Two days ago, Paul and Sheri topped up Andrea’s Run for the Cure fundraising efforts, pushing her to $4000 — her goal at the time. That’s when we discovered Andrea was the third highest fundraiser in Ottawa.
We announced the milestone on this blog, Twitter and Facebook, asking for help to put Andrea in the pole position for fundraising in Ottawa.
At this moment, Andrea is second overall in the city with sponsorship of $5,148!!! That’s incredible. And yet, there’s still opportunity to be part of fundraising history by making Andrea the number one fundraiser for the first time in her life.
If your name isn’t on this list, sponsor Andrea and help make history. You have 29 days left.
We’d been waiting for last night for a long time. It was our opportunity to thank our amazing support network and collectively celebrate great health. We invited 140 people who were instrumental in getting us through the last year. Of course, this is a time of year when people are squeezing the last few hours of summer into their lives. About 50 were able to join us.
It was an incredible evening of hugs, smiles, laughing and lots of food and wine. And after the party wound up, a few hardy friends came back to our house and kept the celebrations going till nearly 3am.
Thank you to everyone who was able to come and be a part of the fun. And… a MASSIVE THANK YOU to our dear friends Athina, Tracy and Jessica (the amazing staff of the First Avenue Day Care) for sharing their space and for being the best hosts ever!
Growing up, vacations typically meant travelling to discover branches of the family tree. In adulthood, most of the vacations I took involved running from one tourist site to another with stops at cafés and bistros for something good to eat. Actually, the cafés and bistros only came about in my thirties. Before that it was fast food.
So, summers have always been packed and rushed with me arriving at September feeling as though I never caught my breath.
Enter summer 2010.
Andrea’s journey to survival has been therapeutic for our family. A big part of that has been making time for us. Evenings are about being together. Vacations are about connecting and relaxing.
Last week had us immersed in our second amazing spa-like vacation (the first was at the end of June, read Good Times, Noodle Salad). We spent the week at a cottage on Beaver Lake, just outside Kearney, Ontario. The cottage was made available to us through Cottage Dreams.
Cottage Dreams connects people who have been through cancer treatment with cottages that are vacant for one week periods. It’s simple. It’s genius. It’s mighty invigorating for the recipients and mighty rewarding for the cottage owners.
Besides being an amazing advocate for people who need the decompression time, Cottage Dreams is one of the few organizations I know of that you can call and always get a real person answering the phone — a real person who is passionate about helping people. And, their screening process is thorough to ensure Cottage Dreams finds amazing cottage owners who believe in being a part of this process, and guests who can be trusted to take good care of the cottage.
Our cottage hosts were committed to ensuring we had the best vacation, and they succeeded.
For six glorious days we enjoyed a view of the tops of trees leading down to Beaver Lake, went swimming, kayaking, read, played Euchre, picked (and ate) berries, listened to music, ate and slept — lots. We also hung out with Hummingbirds, Blue Jays, Loons, Merganser Ducks and one type of duck we weren’t able to identify but that can run very fast on water! Being the geek I am, I audio recorded a lot of sounds and will release them as part of my summer soundtrack later this month. At the end of the week, we managed to clean the cottage without any disputes (unlike being at home).
This summer is the best summer of my life — and there’s still a few weeks to experience.
We digital folk find it difficult to be without our online community. We love our digital relationships so much that anytime we’re presented with a decent 3G signal, we find ourselves temped to check our email. Frankly, Andrea and I have done pretty well over the last few days. Then, curiosity got the better of us.
We’re touched that since posts to WeCanRebuildHer.com slowed down we’ve been receiving lots of email asking how we’re doing; how our children and dog are.
I’m pleased to report that life is grand, full of celebrations, fresh air and the kinds of family and friends that make this life great! In fact, as I write this, we’re transitioning from one wave of celebration and relaxation to the next — which involves a fire pit, sticks and gooey mounds of sugar.
I hope you’re enjoying the beginning of summer as much as we are — whether online, offline or both.
PAB is an annual conference and community formed in 2006 which has become a very important part of our lives both as co-organizers and participants. While its roots are in podcasting, the program has matured and become almost exclusively about content creation, community and engagement.
Andrea was part of the JOLT! program for PAB2010 this past weekend. JOLT!s are 5-minute, slide-free presentations during which the speaker is selected to wake-up the imaginations, brains and collective energy of the community.
Andrea’s Contested Irrelevance commanded a standing ovation. Not only that, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as she shared the story of how the connections and friendships we’ve made online through Just One More Book and We Can Rebuild Her (and others) helped us through our journey to breast cancer survivorship and made us feel relevant.
Video of Andrea’s JOLT! will be available online in the coming weeks. Of course, we’ll embed it on this site.
Congratulations, Andrea. You’ve inspired and touched so many people.
Andrea received an inspiring and completely unexpected package, today — two pairs of brightly coloured socks with the message “Today I will smile and feel gooood!” With them, was a note (I’ve added links for convenience)…
Dear Andrea,
Please accept these uplifting socks from us — your approach + outlook is inspiring!! MegzyTred on Flickr told us about your great blog + that socks can make a hospital visit a little bit brighter so we wanted to help
It’s so nice to know that Andrea has such an impact on people, that they recognize how inspiring her authenticity and transparency is and want to share some good cheer of their own. Wow!
Thank you MegzyTred, Rick and Tom. I know I didn’t have to blog about you and your gesture, but I did. Knowing that Andrea has such a far reaching impact made me smile and feel gooood!
While catching up on a backlog of the TED talk videos, I saw this talk by William Li on eating to starve cancer. The talk includes a look at how cancer forms and how certain foods and spices stack up against prescribed cancer treatments.
This video is definitely worth a watch. There’s also a short animated story at the end that serves as a nice dessert.
I can’t remember the last time Andrea went away for the weekend which means her getaway to Toronto is long overdue. It’s just Lucy, Bayla and me. There’s lots of fun things to do this weekend. However, like most weekends in our house, they have accumulated a mess that needs to be cleaned up before anything else can happen. I’m really hoping they can tackle the backlog tonight so we can enjoy the rest of the weekend with no pressure.
By the way, we pulled together a short video about Sylvester last night. Here it is.
Some months ago I didn’t think there was going to be a birthday party for me this year — my 40th. The truth is, I wasn’t sure I wanted a birthday party what with everything that was going on in our lives. Andrea insisted she would arrange a party for me.
Imagine that. While going through chemotherapy, Andrea was committed to arranging a party for me. And she did.
Then came last week — the week from hell. Without going into details, our family situation and stress level was such that neither Andrea nor I felt much like celebrating. In fact, my actual birthday was a real bust. We canceled party-time care for our two daughters… twice.
Then, things turned around. Andrea, Lucy, Bayla and I escaped Ottawa for the day yesterday. We had a fantastic time being together away from our troubles and away from our usual surroundings. During lunch, Andrea suggested we bring Lucy and Bayla along to the party.
It was a perfect suggestion.
And… my party ended up being better than I could have ever expected. I was reminded how great my friends are and my family had a chance to meet others who are important to me: Rick Claus and his wife Kelli, Bob Goyetche, Jay West and his wife Ann, Bob Ledrew (OtherBob) and his wife Cat, Jamie O’Farrell, Julien Smith, Robert Farrell, Maurizio Ortolani and his wife Jacinthe, and Franc Epton and his wife Lisa. Thank you for being a part of my life, being at my party and for the incredible gifts!!!
We’ve learned the hard way there are people who have no idea that what they say to cancer patients and their support systems is inappropriate. Andrea published a brilliant post about this, I See Dread, People, and I’d like to offer a refresher with five helpful hints of my own.
AT TIME OF DIAGNOSIS: Upon learning about the diagnosis, be supportive and keep your own horror stories about the disease (or any other less than positive stories) to yourself.
HELP: If you offer help, be specific — for example, ask when you can have the kids over for a play date or offer to send a meal over on a specific day (bonus: ask about any food alergies, nutritional needs and dietary restrictions).
DURING TREATMENT: Check in during the treatment process and renew (or offer new) specific offers of help. Make it known you’re thinking about the person and their family.
AT MILESTONES: When a milestone has been achieved, be a part of the moment by celebrating with the person and their family. Something like, “Congratulations!” is a very good start. You can freestyle that by acknowledging the difficult journey it’s been for the person to get to that point and how thrilled you are for the person that they’ve made it to this milestone. “Be there.”
SHOW GENUINE INTEREST: If you know the person has a blog, follow it. It’s a great place to stay up to date and even leave messages of support and positive thoughts at regular intervals. It’s also a great tool to know when help is needed the most. If you know the person has a blog, catch up before you contact them. It shows you care and their health and journey is important to you.
The spring/summer edition of the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation’s magazine, Courage, is now available. It features an article Andrea was invited to contribute about the head shaving party we had for her in December (page 24).
If you’re new to this site, having discovered it in Courage, welcome! We hope you make your voice heard by sharing your thoughts and experiences as comments on our blog.
By the way… this isn’t the first time Andrea and our WeCanRebuildHer.com website have been in the news. Andrea contributed to the Ottawa Citizen’s Miracles on Ice edition of the Saturday Observer (Feb. 6, 2010, section B) with a piece about skating on the Rideau Canal during chemo (page B3).
Andrea and I received word that, almost one year to the day after seemingly trying to break into our house, Keith Ross entered into a Section 810 Peace Bond which prohibits him from having any contact (direct or indirect) with us for a period of 12 months.
A few months before I met Andrea, I had plans to get a tattoo. I worked with an artist to come up with a design I liked though circumstances prevented me from actually getting the tattoo. Over the years I’ve often talked about Andrea and myself getting matching tattoos to represent our family. Andrea was never interested and joked that I could get one during my mid-life crisis.
I turn 40 next month. I haven’t gotten a tattoo nor do I have any plans to get one. Today, Andrea entered the world of body art when she got five tattoos. Wow! Talk about going the other direction.
Andrea’s five blue pinpoint-sized tattoos are part of a complicated laser-alignment procedure in preparation for her radiation treatments. The alignment ensures that the radiation can be properly targeted during each of the thirty treatments while limiting exposure of Andrea’s lungs and ribs to high intensity x-rays. Apparently a large screaming eagle wouldn’t have been appropriate.
DINNER OUT
We went out for dinner as a family for the first time since November, tonight. We met our author/illustrator friend Lee Edward Fodi at The Wild Oat — yet another in an expected long series of life celebrations now that Andrea’s recovered from her chemo.
Out of concern for Andrea’s health, particularly due to immune compromise during Andrea’s chemo, we haven’t gone out for dinner in about five months. That means Christmas, our anniversary, Valentine’s Day, etc… they were all at-home celebrations.
Tonight, that changed.
My parents took us to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary and the end of Andrea’s chemo. We had a fabulous dinner at Saint-O in Ottawa’s east end. It was a meal and celebration worth the wait, and the first of what I expect to be a lifetime of celebrations.
It was particularly fitting to celebrate with my parents. They’ve been nothing short of amazing to us since Andrea’s diagnosis. They canceled a winter in Florida and kept themselves available to us at all times. The list of things they’ve done for us is long and impressive. Thank you, so much, Mom and Dad!
It felt great to be at a restaurant with Andrea (and my parents). I’ll never understand how Andrea soldiered through chemo the way she did. I’m amazingly proud of and inspired by her.
I’m working on a project in my day job for which I’m looking to familiarize myself with amazing people-cancer stories — true milestones in the story about people and cancer from the past 30 years that have the same impact as the story of Terry Fox.
So, I posted the question to Twitter earlier today, “Besides Terry Fox, what milestone people-cancer stories do you recall from the last 30 years?”
We’d been waiting for last night for a long time. It was our opportunity to thank our amazing support network and collectively celebrate great health. We invited 140 people who were instrumental in getting us through the last year. Of course, this is a time of year when people are squeezing the last few hours of summer into their lives. About 50 were able to join us.
We digital folk find it difficult to be without our online community. We love our digital relationships so much that anytime we’re presented with a decent 3G signal, we find ourselves temped to check our email. Frankly, Andrea and I have done pretty well over the last few days. Then, curiosity got the better of us.
Andrea received an inspiring and completely unexpected package, today — two pairs of brightly coloured socks with the message “Today I will smile and feel gooood!” With them, was a note (I’ve added links for convenience)…
Some months ago I didn’t think there was going to be a birthday party for me this year — my 40th. The truth is, I wasn’t sure I wanted a birthday party what with everything that was going on in our lives. Andrea insisted she would arrange a party for me.
Andrea
Lucy* (10)
Bayla* (8)