Down with Chemo!

We wish we could cure Mom's cancer with hugs... not Drugs... but she's going in on Friday for her last round of maintenance chemotherapy before her next PET scan.
We're hoping the Chemo doesn't make her super sick like it did last time, and really hoping that the pneumonia holds off all together.

In Relay news... Mom had 2 teams walking to support her and they both made "BRONZE" fundraising status! I recieved an e-mail today from the ACS letting us know that The Hope Corps "Final" total fundraising was $3,653.16! Way to Rock the fundraising! Thank you all so much for your support for BOTH teams! We're so blessed!

-a

Relay for Life 2010

(a close up of Mom's survivor Metal)

To sum up Relay for Life 2010 in 1 sentance; Dr. Gordy Klatt would be proud.

Dr. Gordy Klatt started Relay for Life 26 years ago by asking people to support him in his fundrasing efforts for the American Cancer Society and then by walking for 24 hours at a track in Tacoma, Washington.

The Hope Corps had a member of our team on the track the entire Relay; and we raised $3,628 for cancer research for the American Cancer Society. We were one of 3 teams (maybe) who had someone on the track for the entire event!

On with the photos;

Here's Mom infront of our campsite! We did not win the "best decorated" award, but we were the best decorated campsite there, I don't care what anyone says.

Here's me and my Momma at Relay!

And here's our AMAZING bake sale - we raised $97 between selling our goodies and selling a few sets of lap beads to walkers. We initally set up to do lap beads for our team alone, but then people wanted to buy them... so we sold them! We might have to consider this as a fundraiser next year; It was much less labor intensive than the bake sale was!

After a very legnthy opening ceremony, Mom, Brenda, Kathy and I took the track to walk the survivor lap together. It was a pretty emotional lap, a couple of us were fighting back tears and a couple of us let them flow. A year ago when Mom was diagnosed she set the goal to walk in the survivor lap at Relay with me the following year. It was so great to walk beside her, it was the reward for all that she (we) has accomplished this year!

These two are my favorite pictures of the day... One from infront and one from behind, walking hand in hand with my Mom and Aunts during the survivor lap is not something I will forget soon.

The more laps we walked, the less the tears flowed.

After the survivor lap I stayed on the track for a mile or so till someone else was ready for the take over.

After Mom's first Mile I took a few photos of her in her beautiful Purple shirt and her amazing survivor metal! I love that they celebrate survivors in that way!

We weren't really sure she would be able to rock the first lap... but she ended up walking 5 miles over Saturday and Sunday!

Here's Brenda and Kathy taking over walking. They were getting their lap beads ready to go!

And then Becky and Kerri.

And Jerry, Kat, Tim and MaryJane.

My Boss stopped by for a lap and brought cookies for the bake sale too! I have such an amazing team of support out here, I couldn't ask for more!

Mom rested her feet a little bit, and of course enjoyed the sunshine a little bit! It was her vacation after all!

The Bodle Gals stopped by in the evening so we could all eat some dinner while they walked 4 miles or so - relief walkers are life savers!

Mom and Kathy turned on all the electric candles for the luminaria lap.

This is Mom's Luminaria.

We had over 50 Luminaria for our team!

The Luminaria actually were weighed down by cans of food that we donated to the White Center food bank. Highline Relay donated over 600 cans of food!

Then the Bodle gals turned the reigns back over to us for the evening!

We did attend the luminaria ceremony... LONGEST CEREMONY EVER.

I think my imput will be best used to keep all the ceremonial things "short and sweet"

But all the luminarias remembering our loved ones were so pretty lined up around the track.

As tradition... They spelt out HOPE and CURE in luminaria bags.

I didn't get a good picture of Megan and I walking together, but we took over for the next couple hours till Alex and Lindsey showed up and Tacy woke up. They took over from 2am till about 5am - relief walkers save your life!

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Then I took over for the next two hours or so and pounded out some laps.

Brenda, Kathy and Mom walked the last few laps with me... here I am... finishing the last lap of mile #20! My body hurts so bad, but I didn't have any blisters this year!

And here's Mom finishing her last lap of Mile #5... She rocked it!

Brenda walked 10... Kathy walked 11.... We had some dedicated walkers this year for sure!

They decided it was a pretty great way to celebrate their birthdays!

Mom celebrated her birthday with Brenda (her birthday too) by walking in Relay and then that evening we went out to dinner at the Space Needle!

My heart is swelled as much as my ankles are... with pride though, not fluid.

I am exhausted, but happy and ready to go again next year where my Mom will walk in the survivor lap again!

Because of Relay we have research because of research we have chemo, because of chemo we have loved ones who beat this nasty disease!

All my Love, Abby

Bronze Team Fundraising Club

Okay, So I knew The Hope Corps was a good group of people, but tonight we recieved an award from the American Cancer Society which teams recieve when they raise at least $1,500 (With an average of $125 per team member).

We are a Bronze Team! The best part of this news is that we're a mere $85 dollars from reaching silver! If you have it in you to help us make our goal PLEASE, donate to our cause. Just click here to donate to our team, or click on any one of our profile's individually to donate to a teammate.

Our Very own Becky Marchitto is just $65 away from reaching "The Grand Club" which is a pretty awesome honor one recieved when they hit $1,000!

Just a little update from the meeting, I'm on cloud nine!

My Mom's coming tomorrow! Yay!

Thank you Thank you Thank you

I really Love posting all these thank you notes for donations...

The Hope Corps is 88% of the way towards our goal, a special thanks to

Patsy Leon-Garvin

and

Krina & Mark Johnson

For their donations this week!

Keep it coming guys ... we're SO close!

-a

Here's the LINK for donating ... if you're interested :o)

Team Donation #2

We recieved another Team donation for the Hope Corps!

Thank you to

Mindy Sherwood-Lewis!

We're 80% of the way to our goal and 35 days left to make it happen!

Thank you for your support :)

Meet Angie...

This is Angie... (On the right) She's my cousin (My Mom's Niece). Angie and I spent endless hours together in our teen years and have a special bond - we refer to each other's mothers as "Mom" and no one could convince us otherwise, we're sisters in every sense of the word.

When Angie heard her second Mom was diagnosed with cancer she joined the battle and agreed to cut her hair in honor of Mom to donate to Locks of Love. She decided on March / April as the goal to do it so there would be plenty to donate.

Tonight was the night... Here's Angie outside of JC Penny's before the "Big Chop".

That's a whole lotta hair!

Meet Amber... this is our cousin Pete Boyle's wife! She was totally game to cut all 15 inches of Angies hair off.

There it Goes!

And the best picture of the bunch... I can't imagine what the people on the bus must have thought when I literally burst into a fit of laughter when I saw this picture. My Mom is a riot!

You're getting there Mom... just a few more inches :)

Here's Amber & Angie showing off their finished product

This one also made me laugh... you girls are having way too much fun!

And she looks stunning...

What a HUGE difference!

I really can't even begin to explain how my heart swells with love and pride of my family looking at these pictures.

To Amber, thank you for taking the time to make a difference, pose for pictures and make my Mom Smile.

To Mom, you take things with such great humor. I am so proud of you and every step you've made, and every smile you've brought with you.

To Angie, I'm overwhelmed with tears when I see what you've done to support my Mom. I can't imagine a better way. This is so huge and I thank you for bringing that smile to my Mom's face from the bottom of my heart.

These are the ways we fight cancer... together... because, Bald is beautiful and Dianne's battle is our battle!

Who's Tuning In?

I think I've given this blog address out over 100 times!

So many people talk to Mom about it, and how much they love knowing what's going on.

I am so thankful that this has become a great place for people to check in, and be able to support her in this journey - it has worked better than I could have ever imagined.

It's so weird to look back to the first posts and the uncertainty that was written and learning what life was like with Cancer, for Mom and her loved ones. We're much stronger for this journey, and it's great to have supportive people like you checking in on us!

We thank you. It's people like you who care, and love that show us how loved and supported we are - you inspire us.

Here's my plea, Comment on this post... I want to know WHO's reading out there! Leave Mom some Love... Let us know who we're talking to!

It's pretty easy, when you get to the bottom of this post it says L♥ve Comments ... and all you do is click on it, and walk yourself through it.... I will "approve them" and you will see them shortly after .... Let's see the Love :)

Abby

Hope on the Slopes

Meet my Co-worker Mindy... We've been working together for 4 years (wow Min, can you believe that? you've put up with me for 4 whole years)!

Mindy's fundraising for "Hope on the Slopes" which is a Relay (Esq) event for people who have talent that can ski or snowboard. She's skiing for her Mom who lost her battle to ovarian cancer in 2008.

Please visit Mindy's page and support her in her fundraising goal of $2,500! (She's ambitious).

You might even find me on the mountain that day, serving coffee ... because you won't want to see me ski...

Happy Friday Everyone.

Hat Totals

Here's the grand totals....

22 Baseball Hats
3 Scarves
25 Stocking Hats
2 Bucket Hats
3 Beret’s
5 Women’s Fashion Hats (I.E. The cow print)
3 Novelty Hats.

Total = 63!

And Mindy's Picture... she brought 18 of the 22 Baseball Caps and 1 scarf/hat combo. She just pointed at hers... There were too many to put on.

Thank you again co-workers... I can't begin to thank you enough. Your contributions, support and love mean the world.

Hats off to KMS!

My heart is full of joy while I type. This morning when I walked into work I was greeted by this beautiful sight.

It took a moment to sink in what all these hats hanging from the celing tiles meant. I stood in awe of the hats hanging from the line in my office, when I realized that they were all collected for my Mom and hung up to show support and love.

I immediatley started to cry, took this picture and then called this lady... the mastermind.

She really REALLY didn't want me to take this picture. But she is the most generous and wonderful person I have ever met.... serriously this woman thinks of everything. She even convinced me to bring my camera in a very sneaky way because she knew I would want to take pictures. It was my own fault that I forgot my CF card and will have to take the pictures tomorrow. When she arrived I gave her a big hug and shortly after Mindy walked in with another bag of 20 hats or so. I sent the room shot picture to my Mom and talked to her on the phone and then Mindy and I preceeded to hang the remaining hats up, so currently there are 60 hats hanging from the ceiling in our office space.

I sent out a big thank you e-mail and asked the people who donated the hats to come and pick one out to wear to show to Mom.

Here's Patsy with her cow print hat.

And Julie with the Elmer Fudd inspired hat...

I seriously have the best co-workers in the world.

There are SO many hats and mom only has one head, so we will be donating a portion of them to Hats Off For Cancer. We're doing a hat drive through the end of the week to send as many as we can! More pictures to come!
All My Love,

Abby

Expectations

There's a lot of things you tend to expect when your handed a big plate full of the c-word. You expect Chemo, radiation, hair loss, hospital visits, doctors... the list goes on.

Something we never expected was the amazing amount of healing through friendships that we've received. Prayers from across America as well as strangers stepping up just to let us know they're thinking of us.

Mom had a couple of really cool encounters with kindness that I wanted to share, it almost brings me to tears just to type it.

This weekend there's a Pow-Wow being held in Rapid City (or in that area) and one of my Aunt Brenda's friends is dancing in it, and is going to do a healing dance for Mom. She's never even met my Mom but by knowing Brenda felt that a healing dance was just the right medicine.

My Mom's co-workers who have been wonderful through all of this any ways, stepped up and offered to donate some of their vacation days for her so she can use them during her Treatment.

It amazes me how selfless people can be when the time comes. Thank you all for your countless thoughts, prayers and continued giving. We really appreciate every second of it.

Have a great weekend!

All the Love in the Universe - Abby