Pictures

We didn't do a very good job of getting pictures of everyone who came.... it was a nice time. Kayla made it a little late, having gotten the night out from the hospital. Fingers crossed that her medical stuff sorts itself out soon. I promised her we would eat birthday cake together next year. (She still can't eat).

Thanks to all of you.

Happy Everything

For you locals, don't forget our party on Saturday, September 29th. It is 4-8 pm at our house. Email or call if you can make it. We're having chili, cider, birthday cake, and whatever you bring. Bring a dish or beverages... Let me know if you need directions. I have no idea what the head count is - I invited half the world. You may have to get creative with the parking, but stay off the lawn!

We are celebrating my birthday, Anika's birthday, the swift kicking of cancer's ass, and also (if she makes it) Kayla's birthday! She shares a birthday with Anika . . . and her sister's birthday also is the same week. I'm also hoping Rhys and his family will make it.... he is having his belated birthday party the same day!

Please........ no gifts for me. And there is nothing in this world that Anika needs.

But we will be taking donations to the "Kayla Fund." Our church is hosting dinners during the next month to raise funds for Kayla's expenses, which I'm sure are outrageous with doctor bills, plane tickets, etc. We decided to jump on the bandwagon with the organized people... Checks can be made out to Good Shepherd Lutheran Church or GSLC, with "Kayla" in the memo line. Your gift is tax deductible. I will have a box at the party where you can slip in a contribution, if you so desire.

Hope to see you there! (Or, "here," as it were).

Wild Animals

And if the previous post isn't enough for you, here are some pictures of the kids with our very own wild animals...... at home.

Denali - The Great One

At long last, here are the promised photos. It seems that now I'm back to work, I have less time to blog. Go figure.

As I mentioned earlier, Todd and the kids and I drove up to Denali National Park last Thursday night. We spent the night here, and early the next morning we went to the Park to present our "lottery winnings." Once a year the park service lets personal vehicles into the park... a four-day window when the lucky winners of the lottery can drive through the park at their leisure, instead of taking a bus tour. Normally, the park limits the traffic to busses to protect the wildlife. I forgot to apply for the lottery this year, but my boss won a ticket, and gave it to us!

There is no way we would take the kids on the bus tour of the park just yet . . . too much potential for a meltdown (either them or me). But the opportunity to take our own car (cooler, bags of food) and be on our own timetable was too good to pass up. The road is 86 miles long, gravel after the first 15 miles, and one-lane after a certain point. It is at times a scary drive if you're afraid of heights. No guardrails. No fences between you and the wilderness. It really was a rare treat.

We saw 8 grizzly bears (four pretty close), and one really magnificent moose with a HUGE rack. (I was jealous). ;) Surprisingly, we didn't see any carribou. It was a beautiful sunny day for about the first 40 miles, and turned to cold and sleet after that. As usual, we did not see Mt. McKinley from inside the park - the best view of the Great One is from the highway on the way home.... but still, a great day. Anika napped. Nathan listened to my ipod. They were soooo good. We saw a beautiful rainbow at one point. We probably missed the peak of the Fall colors by a week or two, but it was still really beautiful. The pictures don't do it justice.

Thanks again to my boss. It was a great day.



Nathan entertaining the tourists. (They were impressed with his bird calls).


Bear Butt.
Recognize this hat?
The scary road.
The rainbow. (Can you see it?)




No, we don't really let her drink Coke.

Week 28

Wow. According to the calendar I carry in my purse.... TODAY would have been my last chemotherapy treatment, if I had gone with the schedule they proposed in the beginning. This would mean I would still have surgery ahead of me... I would still feel like crap.... I would still be a "cancer patient." I'm glad I took the fast track and finished chemo back in June!

Todd and the kids and I are off on an adventure. I should have great pictures when we get back, but for a preview of what we're doing, click here. Many many MANY thanks to my boss for winning the "Denali Lottery" and sharing his prize with us.

State Fair Pictures - Finally

The Alaska State Fair is always fun. It's a riot to see Alaskans in their natural habitat: Eating pork chops on a stick and deep fried cheese curds, corn dogs, giant turkey legs, cotton candy, ice cream, snow cones.... and that's just a sample of the thousands of calories our family consumed. (Only in Alaska will you find a kid in a winter hat eating a snowcone).

There's also a wide selection of tatoos, piercings and "crazy hair." Crazy Hair (see example below) is a state fair tradition with which I was unfamiliar until our first Alaska State Fair in 1998. I had hoped to get "crazy hair" for the first time this year (I was going to get my 1/2 inch mop sprayed pink) but the line was too long. I preferred to stand in line for cotton candy. Oh, and how could I forget the giant vegetables??

I did go "topless" (that is, without a scarf) for awhile. I figured I looked no stranger than anyone else there... and it was REALLY hot the first day. We went both Saturdays, and the first day was hot, while the second was rainy (traditional fair weather).

And of course there's the obiligatory American Gothic. Or in our case, "Chinese-American Gothic."

I can't believe this was our tenth State Fair in a row... and I'm still not sick of it. This year we did two 8-hour marathons. The kids did great - only one meltdown... Anika napped in her stroller. They were good days. Great days, even.

Jen

Here's a picture of Jen and her fiance. Aren't they CUTE? Jen's surgery went well and she is recovering with lots of good drugs. I was disappointed to find out she had one lymph node positive for cancer, so they had to take them all out.... this is a bummer in cancer-land.... but she's got more chemo coming. I know she'll b*tch-slap cancer just like I did.

Thinking of you, Jen!!

Is it just my imagination, or do only beautiful women get cancer? Or perhaps it's just that all women are beautiful, and I never noticed before.

State Fair pictures coming soon. Really.

More Friends - More Surgeries

Does it seem like all of my friends have cancer these days? Well.... don't be afraid to come around.... it just happens that since diagnoses I have MADE a lot of friends through a survivor group . . .

Thank you all for your prayers for Amy last week. She had a scare in the hospital, but is now safe and sound at home, recovering.

This week my friend Jen is having her bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. We have a lot in common - she's a lawyer, she has a young son. And of course there's the whole cancer thing.... Her treatment protocol has been a little different from mine. She had chemo first, now she is having surgery, then MORE chemo after that.... I tell you, there is no easy way to do this. Jen has the added stress of being widowed at a very young age. Happily she has a new guy in her life who sounds wonderful, and they are getting married in October (after surgery, before more chemo). I guess I'm going on and on about her personal life because she doesn't have a blog, and I thought it might help all of you to have a few facts to focus on when you send up your prayers for her. She says she'll take whatever you've got: prayers, burning sage, whatever!!

I feel so blessed to be NED, and I feel like I did it with the help of every one of you reading this and sending me positive thoughts. So please send those Jen's way this week.

Catching Up - Again

Here are a few more recent shots - Nathan's first day of school, a shot of Todd and me that Nathan took, and Anika's spot where she waits for Nathan to get off the bus.

Things are going remarkably well. I hate to even say that and jinx it... I think I may go the entire month of September without a doctor appointment. The first month in the past 10. We are returning to something that resembles "normal," although it's hard to know what normal is... you may recall that we just brought Anika home a year ago on September 1st. We experienced quite a bit of family drama a short time later, followed closely by the discovery of the lump in November and a cancer diagnosis in December.... so it's been quite a year . . . it's hard to even know what "normal" is supposed to look like.

My three days a week of work are going really well. Nathan is loving first grade. Anika is amazing. Todd has somehow held it together for the past eight months. I've settled into my latest drugs, and don't feel any the worse for them.

Fingers crossed that things continue to go well.

Coming soon: State Fair Pictures