Today was a pretty happy day for us. After 3 years, Holly got her mediport out.  For those that don't know, a mediport  is a device that gets implanted (in this case, in Holly's chest) and then a line runs into a vein.  The purpose is so that when drugs (in this case chemo) get administered regularly, they don't need to use the veins in your arm for IV's. It is kind of weird watching the nurse jam a needle in Holly's chest, but the result was a lot better. The device was about the size of a silver dollar and I was expecting it to be about the size of a quarter.  We obviously got to keep it.  We threw it away right away because it was filled with formaldehyde, but it was cool for me and the kids to see it. The important part of the whole thing is that it is kind of closure for us.  There will always be memories of some hard times that we went through and some physical scars, but getting this device out, an obvious lump in her chest is one more step to getting on with our lives.

I realize that it has been a while since I've updated this site. After we got our last test results, Holly and I had a huge sigh of relief and began putting our lives back together. Life has been slowly getting back to normal. Holly is healthy, but still has some of the side effects associated with chemo. Mostly, they are digestive issues, but there are some weird ones too. She gets really motion sickness now and that is weird, especially during long trips. Even happens on flights. Last year, when we were at the lake, Holly couldn't swim across it due to the neuropathy. For her, this was a heart breaker as it it is a tradition that she and her sister have. They typically wake up every morning, have a light bite to eat and swim across. It is about 1,000 meters total to the close side and back. But lately, she and her sister have been scoping out another place to swim to. They picked out a point about 2.5 miles away, across the far side of the lake, that they decided to swim to and then they were planning on running home (about 5 miles). Honestly, I envisioned this as being all talk, but this morning, around 9:00, Holly, her sister and brother-in-law walked down the beach, into the water and started swimming. Her nephew went along in a kayak to make sure that they were all okay. Holly's brother-in-law, a regular marathoner, came home about an 1:45 later. Holly's sister came home about 2 hours later. At the 2:15 point, I started out to look for her and found her half a block from our house, still running. A bit tired, but smiling like I've not seen in a long time. As she was sipping a drink that I brought her, she simply said, 'I had to see if I could still do it. I feel like it is something that I was taken away from me and I just took it back.' I'm always proud of her, but this morning, I was especially so.

This weekend, Willow Glen (our neighborhood) is having it's annual Relay for Life sponsored by the American Cancer Society. Holly and I have a lot to be thankful for and she and some friends have formed a team and have raised almost $5,000 in funds for ACS! There are going to be close to 1,000 people in attendance this weekend including almost 700 walkers, plus their families & friends. Despite the prediction for record temperatures in the Bay Area, it should be a really excellent time. That is a lot of people though and I'm sure that some of them won't be able to find one another, or share their ideas, their feelings, where they are and what they are up to. With that in mind, I've created a simple Twitter echo bot. If you are going to be attending the event, I invite you to sign up for it and share messages. If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it is a service that asks a simple question 'What are you doing?' Users respond and conversations arise. A Twitter Echo Bot simply publishes what you've written and relays it to everyone who follows the bot. In other words, if you share that you are looking forward to meeting friends at Relay for Life, this message goes to everyone who subscribes to the bot. This weekend, the hopes are that it gives people the ability to meet up with some friends both old and new. If you are living in Willow Glen and happen to be at the Relay for Life this weekend, do this: * 1. Sign up for Twitter * 2. Follow WGxRelay - To get the most out of this on Saturday, follow by your phone * 3. Send your updates of where you are to the community by texting @WGxRelay to 40404

For example, send this type of message to 40404 - @WGxRelay At the track, looking forward to seeing everyone.

Couldn’t be simpler, so sign on up. If you are in the Willow Glen area this weekend, please stop on by the relay. I'll look too see your status coming through @WGxRelay.

Thank you. Two words. Doesn't seem like enough to say for the support you've given Scott and my family. We feel blessed to be cancer free, but know this journey is far from over. We're celebrating, but it's hard not to worry about the road ahead. We're taking it one day at a time.

Holly always hated the picture on the old site. I liked it and the idea of creating a new header was just not that appealing to me. Last week, on probably the best day of our lives, the Wordpress & k2 totally lunched on me. Technically, it was all K2, but I was pissed at the internet in general and couldn't make things work properly. Today, JJ backed up Wordpress for me and I nuked the whole thing. My prior WP theme was K2, and despite it blowing up on me for no known reason, I'm still a little partial to it and wanted to keep it. What I didn't want to do was spend a bunch of time designing something. CSS really isn't my forte and the thought of spending hours on a lazy, rainy Sunday was less than appealing. So I kept it clean, kept it simple and got it launched. If you've been to the site the past couple of days, you've probably noticed that it was pretty messed up. Sorry. Should be good now. New look for a new chapter on life.

380 days ago, Holly was diagnosed with Stage III colo-rectal cancer. I am ecstatic to report today that the PT Scan that she had last week showed no traces of cancer in her system. We are still in a bit of a haze of happiness, so I don't really know what to write beyond that. Thank you very much for all of the inspiration, help, support, guidance, caring and everything that everyone from this community have given us throughout this ordeal. I'll write more after my head clears a bit. In short, this is just the beginning of another chapter that is our life with cancer. We still have blood tests, PT Scans, colonoscopies and the worry that it could come back. But like so many other people who have fought through this, we have survived. It was a really, really rough year, but Holly is a fighter and a survivor. I've never been so proud of anyone in my life.

I've been waiting too long to write that. The results of this mornings colonoscopy were positive negative. No cancer in the colon. The hard part is that we want to be excited, but not too much as the results of the PT scan come down tomorrow. This is a good start, though.

The first tests started today. Holly had her PET Scan. Next week is another colonoscopy and then the results of both next Wednesday. So now we wait. One thing that I found really interesting was that they told her not to get too close to people for about 24 hours. I guess, due to the radioactive isotopes that are used to find tumors, she is pretty hot right now, in a much more literal sense. While I've been hoping for super powers, all she ended up with is a stomachache. Maybe tomorrow morning she will be able to heat coffee by looking at it.

The countdown begins.... We don't have the actual tickets yet, but I'm thinking front row with a possibility of a backstage hang-out. We'll find out the night of the concert. My sister, partner-in-crime, and fellow fannilow and I have it all planned out... -Hit Anthropology for the perfect outfit -Yummy dinner -Concert - Involves singing all the words, dancing to every song, possible tears of joy -Drinks with Barry and the band :) -Comfy night in a nice hotel -Wake up, warm bath, and a fun adventure in Santa Cruz. I can't thank Scott enough for making the arrangements. He's simply wonderful. Oh, and as far as the cancer goes. It still lurks and makes itself known with the upcoming tests and times of feeling crappy, BUT for now I'm just excited about a fun night of forgetting. We'll have the test results on the 20th.

Being in sales & marketing, I love a good ad campaign.  Especially if it is edgy and generates a little (a lot) of controversy.  Today, in Canada (like this would really work in the US), Schick, partnering with Rethink, a breast cancer charity, launched their Booby Wall campaign.  A site that lets Canadian women upload pictures of their breasts in order to generate awareness for breast cancer. The site is part of the TLC campaign, Touch, Look, Check. 

For me, the site is a little bit Flashy (yeah, you geeks know what I mean) and, while the terms specifically call out Canadian women,  I'm not sure how they confirm that (oh, those are definitely American boobs?).

This is one of those campaigns that probably works well for breast cancer, but doesn't translate well.  Maybe for colon cancer, but I just don't see it working for testicular cancer.  That would be like a Craigslist W4M response.

Press release is here.

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Tags: boobywall, rethink, breast cancer