrow night (before lights?)

Cold and Breezy in Buda

2008-12-21T23:13:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was fantastic - near 80 and somewhat sunny. It was so nice, Mike and I sat in Gail's hot tub. Today is another story. It dropped back down to about 40 degrees. Brrrr, who brought winter?

We met up with cousin Gina, her son Robert, and cousin Hunter in Buda. Aunt Kathy and Uncle Robert drove up from San Antonio to join us for dinner at Cracker Barrel. Buda is about 30 minutes south of Gail's house and it's known for its Cabela's - right off I-35 (next to the Walmart). Cabela's is a massive outdoor store and people come from miles around to shop there. Here's a pic of the Cabela's tower (not from today! I found it on flickr).

It was a nice visit. Hunter got a 35 ft. RV this summer so we took a tour of it. It's very luxurious. I could definitely live in it for a while! His family's going to Gatlinburg, TN after Christmas to go skiing for a week. Mike also wanted to see Hunter's boat since we hadn't seen it yet. Gina brought Macho, her Jack Russell, who is the coolest Jack I've ever met. When we drove up this afternoon, Robert and his friend, Colton, were outside playing with his RV car and Macho was tied to the truck hitch. He wagged his tail when we walked over to pet him. Macho is one cool dude and the quickest mouser I've ever seen. He definitely has a great time catching mice on Gina's ranch.

We hung out for a while and Hunter showed off his gun collection. He's got quite a few of them. Hunter loves to hunt and was in a couple of bow-hunting videos years ago when he was younger. Mike and the guys went off to Cabela's (see, you just have to go if you're in Buda!) while Gina and I stayed back to wait for her parents to arrive. She's doing better these days since her health scare last week. I can't remember what her illness was, but she can't absorb iron like most people so she had an iron injection last year and takes a lot of iron supplements every day. Next time she's ready for treatment, she'll have an iron IV infusion. I'm glad she's doing better. At one point, we were in the hospital the same week.

Robert & Kathy met us at the Cracker Barrel for dinner and we talked about the economy (it sucks), the oil industry, the auto bailout... Uncle Robert loooooves talking about this stuff. It's always interesting talking to him to get the "outside DC" perspective on things. Living in DC, I think one way about things and forget about how things are viewed in other parts of the country. Robert was a ranch manager for years and years and after things didn't work out with the new owner (the new owner is a jerk, to put it politely), he now builds houses for a living. Things were good for a while, but now it's a lot slower. Aunt Kathy works for a fancy furniture store in San Antonio (after years of raising seven kids, running the ranch house, and ferrying kids to rodeos all around the state) and her job is slow now too. They lived on a 35,000 acre ranch for years and now they're in a 2 bedroom apartment. Times are tough for everyone.

We're back at Gail's in Austin relaxing and watching TV. I hope it's going to be warmer tomorrow, especially since I'm running 2-3 miles with Mike in the morning.

Thankful

2008-12-19T16:40:00.003-05:00

My grandmother (my dad's mom) is recovering from surgery in Maryland. She was admitted to the hospital on Monday because she needed a blood transfusion, something that has become pretty common this year. She suffers from diverticulitis which causes her to feel really weak and then she needs to have a transfusion. While she was admitted, they must have run a CT because Mom called yesterday to say they found a mass in her colon and would need to operate today to remove it. It may or may not be cancerous, but they'll biopsy the mass to be sure. I called Dad and the surgery went well, but she'll be recovering for a while so they're not allowing any visitors today. I'll call Grandma tomorrow after she recuperates a bit. The biopsy results could take three days. I pray that it's not cancerous because if she has to go through chemo, I know she won't be able to handle it. Chemo is tough on your body. However, right now I'm thankful she made it through the surgery with no complicants and that they were able to remove the whole mass - now we just wait for the biopsy results.

Today it is beautiful and warm in Austin. We went for a 3 mile run on a nearby trail. I struggled a bit because I'm not used to the heat yet. I think it's about 75 degrees, but I've been running in 30 degree weather at home! The trail was nice and wound around some neighborhood, but we never saw any houses. There were a few baseball and soccer fields. We crossed over a dried up stream and passed by lots of cactus and mesquite trees. It was a nice run. We rewarded ourselves by stopping at Starbucks at the end of the run before walking back to Gail's. I'm only allowing myself one or two Starbucks/Scooter's Coffee (a local chain) stops so I try to really enjoy it when I get it!

Texas Two Step

2008-12-17T23:27:00.002-05:00

We arrived yesterday after a fairly uneventful flight. They lost one of our suitcases, which I thought was pretty difficult since we didn't change planes during the flight from Dulles to here (although we stopped in Chicago). It turns out that my suitcase never made it on the plane in Dulles. This has happened to me before so I know the drill. This time worked out much better than the previous 2 times and they brought the suitcase to Gail's house around 9pm last night. It's chillier than we thought but it's supposed to be in the 70s soon. I haven't even put a toe in the hot tub yet and it's calling my name when it gets warmer!

We worked on Mike's resume last night and I worked the phones and the Internet in the afternoon trying to figure out the myriad of benefits options that are offered to me. I called each insurance company to get more detailed information and I'll say that one of them has the worst automated phone system ever. Since I'm not a member or provider, it didn't understand what to do with me. I finally reached an operator who transferred me to another automated phone system that wanted my tax ID. Since I didn't give it one, it hung up on me! I realize after looking at all my options, CSCI did offer really great benefits and I'm going to miss it a lot.

I've found a new career for Mike if things don't work out with this IT thing - personal coach/trainer. We went for a run today in a nice little park nearby. Mike's idea was to do a "warm up" run over to the park - nice and slow. I felt pretty good when we arrived at the park, I felt pretty good and we decided to do some interval training. One loop around the park is a mile. I had hope to do about 3 miles today, but would have been fine with 2 or 2.5. Our first loop included running fast for 2 minutes, running slow for 2 minutes. I couldn't hack it so we dropped it down to running for 1.5 minutes a little slower. My slow runs turned to walking with Mike pushing me to "keep going" (he's evil, that one!) I was sucking wind after 1 loop, but we did another lap. This time my knee started hurting. At the end of the 2nd loop, we walked over to an open basketball court and Mike decided I was going to run sprints. All he needed was a whistle!
Mike's very good at encouraging people to push themselves. I've seen him sneak an extra 1/2 mile out of his other running partners or work someone a little harder at volleyball. It's not like we can't handle the extra push, but gosh darn it, sometimes we want to be a little lazy! That won't happen with Mike around. Don't count on taking a nice leisurely stroll with Mike, especially if he knows you can do more. If you tell him your goal, he will coax you to reach that goal by any means necessary! It's all good. Because of Mike, I did three 5Ks this year and am probably in better shape than I was before chemo. I won't complain about the results, but man is it torture getting in shape! :-)

CSCI = Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch

2008-12-15T22:09:00.004-05:00

Mike's layoff has certainly put a damper on our Christmas this year. We've had to realign our priorities and plan to save now in case this turns into a long haul. We're leaving for Texas tomorrow. Originally, Mike didn't have enough vacation to go early and I was going to leave tomorrow to help take care of his mom while she recovers from knee surgery. He was going to join me on Friday. Thanks to Southwest, we were able to change flights with no charge so he moved his flight to tomorrow and I moved mine to earlier tomorrow morning so we could be on the same flight - that's not so bad.

The whole layoff thing leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm thankful he wasn't there on Thursday because the way CSCI handled it was tacky, tasteless, and lacked class. After the big meeting with everyone, the select few were asked to meet in a conference room without knowing that the axe was about to befall them. The corporate lawyer read from a piece of paper that their services were no longer required. Thank you very much. Pack up your stuff. Turn in your badge and we'll escort you to the door. The others weren't supposed to talk to them (but they did when Mike went in on Friday to sign the paperwork and pack up his stuff). Everyone received no severance, no matter how many years of service. Also, they won't receive their vacation payouts until the February paycheck. Let me get this straight: these people have been laid off right before the holidays, they have holiday plans, and maybe kids who wanted Ants in my Pants Elmo. So, now they have no job, no severance, and they won't even get the vacation money owed to them until TWO MONTHS from now. Let me tell them straight: CSCI YOU SUCK. Ms. CEO YOU SUCK too.

I'm so glad we're going to Texas to get out of here for a while. Of course, I've got to pour over my benefits information tomorrow after we land in Austin so I can decide what health benefits are available to me because Mike's insurance ends Dec. 31. Of course, my company's benefits website is down until the end of the month so I'm going to have to call my benefits people ASAP to select my health care plan over the phone before I don't have health insurance. Also, my cancer history could put a monkey wrench in things with that pesky "pre-existing condidtion". This is not what I wanted for Christmas.

I know we're in this bad situation and I truly feel awful for his other co-workers who may be in worse shape than us. My heart goes out to everyone else who was laid off, or for that matter anyone else going through tough times. Peace be with you.

Bitter with the Sweet

2008-12-11T19:06:00.002-05:00

This day has been a complete roller coaster of highs and lows. It's rainy and cold again, after such a nice day in the 60s yesterday. We also had great news today, followed by really bad news.

Sweet stuff: The CT scan was clean. Yippee! Phlebotomy wasn't bad. I didn't feel the needle stick too much, everyone was sweet and full of hugs, and I found out that dear, sweet Mattie retired last month. Good for her. I also had a much better experience than last time getting the IV for the CT - not too bad either. She was quick and relatively pain free. I had the slowest machine in the place, but who can complain about a 5 minute test versus a 3 minute test. No big deal. The doctor's visit was short and sweet (except for the hour-long wait), but they came in with GREAT news so no complaints there.

Bitter pill: Mike lost his job this afternoon. He got a call last night on our way home asking him to come to work today for a very important meeting. He explained that he would be at NIH with me so they said it was okay if he didn't come in. He called around to other co-workers seeing if they knew what was up, but they didn't. I speculated that his company was acquired. Today at NIH he couldn't get a phone signal, but he was able to get out a text asking what happened. The response was simply "28". Later, we understood that meant 28 people had been let go. When Mike was finally able to get a signal, he talked to people to ask what happend, but they assured him his name didn't come up. However, his boss hadn't returned his call. I assured Mike that they wouldn't expect him to show up at work tomorrow and then tell him. Then the phone rang. His boss called to tell him he'd been let go. They asked him to go in tomorrow to talk to HR and pick up his stuff.

It's hard to be happy for me while being sad for Mike. As my accupuncturist said, "Your health is your wealth." So true. I am thankful and grateful for my health. Now Mike needs a job.

Time to Post Something

2008-12-10T21:29:00.005-05:00

It certainly has been a long time since I've posted and it's already time for my next CT scan. Yep, my check-up is tomorrow at NIH. I've been so busy at work that I haven't even had time to think about it, much less worry. That's a good thing. Anyhow, it's here and I'll know tomorrow if I'm still cancer free. Here's to a clean scan!

Twelve weeks ago, I started training for a 5K race with a program at Fleet Feet because I wanted to prove to myself - a cancer survivor - that I could do it. I was never really that athletic and if you told me at 9 that I would willingly run 3.2 miles for fun at 39, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. At 9, I hated running the stupid mile for gym class. I barely ran and walked most of the dreaded mile. I did okay in those physical fitness tests because I could rock the sit-ups (I held the school record for the most sit-ups in 2 minutes), but run a mile in under 15 minutes. Yeah right.

Our running group started off walking 3 minutes/running 1 minute then progressed to walk 2/run 2 and walk 1/run 4 until we ran our first actual mile. I did fine with the interval training, but running the miles was a little tough at first. In November, Mike convinced me to do another 5K in Rockville just to see what I could do. My plan was to run for at least 4 minutes and walk when necessary because that's what I had been doing. Four minutes turned into five, six, seven minutes until I was at my first mile. I felt pretty good so I kept on going until I finished. Not bad! I finished in about 32 minutes so my goal for my actual 5k race I was training for became to finish in under 30 minutes.

Some of those training runs were brutal - it got cold and windy around here. There were days I just wanted to stay home but I stuck with it. During my runs at that critical moment when I wanted to stop, I'd remind myself that I beat cancer or that a year ago I could barely walk a mile and now I was running. It worked and I continued my training. Mike also joined our group a few weeks ago to help the running coach keep track of all of us since we were either fast runners or slow runners and she was stressing herself out trying to keep an eye out for everyone.

I ran the 5K Jingle Bell Run for arthritis this past Saturday. It was cold - 22 degrees. I thought about staying in bed, but I layered on my clothes and set out for the race. People were decked out in santa hats, jingle bells attached to their shoes, or in other holiday attire. Some crazy person wore shorts. Our group met inside the warm Frederick Armory building for the pre-race activities and photos. We also gave ourselves a pep talk to remain strong, despite the weather. Soon, it was race time. My run went great. I started off strong and took the lead in my running group. One of the guys who I usually ran with, stayed just behind me, but we kept encouraging each other. After we crossed the finish line, he told me he had stayed behind me because he didn't want to catch up for fear I'd make him run at my pace! I finished the race at 29 minutes, 31 seconds - YEE HAW - under 30 minutes. It was awesome.

I'm already planning my next 5K - the Cherry Blossom 5K on April 5. That's also marks the 2nd year "anniversary" of my cancer diagnosis. Once again, I'm just proving to myself that I'm a strong woman who beat cancer. It's kind of my victory lap.

Two Weeks

2008-10-21T22:53:00.002-04:00

Two weeks from today is one of the most important dates for American citizens. It's time to cast your vote for the next President of the United States. Mark it on your calendar, look up your polling place, or check out a sample ballot online.

I am glad we're 2 weeks away because I'm finally getting exhausted hearing about it in the news. Obama's ahead. No McCain's ahead. None of it really matters until you cast your ballot. Take a stand and be counted - VOTE.

No matter what the outcome, this has been the most historic elections we have ever seen. I wasn't sure if enough Americans could actually vote for a black man as President or have a woman Vice President (or President). Now no matter what, we have made history this year. It's simply amazing. Now get out there and vote. Don't make me come after you!

One Last Time - Let's Hear it for Summer

2008-09-19T14:41:00.002-04:00

We're heading to Smith Mountain Lake, VA this afternoon for the weekend and one last shot at waterskiing/wakeboarding for the summer. I'm excited to be getting up on skis again after my recent successes. Usually I look back at the end of summer and ask myself what I've accomplished and come up short, but this year I did things! It goes back to being a kid and having the whole summer off to hang out at the pool, visit grandma in Texas, spend a week at the beach with my other grandma, etc. As an adult, it's much harder to get that "summer feeling" back, but this year we went to Maine, Smith Mountain Lake, Elk Lake, and Texas (Mike's tri). I finally learned how to water ski and Mike did a tri and a half marathon. We did an egg toss, got soaked in hurricane Gustav a few weeks ago, and got poison ivy on a recent walk at Lake Frank. We also saw Mama Mia on my birthday and a Jimmy Buffet tribute band in July. It's been a busy summer and we had fun. Now we're going to the lake for one last hurrah before it gets colder and the leaves turn colors and fall off the trees. What am I going to do this winter - I better get busy planning!

Hurricane Ike
Mike's Aunt & Uncle, last I heard, still didn't have power but they sustained limited damage to their house. They are lucky, but things are still pretty bad down there. I've been reading the Houston Chronicle on line to stay informed and it's just starting to get a little bit better but I heard they're trucking 2,000 lbs of ice from New Jersey (why New Jersey, isn't Georgia or Oklahoma closer? I don't understand why some of the closer states aren't shipping ice). It stinks (literally) for them. I hope it gets better soon.

Ike's Fury

2008-09-12T17:02:00.002-04:00

Ike turned and headed north. Mike's Aunt Valerie and her family live in Spring, TX - just a little north of Houston. My email buddy, Paul, lives there too (he works for Mike's Uncle Steven). We are thinking of them and everyone else in that area. The footage is just amazing and scary. We're hoping for the best. Our prayers are with Texans today.

Hurricane Weather

2008-09-10T09:16:00.002-04:00

They're prediciting Hurricane Ike will head smack into South Texas - not good. I've got plenty of relatives near Corpus Christi because Mom grew up just south of there in Kingsville. Let's start praying that Ike is a category 1 or tropical storm when it makes landfall later this week.

Go away, Ike.

Stand Up 2 Cancer

2008-09-05T14:58:00.002-04:00

Be sure to tune in TONIGHT as the major networks join forces to broadcast this "groundbreaking" show. From their website, "...Over 50 of the most renowned personalities in TV, film, sports and music will come together to make history. In an unprecedented television event, NBC, ABC, and CBS will simultaneously devote 1 hour of commercial-free prime time to raise funds for the fight against cancer."

Look who's appearing on the show: Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Meryl Streep, Christina Applegate (recently diagnosed with breast cancer), Lance Armstrong, Jack Black, Kirsten Dunst, America Ferrera, Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, Forest Whitaker, Mariah Carey, Beyonce, Fergie, Miley Cyrus (for you youngsters), Carrie Underwood and more...

www.standup2cancer.org

I've already set my Tivo.

10 Years

2008-08-30T22:09:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Mike and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary - yay, us! August was a good month for us - a one year cancer anniversary and this. We had a low-key day after work with dinner at Raaz (Indian) at the Rio and then a movie. We were supposed to go to Elk Lake, PA again with friends, but something happened with them and we ended up not going so our weekend plans have shifted. We thought dinner and a movie was a nice way to celebrate after going to Maine the week before.

Maine was truly great. We drove up Saturday to Portland, ME and spent the night. We tooled around Portland on Sunday before driving up to our final destination: Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park. It's so hot down here in August and we tried to get our minds around 55 degrees at night before we left, but we still weren't ready for the fall-like weather. After finally finding a hotel in Portland, we put on warmer clothes from our shorts and headed into the historic and restaurant-heavy Old Port part of town. It was cool. We had dinner at the Portland Lobster Company on the pier. We sat outside (with our coats on) and enjoyed the live band and some local food. Mike had some lobster bisque since we were in Maine. After dinner, we wandered around taking pictures and such. We found a 6 foot section of the Berlin Wall sitting on one of the piers - I walked right by it at first and then we realized what it was. Simply amazing to see.

On the way up to Bar Harbor, we stopped in Freeport - the LL Bean "mecca". We had gone to LL Bean at midnight the night before just because we had heard they were open 24/7. I wasn't overly impressed because I thought the clothes wouldn't be as expensive as they were. I was thinking "outlet" when it wasn't. We did hit the LL Bean outlet on Sunday (a separate store that's not open 24/7) when we returned, but there wasn't anything I was interested in. However, we hit the jackpot at North Face and each bought winter coats for $40! Those coats sure came in handy the rest of the week as the temps dropped down a couple of nights that week.

Bar Harbor is great. We loved this tiny town right next to Acadia. We stayed at a B&B, a 10 minute walk from town (we didn't realize how close it was for 2 days and drove into town to hunt for parking). Our B&B was nice and quaint. The inn owner was very quirky, but his wife wasn't so bad. During our tour of the facilities, he stated that they don't usually have a tv, but they had made a special exception for the Olympics and had placed a 13" tv in the living room downstairs. Our host stated we were only to watch the Olympics and nothing else. I thought Mike was going to run out the door! "R" just had a very particular manner of him, kind of like an old-fashioned dad. For example, R offered to have coffee and tea waiting outside our room every morning but we were not to bring our mugs downstairs to the breakfast area because he would have new ones at each table. Fine. Our first morning, we selected our table and then went to the dining room area to see what coffee and teas were available. We didn't take the mug from our table because we were just looking and R instructed us not to take a new mug from the counter because we had our own at the table. He was just so particular, precise and anal. It drove us both a little crazy. We spent most of week just hoping we wouldn't run into him, but the location was great and the B&B itself was nice.

We had lots of lovely meals in Bar Harbor and a fantastic lunch overlooking the harbor in Southwest Harbor on the other side of the island. We met lots of dogs and lots of people. We attended a local improv show that was really funny. We took pictures of sunrise and sunset on Cadillac Mountain, which is the first place on the east coat where you can see the sunrise. We got up at 4:45am that day to get there. For some reason, I thought it would just be us up there but there were about 100 of our closes friends that morning to usher in the new day. I was kind of disappointed in the people talking about being loud because I think you should quietly appreciate the sunrise instead of goofing off and stuff. Maybe I'm old - or just grouchy that early in the morning. We walked across a sand bar at low tide to the neighboring island (with some of the same people who were up for the sunrise). We saw lots of little boats and quite a few yachts. We took 2 whale watch cruises because we were fogged in on the first trip and couldn't see anything past the boat. The 2nd trip was a success and we saw 3 whales! It was really cold out there - I'm glad we had our new winter coats!

We walked a 6 mile loop on one of the carriage trails in Acadia and did a little bit of trail hiking around Jordan Pond in the park. It was beautiful and peaceful. I really enjoyed the park and wish we had either brought our bikes or rented them. I also wish we had hiked a little more because it was so awesome. We stood in the rain to see "thunder hole" do some thundering when the high tide rolled in, but it was more like "burping hole". We also stuck our feet in the ice cold water on the only sand beach in Acadia (also in the rain) just to say we did it.

On our way back home, we stayed in Portland again for a couple of days. This time we walked to the Portland Observatory tower that had been built in 1807. It was used as a communication tower for the busy port as the ships sailed in and managed to survive a devastating fire in 1886 that wiped out half the city. It had great views of the city and the port. We also took a sunset ferry ride for $13 each. We saw a beautiful sunset and some of the islands off the coast. It was a nice way to complete our Maine vacation before we headed back home the next day.

I'm Alright!

2008-08-08T00:18:00.003-04:00

It has been a LONG day, but I'm finally home and still CANCER FREE on my one year anniversary. Everything basically went well (but YOWZA did that first IV stick hurt like $*&#$&*)$). She did much better on the second try but it was too late, I got light-headed and had to sit in the chair until I could get up to walk out of the room. They scared my a bit before they told me the good news. I had just told Mike my theory that if just Dr. Dunleavy came into the room, everything was good. If the team came into the room, not so good news. Moments later, in walked my NP, Dr. Wilson (THE GUY), and another colleague. Dr. Wilson relayed the news so nonchalantly that I almost didn't catch what he said. He also said the scar tissue has shrunk even more since last time. Then they said, "See you in December." Great to hear it and relieved it's over.

Once I heard the good news, I kept picturing that dancing groundhog from Caddyshack with Kenny Loggins singing, "I'm Alright." I felt like boogying right alongside Mr. Groundhog. I was even going to try to post a picture of the cute little guy, but it's late and I'm going to bed.

Since I left NIH, I've spent a lot of time in the car between driving to Bethesda, home, National airport, Arlington (happy hour), Rockville (shopping because they lost my brother-in-law and his girlfriend's suitcase), back home, Rockville again (dinner), National airport (to pick up my mother-in-law), Iwo Jima monument in Rosslyn, the airport (they lost my mother-in-law's suitcase too). In the end, we recovered all suitcases and just arrived home at midnight. Whew, I am so ready for bed but I wanted to post the news before I got a bunch of frantic calls tomorrow that I couldn't answer because we'll be on the boat.

The Jitters

2008-08-06T22:04:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow is my 1-year check-up (although the actual “anniversary” date is August 16). I moved up my appointment from next week to tomorrow since my mother- and brother-in-law are visiting this weekend and we want to celebrate the good news with them. I’m glad now that I moved up my appointment because I won’t have to worry for another week about the test results. This week is nerve-wracking because I think every little thing is the return of Priscilla. I had severe itching the other day, which worried me until I remembered we had eaten dinner on the deck the night before and it was simply mosquito bites. I was having trouble breathing in the car and then I realized it was at least 95 degrees with high humidity and the AC hadn’t kicked in yet. I’ll know tomorrow that everything’s okay and then I’ll breathe a sigh of relief…until I go back in 4 months for my next CT!

Light the Night Honored Walker. On July 31, I was honored with 7 other blood cancer survivors at the Washington Nationals game. The LLS invited us to attend the Light the Night kick-off on the roof-top of a parking garage next to the stadium. The honored walkers were showered with attention from the moment we arrived. I sat up front at a reserved table with my teammates: Mike, Melissa, Mom & Dad at a reserved table. I received a special “honored walker t-shirt” and a MLB baseball. 2 Nationals players took time out before the game to come up to our roof-top party and talk about the National’s support for the Light the Night walk.

LLS introduced each honored walker and we were allowed to say a few words to the crowd. The cutest was 5 year old survivor, Meghan, who waved and said, “hello”. Another survivor, 3 year-old Alexis wore an adorable home-made Nationals baseball dress and a pink Nationals baseball cap with “Cancer sucks” embroidered on the back. I read her story and this little girl was diagnosed with leukemia when she was just 11 months old. She had a grueling battle, but on this night she smiled and enjoyed the moment.

Before the game started, the honored walkers were escorted all the way down to the field where we would be presented in front of the crowd! This is my 3rd Nats game. I started off in the owner’s box, moved down to the diamond level behind home plate, and now I was standing on the field. Mike says I’m spoiled for sure! Little Alexis played in the dirt, drawing wonderful pictures in the dirt until it was time for the camera shot. Her dad video taped her playing and all of us waiting for our moment, which he plans to place on youtube. Then we were moved out onto the actual field, something I thought wouldn’t happen because I know how much the groundskeeper monitors the grass! I was surprised again when the announcer introduced me as the honored walker from Montgomery County. Unfortunately, Mike didn’t see me on the jumbo-tron because my parents chose that moment to walk up to their seats and chat with Mike and Melissa. LLS had a photographer so I hope she snapped some great pictures.

VICTORY is MINE

2008-07-29T13:20:00.002-04:00

Much like the name of this blog, I was victorious on water skis this past weekend at Elk Lake in Pennsylvania. Our friends, Theresa and Paul invited us to Paul's dad's house on the lake (more like Mike begged them to take us). We forgot my bungee cord training guide, but I didn't need it after all. On Saturday, I managed to get up a few short times but then I couldn't stand up again. Paul's advice, "no thinking" really helped. I channeled my "inner blond" and put all thoughts out of my head and it worked! After that, though, I started thinking again and gravity pulled its tricks on me and I couldn't get up again. Sunday, however, was the day when I conquered my skis and not only stood up, but I went around the lake twice in one try!!! I couldn't stop grinning and giggling over being up on the water. It was thrilling and a little scary at the same time. I managed to bend my knees a little, but Paul said I was a little wooden on the skis. Next time, I'm going to try shifting my weight. We'll see how it goes. I am just so excited. Take that, you young whippersnappers who don't try new things. I did it!

The lake and the houses on it are so cute. They remind me of the cottages from Dirty Dancing. I half expected Baby and Johnny to come walking by with a watermelon. I felt like I was transported back in time to a simpler life. The Elk Lake community is very close and they had a field day Saturday and fishing derby on Sunday. We participated in the "covered dish" dinner on Saturday with Theresa and Paul and "helped" them bring two covered dishes to share. After dinner, we competed in the egg toss - with raw eggs. We did better than I thought we would, and came in third place after our egg exploded all over my arms, legs, and clothes. Somehow, I knew when we started that I would be the one with egg all over. Next time, I am bringing an apron, goggles, and a helmet - just in case!

Mike learned to wakeboard a couple of years ago in Texas and has loved it ever since. He just jumps right up and goes. He always looks so serious when he's wakeboarding and every once in a while he'll crack a smile, so Theresa and I teased him about it. Meanwhile, Paul has a whole routine when he wakeboards: he gets up, tucks the rope under one arm, wipes the water off his face, tousles his hair, tugs on his swim trunks, and checks his life jacket. Every time. Plus, he just grins while he wakeboards. We told Mike he needs to smile more - so he started smiling a little more plus he imitated Paul by tousling his hair too. That made us giggle.

It was a fantastic weekend. We had a great time. It almost made me forget that my one year checkup is NEXT WEEK. That's right - next Thursday. My actual anniversary date is August 15, but it's so close that I'll just celebrate on the 7th and again on the 15th. I'll be grumbling a bit next week because my appointment is at 11:30 and knowing how things go, I won't be done until 1pm and that means I won't be able to EAT until 1pm. Sigh. I'll be clutching my chocolate croissant until the moment I can finally eat and enjoy it. It's been a much better year so far than where I was almost 365 days ago. I can definitely count my blessings multiple times over.

Water Ski - Me?

2008-07-22T19:16:00.002-04:00

Yes, I managed to (briefly) get up on skis this past weekend at Smith Mountain Lake! After many, many tries on Saturday and Sunday I finally stood up for several long seconds - the longest time I have been up on skis. It was awesome, it was thrilling, it was cool. I used Mike's "bungee cord method" (I wrap a bungee cord around my knees to keep me from doing a spread eagle face plant in the water) and it finally worked. I lost three bungee cords in the process, but managed to keep the last one the longest. I swallowed a lot of lake water and got plenty up my nose (now, there's a visual!) but I DID IT!! I talked to myself a lot out there saying stuff like, "I kicked cancer's butt and this is not as tough, so just do it already!" It didn't work too often, but when I least expected it, I was standing up on the water. Once I was up, I had a whole new set of problems to think about like figuring out how to balance myself. Alas, it didn't last long and I couldn't figure out how to do it again but I'm really close to having a longer run. We're going to another lake in PA this weekend with other friends and I'm going to try again and again until I am successful because it was FUN.

Getting older seems to be working for me. I took up rock climbing a couple of years ago and this year, I'm working on water skiing. Life is good.

Happy FOREth!

2008-07-04T18:32:00.002-04:00

It's the Fourth of July and the AT&T PGA National Golf tournament is in town at Congressional Country Club. The Tiger Woods Foundation put the call out to lots of local community service groups asking for volunteers to work the tournament and the Jaycees jumped at the chance. Well, actually Mike jumped at the chance since Tiger was supposed to play this weekend. However, as you know Tiger injured himself several weeks ago and he's not allowed to play. We signed up to volunteer anyway to make some money for the chapter. We were the only Jaycees there today but we worked with the Kiwanis and some people from CASA. We were stationed in a nice tent near the 11th green and we sold sodas, water, hot dogs, brats, and some other goodies. It was a sunny hot day for most of the day and we had some pretty decent crowds, which makes the day go by much faster. After our shift was over we walked around to see some of the golfers. I don't know many of them, but we saw KJ Choi, Davis Love III, and local boy Fred Funk. I also saw some nice, young, cute golfers who were certainly nice to look at! We go back Sunday to work the tent with several more Jaycees. Sunday is the big golfing day so it should be pretty exciting.

Now we're going out to hopefully watch some fireworks - if it stops raining. Happy fourth, America!

Circle of Life

2008-06-27T17:56:00.003-04:00

I just received some exciting news - Sue & Steve had their baby this afternoon! However, not more than an hour later I received some very sad news - Jen's brother passed away this morning. He'd been battling cancer and in recent weeks had been hospitalized a few times. In her blog yesterday, Jen sounded hopeful and talked about him possibly being released from the hospital by this weekend. I am grateful she went on a family trip with her brother just a few weeks ago to Disney World. He ended up in the hospital at the end of his vacation trip, but he was able to enjoy the week with his family.

I am already reeling from yesterday's news regarding Angela in my swim class who's cancer may have returned. She's the "loud Angela" in our swim class and is always singing along with the music and cracking jokes with everyone or ogling the lifeguards. She's truly a trip. Not only do we have the same name, but her birthday is a few weeks after mine. I wish her the best and I'm going to make sure I call and visit her to keep her spirits up as she deals with this news. I wrote in her get well card, "We are super hero cancer fighting chicks." She is truly a super hero cancer fighting chick - Fight on, Angela.

Several weeks ago, Melanie lost her mom to cancer. I'm in shock right now as I try to handle all of this cancer-cancer-cancer stuff in my life. Two years ago, I knew very few people who had cancer and now I know more people with cancer than I ever thought possible. My prayers list keeps getting longer every day.

We have water!

2008-06-19T21:48:00.002-04:00

Late Sunday evening a very large water main burst on the other side of the county followed by another water main breakage the next morning much closer to my house. Both breakages caused nearly 100 million gallons of water to gush into Rock Creek Park and Lake Frank. After they managed to get the water back on, the entire county was put on mandatory water restrictions: no laundry, no washing dishes, and limited flushing. The kicker was that we were also required to boil all drinking water for at least a minute in case of bacteria contamination for three days.

While this didn't seem to be too much a hardship: I simply put on a pot and a teakettle to boil first thing every morning and then again when I got home to ensure we had water for us and for Riley and Shelby. I kept a bottle of boiled water in the fridge and kept a small bottle near my sink so we could brush our teeth. Apparently, boiling water was waaaaaaaaay to difficult for a lot of people to handle and there was a mad rush for water at every grocery store in the county. On Monday, we thought about picking up a couple of gallons of water on the way home from Virginia for us and a friend just in case, but a nasty thunderstorm rolled through and knocked out power to all the grocery stores (and traffic lights) in that area! After sitting in traffic, not moving for a very long time to try yet one more grocery store, we gave up and went home to boil some water.

Meanwhile, back in Montgomery County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, people were loading up entire shopping carts with bottled water and hoarding it like Hobbits trying to keep that precious ring. I was amazed at the selfishness I saw on the news. I didn't buy any water and I managed to make due just fine. It's not like we didn't have any water at all, we just had to boil it for one minute! It's not difficult. Last summer when I was going through chemo, I probably would have bought a few bottles just to be on the safe side, but not a whole shopping cart. I might have been more careful with my toothbrush because I did catch myself a couple of times rinsing my toothbrush in the sink instead of my pre-boiled bottle of water. I survived, though and the water tested clean late last night so we can all go back to not boiling our water. Oh, the hardship.

One big problem that resulted in the lack of clean water was nearly every restaurant in the county was shut down! Monday morning we stopped at Starbucks and I had an iced chai. I don't think they heard about the water restrictions that morning, but they were closed the next day. We didn't think it was a big deal with the coffee because they have to boil the water, right? Well, apparently not long enough. All restaurants, from diners to McDonald's to fancy schmancy were all closed or on limited operations: only pre-packaged food could be sold. No fountain sodas (ice), tea, or coffee. My parents went to Bugaboo Creek Monday night and they were open and serving on paper plates with paper napkins. They didn't serve any tea or coffee, but they were open for business. I have a feeling they shouldn't have been open and were probably shut down on Tuesday.

Thankfully everything is finally back to normal. I celebrated by eating out for lunch today and had an iced tea - in Virginia, where I work. :-)

Play ball

2008-06-13T16:38:00.003-04:00

We were invited to the Washington National's game last week, but not just to see the game, but to see it from the owner's box. Our friend's family and the owners are old friends. We were so honored to be there. While I was at a late lunch with my co-workers, a storm came out of no where and pounded the area with high winds and lots of rain and lightening. It soon passed and afterwards, I picked Mike up from work and went back to my office to see if the game was still happening that night. I work in Virginia and the game was not far away in DC so we had plenty of time to figure things out before the game.

I saw on the Internet the game was still on, so we headed into the city. The skies started to get dark as we drove towards the stadium. We heard on the radio about the damage from the storm and about other storms heading our way. It seems Montgomery County got pounded by the storms - lots of lights out. I was sure glad we weren't stuck in traffic in all that mess.

We were thrilled and shocked to find that our free parking pass Keith had given us put is in the garage right next to the stadium - woo hoo! We'd never been to the new ballpark and it was impressive right from the start. We showed our special tickets and worked our way up to the box. I started to realize how big a deal this was when we had to show our tickets at least six times to get there. I wasn't expecting the actual owners to be there that night, but Mrs. Lerner was and she was so very nice and welcoming to everyone.

It started to downpour and everyone in the stadium ran for cover. We watched and waited to see what would happen, but it was pretty obvious a game wasn't going to happen that night. Meanwhile, we dined on delicious roasted vegetables, salad, mini tuna steaks (for Mike), and grilled chicken. That was in the first box. In the second owner's box, they offered hot dogs, fries, and four flavors of dippin' dots ice cream! You would think that would be enough, but a little while later the servers brought out baseball-shaped cookies, a tray of peanut brittle, and another tray of mini-cheesecakes and fudge. Everything was good.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, despite the rainy night and on the way out, we received Nats baseball hats and baseball. We recently found out we can use our tickets since the game ended up being cancelled to go again - not the owner's box but on the same diamond level. Yeah!

Let's Relay!

2008-06-13T16:15:00.002-04:00

The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life was a couple of weeks ago. I had a busy day that day between the Relay and my former neighbor's wedding that afternoon in DC. However, I was co-captain of our team, the G&G Jaycees Superheroes (and a cancer survivor to boot), so I had to be there for at least part of the event. Mike and I arrived at the track to dark clouds and a scary weather forecast calling for tornadoes. I had hoped to set up the campsite before we had to leave for the wedding. However, with dark skies overhead we decided to hold off and just enjoy the survivor's lunch before the Relay.

Finally, the skies cleared up a bit and we went to our campsite with some of our teammates who had arrived to help. Nicole and Blair brought decorations to go with our Superheroes theme and we got busy hanging posters and red and white steamers from our tent. It looked really awesome when we were done - not bad with dollar store decorations! However, the storm decided to rear its ugly head and we were told to get off the field and take cover. That was my cue to leave anyway because we needed to get home, shower, and get ready for the wedding.

Andrea and Sam's wedding was awesome. She looked stunning in her floor-length lace wedding gown and could definitely be a wedding dress model. They both looked incredibly happy as they said their vows. The reception was at the Hay-Adams hotel in DC and everything was great, from the blueberry martinis to the wonderful meal. The best part was the view from the roof, where we headed up after dinner for dancing and cake. By this time it was dark and the hotel looked directly over a lit-up White House with the Washington Monument directly behind it. The view took our breath away - simply marvelous. In all my year here, I've never seen a view like that. Wow!

After we went home and I changed, I made it back to the Relay so I could keep Becky and Blair company overnight. I missed the luminary ceremony, but I saw the candles all lit up around the track. I had ordered a couple in honor of myself (and to raise some more $ for cancer research), but it freaked me out a bit to see my name out there. I saw luminaries for Uncle Neil, Grandpa, Grandma Marie, and so many others that I knew and didn't know. I walked for a while on the track and hung out with my team before they went home (except for Becky and Blair). I went to my tent around 1am. I didn't get much sleep, thanks to the chatty HS girls talking all night. In the end, it was a great event and I look forward to actually being there during the day next year!

Mike's Triathlon - my version

2008-06-08T20:34:00.005-04:00

I don't know if you've read Mike's blog about his race, but here's my version of events.

We arrived in Austin several days before the race and it was HOT, especially since it was 49 degrees when we left Maryland that morning. We were hungry and Mike's version of acclimating himself to the temperature was to eat lunch outside. Mike said it was really hot, but for once the extreme temperature didn't bother me that much. However, I did feel bad for him and the other triathletes who would be racing in that mess. Yuck. Thursday night we hung out at his mom's pool where Mike and Brian competed in swimming contests and I refereed. I also sat in the hot tub a bit, but with the temperature turned down because I didn't want to break out in hives like I did last time.

We met up with my mom Friday morning. She was in San Antonio for the week visiting my grandma for her 92nd birthday so she met us halfway between both cities and took me to San Antonio with her and then we both drove to Austin that night so she could stay and see Mike's race on Sunday. Mom and I met Uncle Robert for lunch at a fabulous all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet and then we headed over to grandma's home for her birthday. Grandma has dementia and when I saw her in December with Gina, she didn't recognize me. This time she knew who I was almost immediately. I was surprised and happy she knew who I was, even with my short hair. I think seeing me with Mom helped a bit. Grandma was really good and seemed more herself than I had seen the last couple of visits. I think her new place is better for her than the big assisted living home where she used to live. There are only six residents here and I think she feels more comfortable. She looks great and did really well all day, except we noticed she was acting a little funny when we left but I thought it was because she was really tired from not sleeping so much.

Saturday morning, Mom and I joined Mike's aunts Valerie and Pam on a "million dollar home tour" right on Lake Travis. It was really hot that day and I felt like I was roasting in the heat. It was an organized event with shuttle buses that took us from the parking lot to the homes. There were lots of people (the $10 entry fee went to Make a Wish), which made it hotter inside the houses. We saw some beautiful homes: a walk-in wine "cellar" that had a clear Plexiglas floor built over a koi pond that went outside; a mirror with a built-in TV; and much, much more. We realized we were running late for Mike's TNT pasta party and we had to wait for a shuttle bus with a huge crowd. Valerie and Pam pushed our way onto the overcrowded bus, but halfway back to the parking lot it broke down. Several of us argued to just let us get out and walk, but they wouldn't open the door. Another bus finally arrived but it was much smaller. We managed to get on this bus and some people did start walking. We raced back to Austin and the frantic phone calls from Gail and Mike began. Gail was pretty ticked because we were running late and we had taken her car so she was stuck waiting for us. We finally got back, but Mom and I had to take Pam and Valerie back to Pam's place so they could shower. Thankfully, Mom and I weren't that sweaty so we didn't have to shower.

We arrived at the pasta party just before they closed down the food! It was pretty good, but I was disappointed they only offered two kinds of pasta with two kinds of sauce. I wasn't expecting a pasta party of that magnitude. For some reason, I just thought it was going to be the 23 local TNT athletes and their families in some small conference room just kicking back and loading up on pasta. It turns out, it was for all 500 TNT athletes and their families from around the country! It was a big motivational banquet explaining why everyone was there: to raise money for the LLS programs. The big shocker was that they had raised over $900,000 from just this race! GO TEAM!! The guest speaker was an author, motivational speaker, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer survivor…28 y.o. Meg Brown. She was AMAZING and I met her briefly afterwards and bought her book, which I read most of on the plane on the way home. She was misdiagnosed for four months and by the time she made it to the ER for her diagnosis, she was in such bad shape she was about one week away from dying. The most amazing thing: she ran the triathlon the next day. How awesome.

The alarm clock rang bright and early the next day: 6am. Mom needs a LONG time to get ready so she got up at 5am. I don't understand why. I figured I'd be hot and sweaty within an hour of being outside, so I didn't bother to take a shower. Mom, on the other hand, took a shower, blow-dried her hair, and put on make up. I put on sunscreen, put on our special purple "AM Victory Austin, TX 2008" t-shirt (with CANCER SUCKS! on the back) and was ready to go. We rode down with Gail, Brian, Yolandi, and Gail's fiance Michael. They closed the streets earlier than they said and we had a tough time figuring out where to park. We figured it out and walked down to the river where Mike was swimming and parked our gear along with everyone else. There were almost 2,000 athletes competing and I managed to find Mike in the crowd before his swim. He seemed really glad to see me and when I asked him later, he was really glad because he was on the verge of wigging out about the race. I chatted with him for a while and then headed back to his family, but I saw Gail coming towards me and took her over to him. It's amazing that I found him at all, but I kept looking for groups of TNT athletes with white swim caps. We hugged again and went back. Gail stayed by the finish line, but Mom, Valerie, Pam, and I stayed at the starting gate. I brought purple cowbells from Maryland and gave them to everyone in Mike's entourage. The race starts in waves, and Mike was in the white wave (like his swim cap). As each wave before Mike's passed us by, we clanged our cowbells and cheered for everyone, especially the TNT athletes. Some looked really thankful and happy we were there. In fact, after Mike went through the starting gate, someone commented to him that we were the loudest ones there. OH YEAH! GO MIKE!!!

Mike got in the water and waited for the gun. They jumped in from a floating dock and treaded water until the starting gun went off. Finally, the race was under way! I lost Mike in a sea of white swim caps plus they swam away from the spectators for most of the race. As he made the turn to come back, Michael spotted him in his binoculars and pointed him out. I could finally see him and he looked good. His stroke looked confident and strong. As he got closer, I went over to the transition area to cheer him on after he got out of the water. Soon, I heard them announce his name and he was out of the water. He made his way to the transition area and I cheered and clanged my cowbell. He told me later, he was a little out of it and barely remember seeing me.

We made our way over to the bike course and it was a mad house with bikers everywhere. Mike had to do four loops and I was supposed to hold up a sign counting down his laps, but I missed him the first lap. I finally saw him on the second lap. One of his teammates, Shannon, was near him so when I saw her on the third lap, I meant to keep an eye out for Mike, but she got clipped by another biker and fell. Shannon got up right away, but struggled to get back on the bike. She took a long time so I ran over to her to see if I could encourage her to keep on going. She was mad and crying and one of the TNT coaches helped her fix her bike. In all of that madness, I missed Mike's third lap. She finally got back on the bike and Mom and I cheered her on. We finally saw Mike again and it was on to the run.

We moved over to the running course and positioned ourselves near the start/finish of the run. By this time, it was getting really HOT and nasty. The run course was two loops of 3.1 miles each loop, but because of where we were sitting, we actually saw him four times as he started out or ended each loop. We finally saw him on the course and erupted into cheers and massive cowbell ringing. Brian hopped on the course and ran about .25 mile with him. I saw lots of athletes on this part looking completely exhausted and worn-out so I was sure to really encourage them, especially the TNT athletes. Some smiled and waved as they ran by (some looked annoyed, whatever). We spotted Meg Brown, the speaker from the night before, and she looked tired. One condition of her stem cell transplant is that her skin can get really tight, which makes it tough to move. She was running really stiffly and slow. We erupted into cheers of "Meg! Meg! Meg!" and she smiled and seemed to pick up the pace. She's awesome.

Soon enough, it was Mike's last lap. We high-tailed it to the finish line to see him there. Mom was moving a little slow from the heat and from hunger. I was a little disappointed I didn't see him cross the finish line, but I was close enough that I heard them announce his name. He was done! He finished!!! We hugged and kissed him and celebrated his amazing accomplishment. I am so proud of him. He did a TRIATHLON. Wow. His completion time was 3:09:32. It was an amazing experience and I'm super proud of his finishing this thing and for all of his training. He's been dedicated and spent many, many hours at the pool, on his bike, and outside running. All of his hard work paid off: he finished. GO MIKE!!!

Now he's training for his next event - a half marathon.

Triathlon Day

2008-05-24T23:24:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow is the big day - the CapTexTri - Mike's big race he's been training for months to do. It's HOT down here in Austin and I hope he's acclimated enough for tomorrow because I'm nervous about something bad happening. He bought lots of Gatorade and water tonight so he is prepared. We went to his big pasta party dinner, which I thought was going to be about 50 people in the hotel but it was probably closer to 200 people! It was all of the Team in Training participants, not just his chapter. I should have thought of that, but it didn't even cross my mind. They pumped everyone up with pep talks and lots of humor about the Texas weather. Each athlete stood up to be recognized and they even asked for cancer survivors to stand too and there were about 10 of us in the room, including a little boy.

The final speaker was a 6 year non-Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor - stage 4. She was 22 when she was diagnosed. She had an awesome sense of humor and shared some of her experiences. While she was talking, I compared myself to her and how she went undiagnosed for months and could have died if she had waited any longer. I am so grateful and thankful that I caught it when I did because who knows what would have happened.

I am so proud of Mike and all of his training. He's staying at the hotel near the course and I called him a bit ago to wish him luck tomorrow. He's a little nervous and hopes he's prepared. He has to get up at 4am to get ready, but we're not so far behind as Gail wants to leave here at 5:30 to get a good spot. I agree with her and will just deal with being sleepy in the morning. My mom's complaining about the time because she is not a morning person. Tomorrow morning will be interesting getting us all out the door, but the most important thing is Mike's race.

GO MIKE, GO!!!!!

Praise Jesus!

2008-05-16T10:02:00.004-04:00

That's what Mattie, one of the phlebotomists said when I told her about my good health. Keep in mind, it was before my CT, but it works for the test results too. My CT was CLEAN!!! Priscilla is gone and the doctor mentioned, "remission," but I'm still a little hesitant to use that word. It happened exactly as I had hoped, my NP Doug examined me and said my blood work was excellent. Dr. DunLeavy breezed in later to tell me my CT looked excellent and to say, "see you in three months." My next appointment is August 14th.

I was a little worried when Peru went to draw blood and said my veins weren't that good because I was dehydrated. I forgot all about chugging lots of water for the past couple of days. She got it okay, but I was really worried about the IV for my CT because it's a bigger needle. In the end, the IV was no big deal. I made a note in my calendar to drink water two days before my next exam. After she got the IV in, I sent Mike off to donate blood to the NIH blood bank because he can't come in during my CT anyway and the blood bank there is in desperate need right now (http://www.cc.nih.gov/blooddonor/). NIH has a new CT machine and it's really quick. I was done in no time! I did have to wait a lonnnnnnng time in the waiting rooms to get the CT scan, but the scan itself takes less than 5 minutes now.

I also felt great afterwards, with minimal tummy upset. We had margarita pizza at Zios afterwards (my favorite) and then I went shopping to celebrate my good news. I also played volleyball last night and felt great. Tonight I'm volunteering for a couple of hours from 10-midnight at the Seneca Valley HS After Prom (my Alma mater). Robert's graduating early tomorrow morning in College Park and planning a full day of celebrations so I won't be able to stay all night at After Prom. I'm also hosting a jewelry part on Sunday at 3pm to raise money for my Relay team (so stop by if you're in town!). It's good to be busy - life does go on!

CT Scans

2008-05-13T16:02:00.002-04:00

I forgot to explain about the CT scans in my last post. My 9 month checkup is THIS Thursday. Yes, two days from today I will be having a "delicious" barium shake followed by a fun IV and subsequent CT scan, which will reveal Priscilla is still dead and I can go on living it up. That's my vision, anyway. I do not plan to deviate from this vision. I will immediately follow up the CT scan with a yummy chocolate croissant from the Au bon pain in NIH's atrium. I am so looking forward to that croissant! Thinking about it certainly helps me NOT think about the rest of it, but I have not worried about this test at all. Now, talk to me tomorrow night around midnight when I'm lying awake staring up at the ceiling!

Mother's Day and CT Scans

2008-05-13T15:43:00.002-04:00

Mother's day weekend was super busy for me, as usual. The weekend was the Jaycee spring convention and I went up there for Friday and Saturday night. No awards for me this weekend, although I did receive my certificate for winning a national award for a project I ran last year (yes, I ran a big project and won a national award AND had cancer. Take that, all you underachievers!). I already knew I won, but I received the official certificate. Friday night, Kelli and I snuck out of convention activities to hear a local band, Bob & Jeff who I used to see in college in nearby Towson. It turns out Mike used to see them locally in Rockville and knew Jeff's brother and Melissa also used to see them play in Rockville - when none of us knew each other. It was a good time, but I was ready to go back to the hotel by midnight because I get up at 5:30am and because I am OLD!

We spent Mother's day at my Aunt Carol's where her husband, Andy braved the rain to BBQ some burgers and 'dogs. The picture to the right is me and Grandma. She's 87 and is darn excellent these days. I was pleased to see she drove her pick-up truck over for the ocassion, although Aunt Anne drove home becaue Grandma realized she forgot her driver's license. Aunt Carol's cat had babies so we got to see the 1 month old cuties. They are adorable, but Shelby and Riley might be a little upset if we brought one home.

Mike's tri is only 13 days away. He met with his swim coach last night and is out there either running or biking right now. Last week he tried out his new wetsuit at the same pool where I do water aerobics and the ladies oohed and aahed over how fast he swam and how athletic he looks.

My Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society is 19 days away. I received another donation today and now I am about $9 away from my $500 goal. If someone doesn't donate, I will do something to push me over that edge. No way am I going to end up $9 short of my goal. If you want to donate - check out the link on this page. (hint hint)

My crazy, busy life

2008-04-28T18:03:00.002-04:00

Life has certainly returned to normal and my calendar for May has exploded. Between a bridal shower, a wedding, Relay for Life, volleyball, water aerobics, and don't forget work I barely have a free moment. As one friend commented when I told him my crazy schedule, "Sounds like you are getting back into your pre Priscilla mode." It made me think. I don't want to be as crazed as I was before Priscilla knocked me upside the head (or maybe it was the heart & lungs since that where she was hiding!) I am taking a hard look at my schedule and will pare back on activities. Unfortunately, I don't have a free weekend until June. I mean it. Every weekend I'm doing something. I've got to tone down the weeknights because I want to spend some time with my family - Mike, Riley, and Shelby. My boys are important to me. It's nice to have a normal life these days, but I want to sit back and enjoy it sometimes.

May is busy for me, and it's also Mike's big long-awaited event: the Capital of Texas Triathlon. In a few short weeks he'll be swimming, biking, and running his way through downtown Austin as his way of spotlighting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. He's been in Texas this past weekend working on building a gazebo at his mom's house. I don't know if he went downtown to check out the race area, but I do know he has kept up his training activities. He bought tri shorts this weekend. His swim coach urged him to buy a speedo, but he refused! Instead, he'll wear tri shorts, which are like spandex shorts. I think triathletes wear them under their wetsuits and that's what he'll ride and run in after he changes out of the wetsuit. We're both learning a lot about the triathlon world. We've also learned that triathletes are the friendliest athletes (among "just" runners, bikers, or swimmers). We've been told triathletes are the most laid back and accepting athletes, and it seems true so far (now I'm going to get a bunch of comments from ticked off runners and bikers!).

Mike's been in Austin all weekend helping his mom build a gazebo out by her pool. It's been quiet around the house, but the boys and I have been spending quality time together. With all this rain, I've only been able to take Riley out for two walks. I had hoped to take him today, but the rain scared me away. I don't melt in the rain, but I don't want to be out walking in a downpour. Sorry, Riley! I hope it dries out soon - for Riley's sake.

Dig It

2008-04-15T22:24:00.002-04:00

Last Thursday I played my first game of volleyball since February 2007, when a funny thing called "cancer" pushed aside my volleyball career. I have numb feet and toes (yes, still) and running is interesting because of the pins and needles sensation, but I decided to sign up anyway. I've been working out at least twice a week with my trainer and exercises there include weight lifting (I can dead lift about 90 lbs!) and ladder drills. The ladder drills include lots of fancy footwork in and out of boxes on a flat ladder on the ground while holding 3 or 4 lb. weights. I'm used to moving my feet, even though I can't feel everything.

Volleyball was awesome. I'm definitely slower and my setting was not very good, but I wasn't as bad as I thought I would be. I definitely need to work on not swinging my arms when I set and planting my feet when I get to where I'm going. Those were things I needed to work on before and I'm really out of practice now. My team did well, despite being short 2 players (we have 8 on the team) and we won 2 out of 3 games and the last one was a close game. I do feel bad for my hitters who have to try and make something out of my sets, but I wasn't terrible. It felt really good to be back. I also received warm hugs and welcomes from lots of people who missed me. Peter commented on my "haircut" so I told him it wasn't cut, but finally growing back in after a long ordeal. I didn't tell my other teammates, but I've known Peter for at least 10 years through the league and thought he should know. I'll probably tell the others in time, but we'll see. I'm so glad to be back and am looking forward to this Thursday! GO TEAM!

Happy Cancer Anniversary

2008-04-06T12:57:00.003-04:00

“You have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” That’s what a doctor said to me one year ago today. Instead of wallowing in sadness, I walked/ran 5K and Mike ran 10 miles in downtown DC along the beautiful (and soggy) tidal basin with the Credit Union Cherry Blossom event. Today I shake a fist high in the air and celebrate victory over Priscilla. I’m grateful to be alive and kicking after a dark and scary year learning more than I ever wanted to know about cancer. I never imagined I would ever have first-hand knowledge about cancer, but life throws a few curve balls out at you and you just have to arm yourself with information (and great medicine) and fight back. I am also thankful to be alive now in 2008 when doctors are making great strides towards combating cancer with medicine that helps people live longer and fulfilling lives.

Today's race would have been nicer if we had gotten yesterday's near 70 and sunny weather, but instead we got the shaft with cold, wet, miserable weather. We ran into Sandy, one of our volleyball friends, at the metro and rode downtown with her. She and Mike were in the same color starting group so they ran together. I tried to watch them start, but there were nearly 20,000 runners so I lost them quickly in the crowd. I'm so proud of my 5K today. I planned to walk and maybe run if I felt like it. I was near the front of my 5k group and realized I should've been in the back if I was going to walk. However, once we began I started jogging and decided it wasn't so bad because the ground was relatively flat. I ended up jogging most of the first mile, most of the second, and about half of the third to make up the total 5K. My goal was to finish in one hour and I crossed this finish line at approximately 40-43 minutes (we didn't have the clock - that was reserved for the 10 milers). Mike and Sandy finished about 1:42 and I actually saw them cross the finish line - it was so cool!

It was crazy downtown with racers and specatators everywhere. Even in that large crowd I ran into Evan before and after the race. I also spotted one of Mike's Team in Training buddies. We went to the Expo yesterday to pick up our bibs and t-shirts and ran into even more Team in Training people there. I'm considering doing a 10K run/walk in June in Annapolis if I can figure out how to work it with my schedule. I had fun today and I like the option on not having to run the whole thing! I am just so proud that I was at the Tidal Basin today and able to run when a year ago my whole world changed and I didn't know what I could expect from my future or if I had one. Go me!

Happy Birthday today, Mom - sorry I ruined it for you last year. I'm glad we can celebrate it this year. :)

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

2008-03-27T22:06:00.003-04:00

I've spent two days this week at work learning all about Six Sigma and Green Belt. My company requires every new employee to become Green Belt certified within one year of their start date (and since we were acquired last July, they started our clock as of January 1). I'm the team captain and I feel a lot of responsibility for making sure we complete our project this year. It's all about improving some process in our group and my team has chosen a hefty project that if we can get it off the ground and obtain senior management approval, it will make all of our lives a lot easier. Training has been fun (except for the day when we learned all about statistics and standard deviation - I didn't like that class in college and I certainly didn't get it this time). We've had some fun games to teach us about process improvement and my team certainly piles on the wisecracks. The first day, our instructor told us to write our names or whatever we want to be called on the table tents and Patti wrote "Princess." Pete wrote "Hey you." We are a fun group.

With all this green belt training, I have this urge to challenge my friend's five year old, Parker to a karate contest. He just started learning karate a couple of months ago and I bet he already has his green belt. Lucky kid.

I took a cooking class Tuesday night and really enjoyed it. We made a vinegar-based potato salad that was really good and flank-steak appetizers with Thai dipping sauce. The chef purchased the dipping sauce, but only because he hasn't figured out how to make it yet. We also make a Dijon mustard vinaigrette for our salad, roasted tomatoes, chicken Caesar (outstanding!) and balsamic strawberry shortcake for dessert. My sister-in-law was one of the attendees and she brought some food home for my brother - how sweet! I came home raving to Mike so it looks like we'll be taking a knife skills class their in the future. It's called Chef Bryan's Kitchen and it's in the Kentlands.

Gotta cut foot loose!

2008-03-21T17:40:00.004-04:00

I've gained three pounds more than I did before Priscilla and my pants are getting a little snug. Not only am I training for my 5K walk on April 6th, but now my goal is to lose those three pesky pounds by the end of the month so I can wear my darn clothes. I've been either walking or interval training (walk/run combo) nearly every day for the past three weeks, except when I had a cold. I was making progress until I had dinner with Keith and Mike last night at Maggiano's! It's all you can eat family style - bring on the creme brulee.

In addition to all this walking, I've been doing my water aerobics for the past few weeks too. I went this past Tuesday, forgetting we had a sub for the last week of class until the next session. You know subs, they're not as good as the normal teacher. Anyway, she must be in her early 20s and she brought her boom box with her Footloose CD. It was all good in the beginning because I loved that movie - brought back some memories of my youth. Then I started thinking about where I was swimming - the aquatic center attached to my junior high (now a middle school - I am old). I started having flashbacks to junior high when we were forced to take swimming as part of gym. There's nothing more traumatic than having evil junior high kids see you in your swimsuit. I was a tall, gangly, shy girl with "great" 80s hair and big glasses. Good times.

The swim class went well, but I had forgotten the other songs on the Footloose album. Who knew "Bang your Head" was on that album? Mike didn't and he used to be a total head banger! It was quite the trip down memory lane.

Jaycee of the Year

2008-03-18T19:19:00.006-04:00

Several weeks ago I went to the year-end Jaycee convention in Timonium, MD (hmmm, I wore this same dress at the 2007 year-end convention...) This particular convention is always fraught with tension and curiosity as chapters and chapter officers around the state vie for awards and the TOP award - the Henry Giessienbier, named after the Jaycee founder. In addition to chapter awards, the Gaithersburg/Germantown (G&G) Jaycees had nominated three of our members for state and national awards without them knowing (except they did because there were some slip-ups over the past few months in trying to keep things secret). Anyhow, we were especially fraught (love that word today!) with anticipation. We had arranged flowers, cake, and champagne for the recipients and I had worked hard making scrapbooks for two of them.

The banquet on Saturday was amazing with two MD state troopers on hand to accept a $9,000 check from the Jaycees for their stab vest program to protect the dogs inside state prisons. As far as awards, G&G did really well and our chapter officers and a couple of members received some nice plaques (if you weren't there, you'll have to come to our membership meeting next week to find out what the awards were - too bad!). However, during all of the excitement it came time to announce the Maryland Jaycee of the Year. MDJC President David Smith got choked up during the presentation because the award is named after someone from his chapter - the Salisbury Jaycees - who unexpectedly died several years ago. I don't recall everything that President David said, but I got teary eyed when I realized he was talking about me and my courage and strength this past year. I am honored and thrilled to have received this award, especially when I think about how many Maryland Jaycees there are. I will be PROUD to display on my wall (once Ron gives the plaque back to me after the membership meeting!).

Achoo!

2008-03-07T14:04:00.004-05:00

I've caught a cold. I tried really hard to avoid sick people since I know there's nasty flu going around, but it didn't completely work. My head is stuff and I can't breathe. I stayed home from work today because I feel miserable and there's not since in sharing my germs with everyone there. I am thankful it's not the flu. Mom had the flu a couple of weeks ago and Dad's doctor gave him Tamiflu so he wouldn't get it (which he didn't). I haven't had the flu in several years and I really would like to avoid that. I know my immune system is not as good as it should be, so I've been trying to stay as healthy as possible. I don't want any more trips to the hospital!

We're working on fixing up one of the townhouses we rent and after painting a test area the other day, decided we really need to paint over the dark wood paneling in the basement. I'm supposed to help with that tonight, but I doubt I will be there with this cold. I hope I'm better tomorrow so I can help finish painting at least. We had a couple of people walk through the other day, so we will see what happens. I'm really pleased with how the kitchen turned out. Mike and our friend Eric put down wood laminate flooring, we painted all of the kitchen cabinets white, and replaced all of the hardware too. The stove, microwave, sink, and countertops are all new. It looks really nice, now we just need someone to agree and rent it soon.

I just wanted to share a picture of my friend Mary's little girl, Laura. Mary and I went to Seneca Valley HS, although she graduated a year before me (we won't go into what year that was!) Mary found out she was pregnant right around the time I was diagnosed so I got to hear wonderful updates of her pregnancy while I was going through all of that. It was very nice to hear about life going on outside of my own chaos. So, here's baby Laura! What a cutie!

Training

2008-02-29T10:21:00.002-05:00

I posted earlier today, but I forgot to add that I'm also training. I'm doing a 5K walk on April 6th and I started training earlier this week to make sure I can do it with no problem. I started with a 15 minute walk on Monday and then a 20 minute walk/fast walk on Wednesday. It's been difficult because it's so darn COLD outside. I walked at lunch at work and on Wednesday, I almost turned around and went back inside. Eisenhower Avenue is a long, flat street that parallels I-495 (which means I can see traffic stacking up to go to the Woodrow Wilson bridge as I walk). There is a river "run" between 495 and the street and it's a fairly wide open body of water. These factors combine into making my walk like walking into a wind tunnel. I managed to stick it out, but it was brutal.

I'm walking 25 minutes today and taking Riley with me. He loooooooves walks. I plan to fit in a walk tomorrow at the Jaycee convention and then another walk on Sunday when I get home. So far, I haven't had any problems except being cold!

Oh, and a happy belated birthday to Claire Luton and Suzanne Jubert.

Can't Help but Thnk

2008-02-29T10:14:00.001-05:00

I'm heading off to the quarterly Jaycee convention tonight. It's the weekend where year-end awards are handed out, especially the number one chapter in the State (the coveted Giessenbier). I can't help but think about last year around this time. I was the 2006 Individual Development VP for my chapter and I helped write our annual report and individual project write-ups, which helped the chapter win the Giessenbier, several other state-level awards, and a national Jaycee award. In addition, I received the Jaycee International Senate award, which is the highest award anyone can receive in the Jaycees - it's international! It was a great weekend, with lots to celebrate and be proud of. What I reflect on now is that evil Priscilla was growing inside me back then and didn't know how drastically my life would change two months later.

This is the wierd way I think sometimes. My brother celebrated his 1 year anniversary recently and I'm so glad I didn't know about the cancer before his wedding because I was able to celebrate with family and friends and not worry about anything, but at the same time it freaks me out a little to know how "normal" things were before my world was blown apart. I feel like I'm riding to the top of an emotional roller coaster as I approach my own "anniversary" in April and I don't know how I'll feel when I get there. I know I'm celebrating by doing a 5K walk at the annual Cherry Blossom event. I'll be glad to be doing something to celebrate that I AM alive and Priscilla didn't take me out. I have to admit, it's going to be interesting. My friend, Gila, was injured in a bombing in Israel almost 6 years ago a week after my anniversary. She has a party each year to celebrate her life, so I'm taking a cue from her by doing this 5k. (I'm adding a link on the right to her blog if you're interested in reading her story - it's amazing.)

I just want to say in advance that this weekend promises to be a weekend of celebrations for my chapter again. I know of some very special awards that some very deserving people will be receiving. Don't bother to ask me because, I'm not telling. You'll have to figure it out!