The Tooth Fairy came to our home tonight!

FINALLY!!! C has had this tooth hanging by a thread for like two weeks and she was too scared to pull it out. We've bribed, threatened, nearly forced, and pleaded to let us yank that puppy out. Didn't work. C and L were playing in the living room today when L bumped her head into C's mouth. Knocked the tooth right out and we couldn't find it anywhere. There was very little blood and C rinsed out her mouth and told me that it didn't hurt at all like I promised it wouldn't. So now she has a hole in her face and is just adorable. My big girl is growing up!! Anyways, I made up a little note and tiny envelope and slipped it under her pillow with a gold dollar inside. I can't wait for her to show me in the morning. Yay!!!!

I'll miss you Dace Wilson

Breast cancer boards are wonderful and terrible at the same time. I found a great one on the Young Survivor Coalition bulletin boards. I went to their sponsored young survivor conference in Washington, D.C. in February and had the time of my life. Met lots of wonderful people, put names to faces and screen names. Then there's the bad side of the board. A lot of the women on there are not going to grow old. They are not going to see their kids graduate high school let alone see them make it to middle school. This week has been particularly brutal on my board. A wonderful lady that just took the boards to become an oncology nurse or worker, died of breast cancer. The disease had metastized to too many places to count. There are so many people diagnosed with mets lately. Too many wonderful sweet women that did nothing wrong. They were female and had breasts, that's it. Two people in particular were just told about them having mets. Not a lot of options for them anymore.

Then in passing, a friend on the board told me that my roommate that I had at the conference in February had died. I could have fallen over. As it was, I just started to cry. I have known women online that have died and missed them, but this was the first time that I met a woman I knew personally and talked for hours that has died from this shitty disease. Dace was amazing. How we found each other was just incredible. We both got scholarships to go to this conference and were looking for roommates to share the hotel room. We hooked up and found out some really neat stuff. Though she lives in California, she graduated from my rival high school in Vancouver, WA two years before I graduated. She had two young daughters, similar in ages to my girls. We both had braces on! Just weird stuff. She was a spiritual person and that helped a lot when trying to find someone to hang with that didn't drink when everyone else was. One night at the conference, our friend Jackie, Dace, and I sat in our room and chatted till about 2-3am. You didn't even notice the time, we just could talk and talk and it was so natural feeling.

When we left the conference, we tried to keep in touch, but we both had families and lives and we drifted apart. Then I hear in the middle of a hectic family drama filled week, that she had passed away. She had inflammatory breast cancer(IBC), ductal carcinoma in situ(DCIS), and I believe it had turned into invasive ductal carcinoma(IDC). I don't know the grade and stage she was at. But it's hurting so much more than I thought it would. The people online that have passed away, you can feel bad but it doesn't hurt as much because you didn't know them. I KNEW Dace. I hugged her, talked with her, spent time with her, laughed and shared stories with her. I'm having a hard time pulling out of this.

So Dace, I'm so sorry I didn't try to stay in better touch with you. You were so gentle and kind and sweet and fun. I'm glad I got you as a roommate and could see pictures of your girls and hear about how you were doing. I'm so sorry I didn't email you more or keep in better contact. I'll miss you a bunch, you really have no idea. God bless you and your family, especially those darling girls of yours.

Dace Mines Wilson
WILSON -Dace Mines Wilson, passed away October 19, 2007. She is survived by her children, Kathryn and Kayla Wilson, her parents, Jan Beasley-Akins (Ulysses) and Arkley Mines. Her brother, Maurice Mines and sister, Virginia Mines. 3 Aunts, Collette Beasley-Harnage (Alvin) Gail Mines-Johnson and Julia Mines, her uncle, Ronald Mines, a host of other relatives and many friends. Visitation from 2:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. Friday, Woods-Valentine Mortuary Chapel. 1455 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena and Services 11:00 A.M. Saturday Bethlehem Church, 1550 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena. Interment, Forest Lawn Memorial Park., Hollywood Hills. Woods-Valentine Mortuary Pasadena, Directing.

Souper Wednesday

I have to thank MOF for this recipe. It's my favorite soup at Olive Garden. I tried it out this week and my girls actually ate it! That alone makes me happy.

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

Souper Wednesday

I love this recipe!!! I found it in Cooking for Two magazine, but it's very easy to double or even triple. I enjoy how flavorful it is too.

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A small update

My sister and a friend both recently found lumps in their breasts. It brought up a lot of memories and I was concerned about both of them. My sister had a lumpectomy and it turns out she had a fibroadema and is perfectly fine and cancer free. My friend had an ultrasound and was told that she is cancer free. I'm sooooo happy for them!!

Souper Wednesday

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De Ja Vu

Because of me, my sisters all had mammograms last year. All were fine. One sister had another mammogram this year because of a new doctor and time for that yearly mammogram. This year they found a lump that was not there last year. So tomorrow (if all goes well) she will be having a lumpectomy. It sounds like they are taking the lump out and then doing the pathology instead of doing a biopsy first. She said they would know the results by Friday.

I have a friend that's also going through a tremendous amount of family health issues. She found a lump too and is having it looked at. I'm just in shock for her. I'm in shock for both of them. It's bringing up a lot of memories again too. I hope that if they want my help or need me to answer any questions, that I can provide them with answers that can be of help. If they don't need me for that, then I hope they both know that they are in my thoughts and I'm hoping and wishing for good healthy lumpy cancer free boobies.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart

I finally got to say the biggest thank you I've been wanting to say since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I know I've mentioned it before, but I'm going to bring it up again.

In October 2005, I was Enrichment Leader for our ward. We planned to have a couple of people from the American Cancer Society come and talk about how to do self exams and to get brochures since it was breast cancer awareness month. It was an unusual activity and I don't know if anyone had done anything like this in a while. I knew we had a couple of survivors in our ward and it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. So we had the activity, two ladies came in and talked and it went off well. They handed out necklaces that special signifigance in relation to how big a tumor is when you get examined by a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or self exam. It sounds icky, but the necklaces are really nice.

So a few months went by and one of the ladies emailed me and asked me a question or something, I think to let me know about an upcoming activity the ACS was organizing. I don't think I ever emailed her back because life was busy at the time. Fast forward to March 2006. I was taking a shower and did a half hearted self exam and found a pimple at the time. I was checking it out and I could feel a lump deep in my breast. From there on, I went to various doctors till I found out I had breast cancer and life changed forever.

But it was because of that church activity that I knew more about breast cancer and had the brochures and knew what to do. It was because of those ladies coming, that things changed for me. Last October, dh would bring goodies every Friday that supported breast cancer awareness. All the Hershey Kisses in pink wrappers, Peppermint Pattys, M&Ms, etc. This year he's going to do the same thing but wanted to bring some brochures with his boss's permission.

So I called the American Cancer Society and asked if they had anything. I told them why I was calling and a little bit of my story. I told them I never got to say thank you for those ladies coming. The lady on the phone asked me to describe who the ladies were and when it was. I gave her as much information as I could recall. She knew one of the ladies and transferred me to her phone line. I started to cry but I told her my story and how I knew her. I was able to tell her thank you for coming to that activity and because of her and her work and her partner, I found my lump when I did and took care of things. It sounds silly on paper, but it meant so much to me. I couldn't remember their names, but they helped me get on the path and to know what to do when things started to happen.

So I was able to say thank you to someone that I've wanted to for 18 months. I feel like I'm on such a high and so grateful for them. I think she was surprised that I called, but they said it's wonderful to hear the success stories and it felt good to say thank you finally.

Souper Wednesday

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Portland Race for the Cure

I've been meaning to write this for a week now. I was invited to join a team to walk at the Portland Race for the Cure. The Portland one is the 3rd largest in the nation. A lady that my inlaws are friends with and that I know as well invited us to join her team to go walking together. My inlaw's neighbors are sisters of this lady, so she had about 20 people or more walking in our little group. Unfortunately, it was also the Primary program, so the girls went to church with Jason and I got downtown with my inlaws. My fil picked me up and went back to their house to walk to the bus with one of the other families.

We all had our shirts on with sweatshirts underneath since we were walking to the bus at 6:45am. They all had white supporter Komen shirts on while I wore my bright pink one to signify being a survivor. There were very few people on the bus on a Sunday morning, but slowly more and more people got on and there were like 4-5 more white Komen shirts joining us. We got into downtown and had to get off the bus because it was blocked by all of the runners that had just started the 5k run. I felt my heart go in my throat from seeing everyone running for the same reason and purpose.

Then we discovered the hard part. We had to cross that street to get to where we were meeting everyone in our group. We should have thought about it longer, but we didn't. So we got our courage up and attempted to dash across the street against all the people running. If you've never done it, just imagine trying to be a salmon swimming upstream against the current and you get the general idea.

We go to find our group and walk to the waterfront. There are literally thousands of people roaming around. We see that people are already lining up for the 1k walk which is what we signed up for, so we go and get in line. They have streets blocked off people to walk on and they had barriers all around them. For the 1k walk, we had to walk around all these barriers and I was able to get a peek at the starting line. I was walking with my inlaws and it's a good thing I'm so tall and wearing pink. They are short and wearing white so they blended right in with everyone else but they could see me right away if we got separated from each other. Our walk was on Naito Parkway and turned so that we ended the walk on the sea wall down past the Morrison or Burnside bridge. I lost count which one it was. At the end of the race, all the survivors were handed pink rose courtesy of SWMC. I was hoping to see someone I recognized, but I didn't. I looked around and could tell that I was one of the youngest people there with breast cancer. It was rather unsettling, but not too bad.

Once our walk was over, we wandered around the waterfront looking at everything. There were so many people there that it started to get claustraphobic. On the walk, it wasn't so bad. Even with all those people, you are all going in the same direction with the same purpose. Once it was over, it was people walking everywhere in every direction. I'm not crazy about crowds so I was trying to inwardly calm down. Once we got past a certain point, it was a little easier. I went to the Survivor tent and got a nice bag full of goodies and had a survivor picture taken behind the tent. I can't find my bib number, otherwise I could go online and buy a copy of it. But $10 for a 4x6 doesn't seem worth it. After checking all the sponsors's tents, we attempted to get back to the streets the buses were on. Again, a problem. By that point, the 5k walk had started. THAT'S the main event so many people were there for.

There were 46,000+ people preregistered and I think nearly 30,000 of them were in that walk. I heard later that one person said it took her 30 minutes just to get to the starting line! That's crazy!!! Thrilling but crazy. We got smart this time though. We tried to go around them. When that didn't work, we staggered our way across the street and did pretty well. All the buses were blocked by the 5k walk so we were stuck at the bus stop. Every few minutes, they would stop the walkers and allow the buses to go by. We waited at our bus stop for at least 25-40 minutes for a bus to come. Then we got on and waited a bit longer while more walkers went by.

All in all, it was a wonderful incredible experience. It was so comforting to be with so many people fighting against the same thing. It was also so sad how many people were there "In Memory" of people too. So many women have died from this disease, including friends of mine on the support board I go to.