Other things to think about...a positive note and the start of my cancer story (so Cancer Part 1, I guess)

I was just thinking about things that are happening to us right now, and it got me reminiscing, which made me think of something I have not posted about yet: 2008 is the 10 year mark for my cancer diagnosis. 10 years is quite the milestone for cancer survivors. The 5-year mark is kind of the pinnacle of cancer survival, since at that point it basically means you have the same chance of a cancer recurrence as anyone else has of developing cancer. So 10 years is special as it means I have doubled that time. Not bad considering my doctor initially gave me less than a 15% chance of beating it to begin with.

10 years. Wow.

In October 1998 we received the news that I had osteosarcoma (bone cancer).

I had been having pain in my upper back, neck, and down my left arm for some time in late 1997 and early 1998, but I was nearing the end of my college coursework and was too caught up in graduating to get it checked out. I finally, just before graduation, went to my boss at work since I thought it might be work-related having been in production for several years. They sent me to a therapist who recommended and electromyogram. Here is the key point of this test:

The skin over the areas to be tested is cleaned with a special soap. A needle electrode that is attached by wires to a recording machine is inserted into a specific muscle.

So the point is they stick a needle into a muscle to find a nerve and then shock it so they can see on a machine hooked up to your hand if the nerve is blocked or not. Got that? Needle in muscle to shock the be-jeebers out of a nerve, ON PURPOSE!

Can you say "ouch"?

Actually it was more like "HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL STOP STICKING THAT PIN IN MY ARM YOU SADISTIC..." well you get the idea. =)

The doctor stuck that thing in my hand and arm about every 6 inches (back of my hand, just past my wrist, middle of forearm, at the elbow - that was fun, shocking the crap out of my funny-bone, hah hah hah, see me laughing - etc.). Then I find out the test told them nothing. Greeeaaat!

That prompted an MRI. They were pretty concerned so I actually got my MRI on July 4th if you can imagine that. That was also, incidentally, the day of my last paid haircut. I have not been to a barber of any kind since then.

I went in that afternoon for my MRI. They gave me a Valium to help me relax and then they strapped me into the MRI table. [note: the Valium basically did nothing...I would come to find after 8 years of various kinds of treatments and surgeries, and probably thousands of percocet, lortab, codeine, etc. that I have a VERY high tolerance for narcotics of all kinds.]

I had a cage bolted over my head holding my head in place and pressing on my chest so I would not move at all during the test. That ended up being a bad thing, since it only exacerbated the feeling of being trapped while I was, well, trapped in the machine. In the middle of the MRI they stopped. They told me they had to have someone come look at the images and that they needed to take another image. All this time I am in this tube that could barely hold me and my gut. I started begging them to let me out, but they said they did not want to mess up the orientation. It was a bad experience at the time and made it so I can now only do an MRI if sedated.

Anyway, I found out what made them do that. They wanted to be absolutely certain of what they had to report, to make sure they were really seeing what they thought they were. Unfortunately, it was exactly what they thought it was.

When they finally unstrapped me, they had me wait around to talk to my doctor. I kind of guessed at that point that it was not going to be to invite me over for punch and cookies. On the phone the neurologist who ordered the test told me they found a mass in my upper back and neck (technically the brachial plexus area). It was about the size of a large orange or my fist and was nestled under my shoulder-blade, up against the top of my rib cage and under my colar bone. Later we would find out it encroached on the spine as well. The sharp shooting pains I had been experiencing in my left arm and neck were a result of the tumor pressing on and pinching my ulnar nerve against my colar bone - in essence I had the feeling of having smacked my funny bone good and hard all the time.

My doctor actually did say "tumor" at the end of our discussion. "Mass" sounded better.

I then called Glynna and my mom and dad and told them they had found a tumor. I was sick and numb all at the same time. But I had no idea what was to come, and maybe that was a good thing.

I will say I have had more enjoyable Independence Days.

A fine Merry Christmas to me...more bad news

I hate to keep posting bad news, but this last week was a doozy. My boss and our HR rep came out last Monday from Kentucky, unannounced. I had a phone call scheduled with him on Monday, but had no clue he was coming here until he literally walked into my office. I figured that can't be a good thing...and unfortunately I was right.

They told me that Cummins was trying to be proactive about the current economic environment. We already had seen our daily shipping volume decrease by about 20%, which necessitated dropping 5 people from our work force. The decision now was that they need to consolidate operations within markets, meaning they only want one distribution center in North America. So they are shutting us down and we are all being laid off. Our last official working day is December 30th.

Some Merry Christmas, huh?

I am a little worried about finding a new job. We have a neighbor who has been out of work for 9 months. I hear about more people losing their jobs and not being able to find anything. It is somewhat scary. I am hopeful, however, and I think I have a good background to get into something else relatively soon. It will probably pay off that I have experience in many fields and have worn many hats in my career. I hope it will anyway.

I guess come January I will have some more time to blog. I do get a 3 month severance package, so that will help. I am also going to get certified in daycare so we can take on more kids in Glynna's daycare, Kiddlywinks. I guess that was pretty good forsight, huh? We can effectively double her income, and my mom is thinking about joining us instead of her current job, which will help even more. Of course we may be driven nuts with that many kids running around the house, but I hear that duct tape can work wonders! =)

I will use this space to keep everyone updated on my job hunt. I am also considering putting together a "resume blog" with the hope of luring in potential employers.

You can also check out my profile on LinkedIn.

I guess that is about it for now.

Sad News - and a Plea for Help

We recently learned a valuable lesson a very very hard way. The hard drive on our computer crashed, and we lost everything.

And I do mean everything.

We had all of our digital pictures from the past 4 years on there. We had all of our important documents, including but definitely not limited to taxact files, resumes, all the Kiddlywinks stuff, school docs, everything I have created in CorelDRAW for the past 4 years, all the songs we had downloaded, all the videos we had downloaded, that is enough, it is making me very sad.

So if you have any pictures with any of my family in them, please send them on to us. If you know us, you already probably have contact info. If not, then please leave a note (with no personal info like addresses or emails for security's sake) in the comments section and we will get ahold of you somehow.

I am more than willing to either arrange a FedEx pickup of anything you can burn to disk, or pay for shipping, replace disks you use to send us pictures, or if you are willing to send us print pictures I guarantee I will scan them and lovingly return them within a week, including a copy of the pictures on disk so you can have a digital copy as well.

As far as our lesson goes, here is a breakdown of our new computer (great timing, huh? guess what we got for Christmas. =(

* HP model d5100t, customized to include the following components
* Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9550 2.83 GHz
* 6 gig of RAM
* 500 gig of a Raid 1 data security hard-disk configuration - this means there are 2 500 gig hard drives, one solely to back up the first, and connected in such a way that it is highly unlikely that BOTH will fail at the same time
* A 1 terabyte external hard-drive for serious backups (images of the full system and actual files of all important docs, pics, all of that listed above and more)
* Of course, graphics card, sound card, Lightscribe DVD/CD burner, and all that Jazz

We learned our lesson the hard way. Don't wait to learn yours the same way. You can get external hard drives for fairly cheap for good-sized models. Here are a few suggestions:

PC World review of top external hard drives for 2008 - a good place to start since they perform tests not just on size, but on performance and reliability, with prices ranging from $129 to $755, but you can find smaller drives for less money, like some of the following:

Amazon.com listing of hard drives...starting at $69.99

More external drives (just click on the different types for different configurations and prices.

Heck, Walmart carries them. You can just go there and browse.

You can even buy a DVD burner and periodically backup your pictures and vital docs every quarter or so. DVD burners can be had for about $50 (maybe less), and a single layer DVD holds up to 4 gig...a double layer up to 8. DVD disks are about $1 to $1.50 each (can be had for less - shop around), but that is a small price to pay to make sure you don't lose stuff in this digital age.

My plan is to once a month take an image of my primary drive and store it on my external drive, along with all pictures and important docs in their original format. Every 6 months to 1 year we will backup pictures on dual-layer DVD and store them in my safe-deposit box.

I went from nothing to overkill, but this was a very bad experience.

Don't let it happen to you.

Wat u can get me for Christmas YAY :)

If anyone is wondering wat to get me for christmas i want money. I prefer cash but i will take a check. And no i am not going to buy drugs just lots and lots of sugary carbinated caffine drinks called Monster. I neet at least enough to buy 20 to last me about a week. That will be all thank you. Oh and just in case you dont have a sence of humor i was just kidding. About the monsters not the cash. :)

NUAMES

Hi, I have not posted a blog in a long time so here is a quick review my school. This year for high school I am going to NUAMES (Northern Utah Academy for Math Engineering and Science) it is am early college school. Next year I will attend college level classes at Weber State and I plan on graduating with my associates degree. Just so you know how small my school is there are only 11 portables that make up NUAMES, there are only about 300-400 kids in the whole school, that includes 10th 11th and 12th grade. WOW that's tiny. Our mascot is a Nighthawk. We are the NUAMES Nighthawks. Everyone wanted to be the NUAMES Nerds but the administration said NO! It is the best school in the world because it is so small everyone knows everyone, that means no clicks. YAY. Well ill post more about NUAMES l8r bye.

Jose and the Golden Pin of Eternal Glory

One day when Jose was playing X-box he heard a noise coming from his closet. When he opened the door a magic chinchilla said, “Jose, you are the chosen one.”

Then Jose said, “What the freaking heck are you doing in my closet?!” Then the magic chinchilla told him all about how the evil penguin, Gladys, stole the Golden Pin of Eternal Glory from the museum of random valuable things, and how he kidnapped the presidents pet snail, speedy. The magic chinchilla also told Jose that he could fly while holding a bagel, freeze anything with his mind except for newspaper, eat anything no matter what it was, and talk to pencils. Then the magic chinchilla burst into flames and was gone forever.

Jose spent the next few weeks mastering his abilities. When he was sure he had them all down he filled a backpack with 3 packs of bagels, food, water, and a picture of the chinchilla that gave him his destiny. He flew into the air and when he was over the great country Arkansas he dropped the bagel and fell about 27 feet onto a cow. The cow turned out to be the one who was supposed to show him the way. When the cow got him safely to the Kinko’s factory the cow burst into flames and was gone forever.

When Jose got inside he saw a suspicious group of penguins standing in the corner watching him carefully. Then one of them pulled out an M16 and tried to shoot him. He just barely escaped into the basement and locked the door when they busted down the door and ran in. As they came into the room Jose stepped on a trapdoor that led to the super cat’s hideout. Jose had heard about the super cat, but he thought he was only a story. The super cat said to Jose, “You are Jose and I am super cat, I made a teleporter that will take you strait to Gladys’ top secret headquarters in Wal-Mart.” Just as super cat pushed the teleport button he burst into flames and was gone forever.

When Jose got to Wal-Mart he went up to an employee and asked him where the evil penguin was. The man said, “Oh he’s on isle 7, but don’t touch his hair.” Jose said thank you and went immediately to isle 7.

When he got there, Gladys said, “How did you find out where my top secret headquarters were?!” Just as Jose was about to freeze the evil penguin he realized that Gladys had on a body suit made of newspaper. There was nothing Jose could do. Then the penguin ran away.

While Jose was searching for Gladys he ran into a pencil, he asked the pencil, “Have you seen this penguin?” While holding up a picture of a penguin with long shaggy hair.
The pencil simply replied, “I don’t have any eyes stupid.” Then out of the corner of his eye Jose saw the penguin run into the girls bathroom. Jose cornered Gladys in the bathroom and noticed that he had the Golden Pin of Eternal Glory and the president’s pet snail in a cage. All of a sudden the evil penguin had a seizure and the newspaper fell off. Jose grabbed the Golden Pin of Eternal Glory, Speedy, and flew out the window.

Jose returned the Golden Pin of Eternal Glory to the museum of random valuable things, returned Speedy to the president, won the Congressional Medal of Honor, and returned home still not knowing why there was a chinchilla in his closet.

Halloween

Woo Hoo!!!!! The time is upon us to get all that last minute Halloween costume and candy shopping done! You have exactly two days so ready . . . set ... ... ... GO!!!!!!!!! So who else is excited? I sure as heck know I am! But I can't decide if I'm gonna go to my awesomely insane cousin's birthday party or trick-or-treating. Probably the party, though. So, guess what I'm gonna be for Halloween? Go ahead, guess! Ahem, I said, GUESS! OK fine, I'll tell you, sheesh! I'm gonna be a devil! It's an insanely cute costume!

But enough about me, let's talk about you guys!

So what are you gonna be for Halloween? And I really wanna know so comment and tell me! Well, if you don't know, here are some great costume ideas:
Bought Costumes from Wal-Mart:
-Whoopee Cushion
-Adam/Eve
-Fairy
-Bratz Pirate
-Devil (ME!!!)
-Angel
-Greek God/Goddess
-Queen/King/Prince/Princess

Homemade costumes (YAY!!! Creativity!):
-Robot (boxes and tin foil)
-Ghost (white bedsheet-cut eyeholes) (for a funky ghost use colored sheets) ;)
-Hobo (old button up shirt, messy hair, brown make up so you look dirty, brown eyeliner to draw messy patches and scratches)
-Headless Business Man (big white church shirt-pull it over your head, church pants)
-Girl (for boys only. wear a dress and do a girly hair do or a wig)
-Boy (for girls only. wear a baggy boy t shirt and baggy jeans, wear a baseball cap backwards with your hair pulled up in it)

Hope these helped! Have an awesome Halloween and get lots of candy!