Here it is:

If you’ve ever had to deal with a cancer diagnosis in your family, you’re probably familiar with the changes it imposes on your life how it plays with your cognitive focus. This is what my family experienced when my wife, Andrea Ross, SMS’d me on October 6, 2009 with two big-small words: “It’s cancer.”

After I overcame the shock, I realized I would have to be Andrea’s chearleading champion and primary support. I half-jokingly announced to anyone I spoke to that I was taking on the role of project manager of Andrea’s treatment program. I also realized I would have to be coordinator of the family members and friends who emerged as our support system. In the process, I had to learn the medical language of cancer.

Daylite was the perfect tool to stay on top of our new life. It was my co-pilot. I maintained contact records and meeting notes for our new world which included a surgeon, medical oncologist, radio-oncologist, Breast Cancer Clinic case worker, Patient Designated Nurse (PDN) and a home care nurse. There were surgical prep appointments, an arsenal of tests, three surgeries and all the related recovery information, nuclear medicine appointments, energy treatments, blood tests, six chemo treatments over 18 weeks, six weeks of radiation treatment (30 in all) and port-a-cath flushes.

If that’s not enough, our family still had to function as one. Daylite helped me keep track of our daughters’ (then eight and ten years old) extra-curricular activities and invitations from friends and family who hosted them for playdates, ski outings, dinners and sleepovers.

I depended heavily on Daylite’s ability to link appointments, phone calls, emails and contacts to task and projects. I kept good notes in the details and meeting minutes fields. I can’t think of a feature of Daylite that didn’t help me keep my wits about me.

Daylite Touch was a fantastic tool, as well. I used it to stay on top of everything wherever I was. Having said that, I couldn’t have the 3G features of my iPhone enabled in most of the hospital, and I was more than conscious of the stigma attached to taking “handheld notes” during face-to-face meetings. So, I kept handwritten notes using my Livescribe Pulse Smartpen (livescribe.com) and attached the PDFs into appropriate records in Daylite. This saved me missing important information and allowed me to avoid a double entry note system. It was a snap!

I’m excited beyond words that Andrea’s been given a clean bill of health. The busiest part of her treatment program ended in time for us to enjoy an amazing and re-connecting summer. She returned to work in September. She have another four years of Tamoxifen and has lingering discomfort from the assault on her body. You learn to love life and live it all over again.

Did Daylite save Andrea’s life? No. Mine? Perhaps. We’ll never know. What I do know is there’s no way I could have kept my wits about me while tracking of all of the goings-on using any other personal organization software – definitely not as efficiently or effectively.

Related Posts:

• Marketcircles’ Daylite: the great tool to be

Today is a particularly significant anniversary. WeCanRebuildHer was launched one year ago, today, following Andrea’s head-shaving party the night before. The party was such an important milestone in our journey that I’ve kept some of Andrea’s hair from that night as a souvenir.

To play with the text in the first post, we invite you to follow our journey through life as a family that has survived the cancer treatment process. We’ll continue to blog our experiences and thoughts and share audio, video and photographs of the process of enjoying life together.

And just in case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a video we put together from the head-shaving party. As noted at one point in the video, our then-8-year-old was the videographer.

I had become a regular at the pharmacy, picking up prescriptions for Andrea’s post-op recovery and would become an even more frequent patron as Andrea worked through chemo and radiation therapy. Now I make only the occasional trip to pick up Andrea’s Tamoxifen, vitamins or miscellaneous toiletries.

A year ago yesterday, I started a new career in digital public affairs at Fleishman-Hillard (woohoo!) — a new slant on my digital life.

A lot of uncertainty and change lay ahead. As scared as I was, I felt like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump, sitting atop the crow’s nest daring the storm to give me everything it had… “you call this a storm?!”

It took walking past the pharmacy to take stock of my own growth in the last year.

Of course, it also meant Andrea and I were obliged to find ways to occupy our time. We did commendably! We threw ourselves at the mercy of coffee shops, tea shops, book stores and forced ourselves to dine out. Oh, the humanity.

In the process, my iPhone camera was on rapid fire and I was able to capture some of the many faces of my beautiful wife. I created this collage from our weekend. Note, I’m particularly fond of the photos in the lower-right.

There’s so much to be thankful for this year, much of it has already been expressed here. Obvious things like our great support network, the amazing health care system, Andrea’s strength and attitude and ESPECIALLY good health. All of these combined to make this a particularly momentus Thanksgiving. Of course, the fact that I didn’t ruin the turkey was a huge relief, as well.

Last night during our Thanksgiving dinner, I reached beyond our usual thanks to acknowledge my work colleagues for their support and mentorship. I’m lucky to work with amazingly smart, talented and creative people — incredible strategic thinkers, all of whom I’ve learned from since joining Fleishman-Hillard 10 months ago. I wish them and their families the kind of connected Thanksgiving we enjoyed as a family this year.

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.

Huge, huge thank yous to:

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!

Photos of the party are now online.

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’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.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Day!