After Holly's diagnosis in January, I, of course, began to scour the web for bloggers going through a similar situation. I was lucky enough to find Derek K. Miller's Penmachine. Derek is a prolific writer, funny & smart and extraordinarily detailed on his decision making throughout his new life with cancer. He was incredibly motivational in me starting this site. Reading his site has allowed me to recognize that we aren't the only ones going through this. Sadly, Derek found out the other day that his cancer had spread to his lungs. His post, Dead Man Walking?, is heart wrenching and inspirational at the same time. Despite the bad news, his resolve to beat cancer doesn't waiver. Our thoughts are with Derek and his family during this difficult time.

I apologize for not writing sooner, however I can't seem to look at the site without crying. Seeing the experience through Scott's eyes makes it "real". I still have those precious moments when I forget. Thank you for your incredible support. Through the tears, I have been reading what my amazing husband has written and the supportive responses. I feel enormously blessed. It's wonderful to be home. It's hard to express what it's like to be given back your old life, but with new rules. I'm learning "the rules" day by day. Someone else called it "the cancer filter". You have your old life back, BUT ... You don't feel very good. You don't know when your going to feel better. People "who know" treat you differently. I'm fairly good at pretending that I feel good and most days I can convince myself that I'll feel better tomorrow. The absolute hardest thing for me is when I'm having a blissfully wonderful "normal" moment talking with a friend, going for a walk, etc. when I'm reminded that I'm sick. Someone will give me "the concerned look", sometimes it's pain, and sometimes it's a moment I missed while I was sick. I don't believe I took my family or friends for granted, but I now realize I took "normal" for granted. I KNOW that I'll appreciate normal after my incision (with the third infection, ughhh!) heals, and I finish the six months of chemotherapy. The question remains if normal will ever feel as easy as it used to feel. Should it now that I know what life is like with cancer and how it is for the thousands living with it? Probably not.

Late at night, when I'm having trouble sleeping, I try to do big math problems in my head. It helps me clear my mind of the dilemmas of the day and I usually fall asleep before I can figure them out. Examples of big math problems include things like how many compressed DVD's can I fit on a terabit NAS server (833 assuming a 1:3 compression ratio going to Divx for all you geeks, but what if I use 500GB for fail over backup?) or how many sugar cubes could fit in our house (the hard part is figuring out the cubic area of the house) and so on. I know, it is nerdy, but I don't usually figure out the answers before I fall asleep. The one that I've been wrestling with the last week or so is what are really the odds of all of this happening? So, for your amusement and enjoyment, I've figured it out. Since I'll be using NIH numbers and the numbers that our doctors have given us, I'll use a US population basis. For international readers, I trust you can figure out it some late night when you can't sleep. Here is what I've got so far:

- US Population: 300 million - Number of new cases of colo-rectal cancer per year: 153,000 - Only 10% of all cases are in people under 50: 15,300 - No documentation on the % of patients diagnosed at stage III or higher (major surgery required) - Since people under 50 are probably less inclined to get checked out early on, let's call this 50%. It is probably higher, but it is a good even number: 7,650 per year - % whose body will reject the ostomy / surgery: 3% / 229 people - % whose incision gets infected: 30% / 68 people

Yes, you read that right. Holly's incision became infected a week ago. No problem says our doctor, just clean it out every night, stick some gauze in there and let it heal. Let me just say that this isn't a superficial wound that I'm cleaning out. I'm cool with scraped knees and ostomy bags, but when you're talking about a 3/4" deep hole in someones stomach, I get a bit squeamish. Holly pulled the gauze out of her incision, I about chucked. She was pulling it out like a magician pulls scarves out of his sleeve. It just kept coming out. No problem, just keep folding the gauze and jam it in there with a Q-tip. Double gross. So that's what I've been up to. Math problems and filling incisions with gauze. The good news is that the incision is getting shallower and shallower. Holly is slowly but steadily getting her strength back. We walked around the block last night. We went for sushi tonight. She is slowly gaining weight and the plumbing is going in the right direction, albeit slowly. We were anticipating that for about 6 - 8 weeks, though. Finally, for those who are curious, the odds of what Holly has going on are a lot better than I thought. Only 1 in 4,411,764. Seems fairly common now. In doing the quick math, there should be 68 other people in the US that are probably going through the exact same thing. I wonder if there is a Facebook group for Stage III / IV, under 50, colo-rectal cancer patients who have had complications with surgery and incisions? Probably hard to get funding for a company using that business plan. For those keeping score, the chances and odds of weird things happening are as follows:

- Chance of winning California's Mega Million Lottery: 1 in 175,711,156 (save your money and put it towards retirement) - Chance of dying in a vehicle accident: 1 in 78 - Chance of dying from falling off of a bed / chair: 1 in 4,473 - Chance of death by poisonous snake: 1 in 1,874,034 - Odds of getting a hole in one: 5,000 to 1 (still hasn't happened to me yet) - Odds of being considered possessed by satan: 7,000 to 1 - Odds of being audited by the IRS: 175 to 1 - Chance of dying from a shark attack: 1 in 300,000,000 - Chance you will get Mad Cow Disease: 1 in 40,000,000 - Chance you'll get colo-rectal cancer in your lifetime: 1 in 26

So get checked out. That is enough math for me tonight. I'm going to bed. Odds numbers from Funny2.

I'm really glad that people are able to talk about their colonoscopies. I'm stoked when people approach me to say that they got theirs done due to our site. Like anything, colon cancer can't be prevented without awareness. Discussion, of course, raises awareness. While I can't take credit for it, I'm really glad that Mark Cuban wrote about getting his colonoscopy today. Mark is my unofficial poster child for M&A at Yahoo and also a fabulous writer. His site gets a ton of traffic and I hope that his post today generates quite a bit of awareness amongst his readers. Mark hits the nail on the head with his final sentance:

Bottomline is that your life just might depend on getting tested for colon cancer. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Its truly easy and breezy. Do it.

So true.

First off, I've been playing with some posting tools to make this site more relevant to people with CRC. It didn't work out too well and I ended up posting instructions on how to build a work bench (something I desperately need in the new house) and a link to a photo that I need for my desk. None of which are relevant. Sorry to people who have come to the site expecting something interesting and finding something not so. Second, one of my favorite bloggers, Jason Calacanis, recently launched a company called Mahalo. It is a human based search engine that I've been messing with the past couple of days. Think of it as Wikipedia meets Yahoo! Search meets Technorati. It has a very good page on CRC that provides an excellent source to a number of very important knowledgebases. If you are looking forward to an excellent one stop shop, it is a great source. Finally, and most importantly, Holly is home and has been since Saturday. I have had a lot of family in town to help out, have been very busy at work and have really been enjoying time as a family. Apologies for not writing often as of late. Last night we had Ella's fifth birthday party, which IMO was maybe the best thing, psychologically, that we could have done for Holly. She was home, she was outside and she was with all of her friends. I, of course, made certain that she didn't move around too much. I would say on a Sassy Scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being her pre-surgery sassiest, she is still around a 6, but getting better daily.

Houston, we have some output. It looks like the second surgery was successful. I've never had so many people ask me about my wifes bathroom habits. It's kind of weird in that way you talk about your kids learning to use the toilet. Keep in mind that it has been 30+ days since she last used her large intestine & gone to the bathroom. It takes a while for those muscles to get in order and it causes a lot of pain. Thankfully, she is running to the bathroom a lot. Holly is up and walking around, doing laps around the floor. She still gets tired very quickly. One thing that her PT pointed out the other day was that prior to the first surgery, she was running and doing yoga daily. For the past 30 days, the most exercise she has gotten has been pushing the PCA. She has lost a lot of weight and has had a lot of atrophy. She is slowly, but steadily getting back in the swing of things. We went for a nice walk around the 3rd floor tonight. We went for a really long, double lapper, last night. I love my dates with her. It is like being 15 again and only getting to spend 30 or 40 minutes a day with your true love. They are giggly and intimate and terribly depressing when visiting hours are up.

I joined a great Facebook group tonight on colon cancer, the Awareness / Prevention / Fight Against Colon Cancer. It has a lot of very good content, but also has some great posters like the one above.

That's not a scar? This is a scar.

I still think it's beautiful. Aaaawww. Holly's roommate was complaining last night about a little incision. I wanted to show off, but was advised that it wasn't such a hot idea. I think that this ensures our spot in the 2009 Colondar. Holly's brother, 15 year old nephew & I were discussing, after the first surgery, what we should tell people that see her in a bikini at the beach. Shark attack was a popular one. Loch Ness Monster was voted on. My vote was for a shark alligator hybrid. Thoughts?