Brain of F

Fearful Symmetry

2011-11-07T21:38:00.000-08:00

I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe in fate. But I also believe that events can occur randomly or by pure chance. I've never been the kind of person that placed faith in when or how certain events happened in my life, but recently the calendar has been difficult to ignore. Allow me to demonstrate:

My father was born on September 14th. My wife Krissy was born on September 20th.

Krissy passed away on May 14th. She was buried on May 20th.

My father died on his birthday, September 14th. He was buried on September 20th, also my wife's birthday.

That's a lot of 14's and 20's. That's a lot of tragic events coinciding with days that should have been joyful occasions. It's hard to ignore when you look at the calendar, and it makes me wonder if there is any meaning to it at all, or just a cruel set of circumstances that just happened to occur on days of personal importance. Either way, it's hard to accept.

I don't like to live my life marking the days that these kinds of things have occurred in my life. I've always chosen to live every single day as if it's a new day, with a new meaning. I don't dread these anniversaries, at least not yet, but the events are still so fresh in my mind I'm not completely sure how these associations will work come next year, or the year after, etc. Life is strange, wonderful, beautiful and confusing, and most of all unpredictable. Maybe I'll find comfort in the fact that two people I loved so much share so much in common after their passing. Time will only tell.

Remembering Dad

2011-09-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

I'm posting Dad's eulogy from his service, for anyone that wants to read, or just remember Dad through our words. This copy doesn't include the additions from my cousin Amber, who read it beautifully, but I think it's good enough. Thank you to everyone that came for his service and reception, I know Dad would have been so happy to see you all.

Frank was loved by many, and always known for his gentle demeanor, worth ethic and his love of the outdoors. And while he was a man of few words, there is much to be said about him by his friends and family. Those that loved him most have written dedications to Frank, and would like to share them now.

From his sister Pat
Frank was one of the best brothers you could have. He was very kind and gentle, despite being raised by four sisters. He was our baby brother which makes it so difficult to know he is no longer going to be with us. I know he will still be watching over us as he is visiting with the loved ones who went before him. He would be so proud to know how many people are here today, even though there is sadness in our hearts. We will never forget you!

From his wife Patrcia
Frank Lanza, my husband, lover and best friend was a simple man that spoke no ill word of anyone, gave to all and never asked for anything in return. Frank came into my life 13 years ago unconditionally, and with it came something that everyone should encounter in their life and that was an endless love, a love that went beyond anything possible to really find words for. Frank never left the house without saying he loved me and to have a good day. Frank taught me through the years we had together how to love and to love back which I have come to know as his is best virtue. Frank entered each day with tireless energy for his job, family, and friends. And even after the day was done he seemed to find time for me, or the yard or house. Anyone that knew Frank knew that is gardening and his yard was his favorite hobby. He used to say there is nothing better than fishing, camping, hunting or riding ATVs in the rivers and mountains of Colorado that he loved so much. Frank found great joy in our family and especially in our four grandchildren Coral, Camryn, Hannah, and David.

God has taken this great man from us but he leaves behind many great memories for each of us. Frank I know that you will always be there for me spiritually as I continue through life. The love you gave me will live in my heart forever and I will truly miss and love you. As I never use the words good bye, I will see you later as you now join mom, dad and Krissy. See you later my husband and best friend. I’ll love you dearly each and every day until we meet again.

From his son Joey
Dad was an extremely generous man. He always gave to us no matter what. We never lacked or went without, and always had an abundance. Even though he was so soft spoken, you could always count on him to be there when you needed him. Dad was very thoughtful and was always meeting other people's needs. He would go the extra mile to make things special, especially for us kids. He never missed a single baseball, basketball, or football game of mine, he was always involved in the things that were important to us. I always loved hearing him laugh, when he laughed he really went for it. He was a loving, kind, wonderful Dad who will be missed very much.

From his son Frankie
If you asked anyone that knew Dad to describe him, you’d undoubtedly hear something like “he was the most quiet, soft-spoken man I’ve ever met.” And that truly was Dad. Never first to speak, never big on long talks or sharing his feelings. But for me, it was always what Dad didn’t say, but what he did in life, that spoke the most. He’d never tell you what he had planned for the day, but you’d probably end up being treated to lunch or taken to Cripple Creek on the spur of the moment. And if you ever managed to make him really mad, like I did when I wrecked his work truck backing it down the drive way, then you got the dreaded eye-brow raise but never a harsh word. Trust me, the eyebrows were much worse than anything he could have ever said.

As much as Dad’s good nature and mild manner defined him, to me Dad will always be the example of what a hard working, loyal, honest and loving man should be. He was always there, no matter what you needed, and never expected to be re-payed or have the favor returned. Dad was simply a good man.

My best memories of Dad will always be of days spent at the shop, riding in the work trucks, or keeping pace with him on the jobsite back in my gutter hanging days. Everything I learned about being a man and about doing honest work I learned on those hot summer days. I also learned what it meant to be respected, because you never met a person that worked with Dad that didn’t have the utmost respect for him. And at the end of a long hard day, if you were lucky enough to be riding back with him, you probably got treated to a beer and a few good laughs. That’s what I’ll miss the most, the simple times spent with the man that didn’t need to say everything that was on his mind, but expressed every word in how he loved you.

Despite the suddenness of Dad’s passing, my sister Cesa gave me the best visual the other day. She imagined Krissy, enjoying her day up in heaven, and being pleasantly surprised when Dad showed up out of the blue. I can picture their reunion, and take comfort that two amazing angels are together and watching over us here on Earth. At least we know that he won’t talk her ear off.

I love you dad, and we’re all going to miss you.

The Reason Why?

2011-08-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

She had been broken. Hopes dashed, fears confirmed. When Krissy learned she had cancer and it's prescribed outcome, she ceased to be the person I had known for the past 10 years. The fighter, the spitfire, the sheer force of will had been diminished and replaced by uncertainty, pain and doubt. And who could expect otherwise? How would anyone respond when faced with their own imminent mortality? We all like to think we'll buckle down, grit our teeth and prepare for battle, but in reality that is very difficult even when faced with the fight for your very life. But this isn't to say Krissy laid down and failed respond to the challenge. Far from it. And this is where her final story begins, where she learned the meaning of her life and why she determined to rise up and face the challenge before her. These aren't my experiences, and I can only recount them second hand, but I hope to set it down as best as I can recall. Not just for Krissy, not just for you to read this mostly untold chapter of her life, but also so that I can try to gain some understanding for myself. So I can find some reason, justification, and meaning in the loss of my wife.

No journey can begin in darkness. No direction can be found without guidance. And in the beginning, after she was told her life would end, she was completely and utterly lost. Not only would she have to heal from a major surgery that would take up to three months to heal, she would also have to battle terminal cancer with a prognosis of only six months to live. How could anyone reconcile that when just weeks before she believed she was a healthy mother, wife and daughter. Of course she was lost. And she remained lost for many weeks, unsure of what path to take towards healing, or if there was any paths open to her at all. But I knew my wife, and I knew the fighter that lived within her, and I prayed that she could rekindle that spirit. But weeks came and went, and while her body healed its wounds and relearned how to nourish itself, she remained broken of mind and spirit. The holiday season was approaching and I feared that she wouldn't find the resolve to fight this battle. It finally changed one evening, during a visit with her mother, that after another day of struggles with nausea, vomiting, pain and depression, that Debi took her to church so she could pray for strength. I never learned exactly what happened that evening at church, but she returned a different person. She still had fears to overcome and battles to begin, but from that moment on she turned a corner and a big part of the Krissy we knew finally returned to us.

Krissy knew from the beginning that traditional cancer treatment was not her salvation. Chemo, at it's best, was only promised to gain her a few additional months of life with a much reduced quality of living. Prolonging the inevitable was the best they could offer, at a cost of hair loss, vomiting and excruciating pain. So she sought every alternative method of healing that could be found. But both mind and body had to be healed, so in addition to the natural treatments and supplements she would try she also needed care for her spirit. This was found in the amazing Paula Robbins, introduced to us via Aunt Connie. Paula was integral to Krissy's early battle to regaining her will and determination. I'm going to be intentionally vague and ignorant of the actual process that Paula employed with Krissy, as it was highly personal and emotionally difficult for Krissy to endure, so I did all I could do to support her and let her take this portion of the journey by herself. But after each session she was stronger and I could tell that her soul was mending, bit by bit. Paula taught Krissy how to look within herself and to find the damage that was being done and to understand how to use it to heal instead of hurt. Even after their sessions together ended, Krissy would employ what she learned to continue to understand the turn her life had taken.

However, understanding comes at a price. And sometimes even things we learn about ourselves cost more than we care to imagine. My personal belief is that this is what Krissy learned one day as she reflected upon her cancer and why she was suffering so greatly. She had learned to enter a very deep state of reflection as she meditated on these questions. One afternoon, besought by depression and confusion, she sat alone and asked "Why is this happening to me?"again and again, as she sunk further into her meditations. And as she asked and prayed, this is what she told me she saw.

Our youngest daughter, Camryn, did not have the easiest beginning to her life. Before she was born we discovered she had a hole in her heart. At three months old she contracted a nearly fatal kidney infection, which recurred just two months later. After constant eye infections due to a blocked tear duct she finally had surgery to clear it up, and by this time we'd had our fill of seeing her poked and prodded by doctors. As a parent, it's one of the most helpless feelings in the world. You would do anything to make them better. And on that afternoon as Krissy meditated on her own illness, it was Camryn that came to her in that vision. Only two years old at the time, and at daycare, appeared to her.

Krissy described the experience she had that afternoon to me only once, but I will never forget it. Camryn, who should have been napping at the time, appeared before Krissy in her vision and cried out "Hi Mommy!" Krissy spoke back to her, and they had the regular two-year old version of "how was your day" until Krissy began to ask her what she was going. Cam would only reply, "I love you Mommy, I'm ok Mommy." Several more times Cam assured her that she was ok, and that she loved her, before she turned and waved and said "Bye Mommy, I have to go now, I love you!" And at this point Krissy came out of her meditation in tears, but finally assured that she had received the answer to the question she'd been asking for months: why is this happening to me? And for Kris, the answer was clear, she'd asked God to allow her to take away her baby's pain and suffering and ills and to let her take them on herself, and whether or not she could bear the burden and survive, this was what had been done. She had given what any parent believed they would, she had given her life for the health of her child's. And Camryn knew it, and told her everything was ok now, thanks to her mother's love.

I don't know God's plan. I don't claim to understand Him, or how he works in our lives, or if he would even do such a thing. But, Kris believed this was her bargain to ensure that her baby could live happy and healthy and on some level she accepted that. She still agonized over her cancer and the pain and remained resolved to do everything she could to beat the disease, but I think she found some peace in what she saw that day. I still don't know how I truly feel about it, but it's haunted me ever since, and in my own struggle to understand the how's and why's of Krissy's death it's the only thing I can anchor my sanity onto. If my wife had to die, if I had to lose her so quickly and early in our lives, does the fact she died to protect our child make it alright? I don't know, but I can accept it based on the fact that I would have done the same thing and had even asked for as much in my own prayers, just as I had asked God to let me take on Krissy's sickness. I think anyone who knows real love would do the same.

I know there are those that may not believe that God would work in such a way, or that this has anything to do with why Krissy had cancer and died from it. I question it every single day. All I can say is that I have two beautiful girls left as a legacy of the wonderful person that Krissy was. Camryn has barely had so much as a cold since that day, and even when everyone in the house is knocked out with a cold or the flu, Cam is rarely affected. She's rolled down a flight of stairs without a scratch. Every day I wonder if her mother's protection is real, that she must truly be her guardian angel. It's a comforting thought in a time when I can still find little comfort in her loss. Every parent would give their own life for their child's, but if ever presented with this challenge I doubt many could face it with as much courage as Krissy did.

Twenty Questions, Zero Answers

2011-07-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

Can you believe how fast our girls have grown?

What is heaven like?

How the hell do I braid hair?

Are you proud of us?

Why didn't we think to record your voice?

How do I remember how to live for myself?

Did you know that we'd be ok?

When did you know you were going to die?

What am I not remembering?

How did you make it all look so easy?

Is it ok if I try to forget some of the bad parts now?

Could things have been different?

Did we choose the right path?

Can Cam really see you?

Where did you hide those papers I've been looking for?

Why didn't you try harder?

Was that you playing with the sprinklers at the cemetery?

Do you think I'll ever find it again?

Was there anything you didn't get to say?

Why did God need to take you away?

From the Mouths of Babes

2011-06-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Last night we were treated to dinner at a friend's house, and on the car ride home Cam asked me "Why wasn't Mommy there tonight?" I wanted to answer, but I'm also trying to figure how how my little girl is understanding things, so I asked her, "Where do you think she is tonight?". Here's how the conversation went from there:

"She's in Heaven daddy"

"You're right honey, she's in Heaven."

"Why did Mommy die?"

And that last question really got me. She's never asked this before, and I didn't know she was already thinking about Krissy's absence in relation to death. I really didn't know how to answer, but I thought if she's processing like this already, then I should be honest. I explained what cancer was, and Mommy was very sick with it, and she just couldn't stay alive anymore so God took her to Heaven so she could rest. She then wanted to know why God took Mommy. I hope this made sense to her and that she'll understand it later, but he took Mommy because she was a good person and so she could rest in Heaven while she watched over us.

Cam was quiet for a minute and I knew she was filing it all way into that brilliant little brain of hers. Finally she asked, "Is that why you cry for Mommy?" Boy, nothing gets by this kid. Yes, I told her, that is why I cry, because I miss her and wish she was here with us instead of being in Heaven, but I'm glad she is not sick anymore. Again, a break to process, and then she wrapped it up with "I love you Daddy" which of course made me cry.

Every single day these girls amaze me with their personalities, their intelligence, their strength, and their perfect little hearts. Although I didn't want to do it alone, I'm incredibly thankful that I can raise them to be such wonderfully good people. And every so often, one of them will completely blow my mind on a simple car ride home.

Post Disney Wrap Up

2011-04-17T20:00:00.001-07:00

Well I'm a few days behind on posts, and now we are finally back home in beautiful Colorado Springs. We had an amazing time at Disney World but it also feels really nice to be sitting in my own bed. Since I wasn't able to post Friday or Saturday, here's a quick recap.

A few oddities and interesting things I saw during the trip:

I watched a very beautiful blonde woman sniff her armpits in the middle of the Animal Kingdom food court. Guess she was getting into character.
There was a talent search going on at our hotel all week. I've never seen so many 13 year olds in stiletto heels in my life. It was pretty disturbing.
Cam's cuteness almost made Cinderella cry. True story.
Bras are apparently optional in the Magic Kingdom. They should make them a park requirement.
You can eat seafood at Sea World. Is this what happens to the old attractions?

On Friday we decided to trek back to the Magic Kingdom and knock out the few rides we didn't have time for earlier in the week. I got a leisurely start to the day and finished off the Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and Philharmagic 3D show. Cam made best friends with a sweet family on the Peter Pan ride, and was able to distract a 17 year old boy from his girlfriend for a good thirty minutes. When we parted ways he asked for a high five and knuckles, which she happily provided, and then astounded him when she "blew up" the knuckles at the end. This kid was seriously impressed with her knucks skills and relayed this to his girlfriend, who by this time was less than impressed.

We didn't plan on spending all day at the Magic Kingdom so after we finished off the rides we really wanted to see we headed back to the hotel to rest up and then went to Downtown Disney for dinner and a little shopping. Downtown Disney is pretty much what it sounds like, a long strip of restaurants, gift shops and entertainment like movies and arcades. We'd seen these gift shops a dozen times and only stopped for any length of time at the Lego store, Worlds of Disney (which was freaking huge and had a princess boutique for the little girls to get done up as their favorite princess) and the Art of Disney where Cori picked out a nice print of Jasmin for her room. We then dined at Raglan Road, a fantastic Irish pub style restaurant. I was long overdue for a beer by this point of the vacation and enjoyed an excellent Irish ale called Smithwicks. We then proceeded to eat ourselves stupid with the incredible fare being served. I had the most amazing shepherd's pie I've ever eaten followed by some scrumptious bread and butter pudding. By this point I was in a walking food coma and it was past 11pm so we found our bus back to the hotel and crashed.

Saturday's plan was to use up our dining plan meals at the nicer restaurants at Epcot and see the rest of the countries we'd missed our first time through. Cori also got her chance to get pictures with her favorite princess, Jasmin. I was glad we were able to do this for her since the majority of the trip we'd tried to do events for the whole family or for Camryn. Cori was awesome on this trip and I was happy to indulge her this day. We walked half the concourse and had lunch in Italy at Tutto Italia. Again, super fantastic food, and again, walking food coma so it was time for a break and naps before we came back and did it again for dinner. On our return trip Cori picked the Marrakesh in Morocco for dinner. We went 3 for 3 for food comas. I had a plate of couscous with lamb shank that was just absolutely delicious. As good as it was, the food wasn't the highlight of the evening. This came in the form of a bellydancer that entertained everyone during our meal. No, although the dancer was hot, the true spotlight was stolen by your's truly, Camryn Bean. The dancer invited all the kids onto the to the little stage and she had them follow her moves. At first, Cam hesitated and wouldn't go up on stage, but finally she decided to give it a go. Instead of the joining the other kids she walks right up next to the dancer and starts doing twirls and spins like she's the star of the show. We had a great laugh at this kid and was once again amazed at how crazy Cam is. We finished dinner, managed to catch the fireworks show at the end of the evening and bid Disney's parks farewell.

Today we finally made the journey home. It was a long day of travel and now we're all tucked into bed and trying to get used to the idea of going back to our old routines again. I think Cori is actually kind of excited to go back to school, she's dying to tell all her friends about the trip. I'm not exactly dying to go back to work but some normalcy will be nice.

In thinking about the past nine days I'm left with a few strong impressions of Disney. After seeing firsthand just how well they do this theme park thing, and how they handle their brand as a whole over all, you can't help but be impressed. Disney knows exactly what your kids want, how you want to get it, and how to make it as easy and immersive as possible to provide it to you. For a price of course! But compared to our experiences with Universal and Seaworld, no one does it like Disney. After you see Disney World in action you can't help but be very impressed by the the whole production or maybe a little scared at just how good they are at making spending your money as painless as possible. I'd definitely come back here, and in fact have already planned the next trip in my head for a few years down the road. Maybe next time we can come with more familiy. Cam will be taller and we can enjoy more attractions together. I'll know to avoid certain parks or rides and focus on what is fun or new.

My only wish, and personal disappointment, was that Krissy wasn't here to enjoy all this with us. I know for a fact she was indeed watching from above, but this was really her trip, and I so wanted her to be able to make it. She had planned and booked all of this over two years ago and we had still intended to go even after we learned she had cancer last year. But, the trip was scheduled for last June and unfortunately she never got the chance. I initially cancelled the trip last summer and after kicking it around, decided to take the trip just as she had planned it and we'd go for Cori's birthday. I'm very glad we did. And although every single moment of these past nine days were pure fun and enjoyment, I did still have that bittersweet pang of sadness that she wasn't here with us, laughing and experiencing these moments at my side. I've been thanking her every day for her wisdom and guidance with this trip and there's no way I could have done this myself. I hope she got a kick out of Cam's antics, I know most of Orlando did.

Well I think it's time for me to turn in, I'm pooped and I don't even want to think about unpacking. Tomorrow it's back to the grind!

G'night!

Disney - Day Six

2011-04-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

Wow, six days have already flown by here at Orlando, it's really been a whirlwind so far. Only three more days to go before we head home to colorful Colorado. It's been a ton of fun out here but I'll be ready for my own bed by the time this trip is over. Plus my piggies are tired! My daily life as a desk jockey did nothing to prep me for walking all over Florida.

Today we planned on exploring the watery wonderland of Sea World. We were successful for the most part, but our non-stop pace finally caught up with us today. More specifically, we found that Camryn is not the Incredible Bionic Bean she tries to be and every so often she needs a good recharge.

We did get a good early start on our day at Sea World and when we arrived we had just enough time to get our bearings before we had to grab a seat at Shamu Stadium. I've never been to Sea World and was really looking forward to finally seeing these whales in person. The girls were equally excited to see everything, I think Cori was really looking forward to today the most, she really loves whales and dolphins. We managed to get a great seat in the "Soak Zone", so pretty close to the tank, and settled in for the show. The stage, or tank, for the show is pretty cool, with huge moving video screens that set up the event with some Hollywood style imagery. You can just see the killer whales warming up behind the scenes and you get a great look at the trainers before everything kicks off. Right now, they must be in between preparing for shows, as we weren't getting a full performance but more of a practice run for what they have lined up at the beginning of summer. Just before the show started we were informed that a baby killer whale had been born today, for only the 27th time in Sea World history. That was kinda cool!

During the wait for the show to start Cam did what she does best and made a few new friends. We sat next to a nice British gentleman who kindly shared half his caramel corn with her until he remembered that he should probably let his own kids have some too. Then the whales finally came out to play and we were treated to a twenty minute display of just how amazing and smart these whales are. Jumping, splashing, twisting an even acting, they put on a very entertaining show before the big attraction, Shamu, was brought out for the finale. Shamu is noticeably larger than the other whales, and he (she?) proved it as the crowd chanted his name over and over. Finally it was time to see why it's called the Soak Zone. Shamu cupped that giant tail and laid waste to the first 25 rows all over the stadium. No joke, this whale was absolutely drenching people. Cameras and backpacks were frantically shoved under shirts and towels as the big orca continued to pound the crowd. We managed to miss the worst of the assault but still walked away a little wet and extremely amused.

As we walked out, I couldn't help but think that for all the amenities Sea World provides for these animals and I have no doubt they treated as humanely as possible, that these powerful creatures shouldn't be pent up in a tank and doing tricks for treats. I guess in a way they might be better off, protected from whatever dangers they might face in the wild, but they are so beautiful and mysterious, I just feel like we've taken something away from them with all the spectacle. Or maybe I'm being overly dramatic. Meh.

After Shamu we hit the Happy Harbor which consisted of a bunch of very kiddie rides. We indulged Bean on a few and then moved on to the rest of the park. Unfortunately by this time we were all more tired than we thought we'd be, and Cam actually asked if we could find our bus and head home. I didn't push it, so we had lunch (I'm still sore from the $35 burger/fries raping) then walked through the shark tunnel attraction, the manta ray aquarium and tried to see the dolphins but they were on break for another hour. We had one really neat highlight of the day when we stumbled on the Stingray Lagoon on our way out. It was kind of like a huge kiddie pool full of rays swimming around. You could buy fish to feed them and they swam in a huge loop begging for food and attention. I thought it was really fun and Cam got a kick out of petting the rays as they swept past us. They'd swim right up to the edge and slap the sides with their fins so you could high five them as they went around. Pretty cute, and really entertaining. I tried to get Cori to ride the huge rollercoaster before we left but she wasn't having it. I'll get her on a coaster before we come home, I swear it

After this we made our way back to the hotel and all took naps for a few hours. I managed to get a load of laundry done while Bean slept the afternoon away. By the time she woke up it was dinner time so we decided to take another shot at attending Fantasmic over at Hollywood Studios. I really wanted to see this and we had a nice big window available. So we hopped a bus, ate a quick dinner and made it to the amphitheater with about 70 minutes to spare. And we were just in time, the huge arena was already half full. We found a seat fairly close to the front and hunkered down for a long wait. During the wait, Cam made friends with some more Brits, two teenage girls behind us and ended up eating half of their cotton candy. At the rate this kid was pilfering food from strangers I wouldn't have to feed her for the rest of the trip. They even took their picture with her. You can probably feel my head shaking in Colorado by now. Finally the show started and we were glued to our seats the entire time. I'm very glad we decided to come back for Fantasmic, it was truly spectacular and dripping with Disney goodness. Live action Mickey, fireworks, huge fire breathing dragons, what's not to love!

After the show we hopped a very full bus back to the hotel. Bean made more friends with a cute family on the ride back. I think we have a pool date before we leave, I'm not quite sure. They had a daughter named Millie and she was having a great time talking to Cam and comparing their pretty hair-do's. We bid farewell at the bus stop and Bean chalked up another handful of fans. As I write we're all showered and relaxing before bedtime. Cam just informed me it's 90 30 o'clock and that I need to come to bed, so I'm calling it a wrap. Tomorrow is a free day, so maybe we hit the pool, or maybe Magic Kingdom again, or maybe Downtown Disney. Kids choice!

G'night!

Disney - Day Five

2011-04-13T19:40:00.001-07:00

Man, my feet hurt. I haven't done this much walking since the Walk for Mankind when I was 12. But Disney World waits for no man, sore feet or not, so we woke up bright and early once again, strapped on our tennis shoes and marched off for combat against the epic Epcot theme park. I herded my little soldiers off to the bus stop and we began another awesome day here in beautiful Orlando.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet has been the weather. Or maybe the lack of it. Since we arrived last Friday it's been consistently sunny, clear, windless and about 88 degrees every single day. The only exception so far was yesterday afternoon when we had clouds for a few hours in the afternoon. So I have to say it's been incredibly nice for our days at Disney.

Today was Epcot day for the Lanza family and I decided it was best to keep my expectations in check. There aren't a lot of rides in the traditional sense at this park but it seemed like there was a ton of stuff to see, so I was excited and hopeful there would be enough to keep the kids entertained. My first impressions after leaving the bus and seeing that gigantic shining golf ball was "Cool!" We hopped on the Spaceship Earth ride right off the bat and had a great time with the interactive portions of the event, especially the part where the photoshopped mine and Cori's head onto futuristic outfits for everyone in the entire place to see. Very fun indeed! The ride also emailed us a copy of all this entertainment so we'll have some virtual memories to savor as well. That seemed to be the overall theme for Epcot: interactivity. Pretty much everything we did today we were also able to take a part in either during or after the ride, which we all found very fun. Cam had a blast after the Seas with Nemo and Friends and the Journey into Imagination rides. There was a really cute light activated music room and Bean was sprinting around making the floor light up and playing music.

One really entertaining event, at least for me, was the Captain EO 3D movie. It wasn't necessarily even good, but I got a kick out of it for sure. It was the original 3D sci-fi flavored movie with Michael Jackson from 1986. I have no idea if it's been playing continuously in Epcot since then but they gave this movie a lot of hype and build-up before you're ushred into the 3D theater to watch a 20 minute flick with Thriller style dancing, little to no plot and sub-Star Wars special effects. All the same, I thought it was awesome. Cori was less than impressed and I'm not sure Cam watched more than five minutes of it. Dang spoiled 21st century kids. When I was their age this thing would have been a blockbuster! 3D without red and blue glasses? That was like the future man!

My personal highlight of the day was not Captain EO, but Epcot Character Spot. Basically a big room with all the main Disney characters set up at photo stations for the kids, this proved to be a regular laugh riot with Camryn on hand. To start off, we'd been in line for about two minutes before she made best friends with the mother and 18 year old daughter standing behind us. We were all on first name basis by the time we even saw Mickey, we wished Abigail (the daughter) a happy birthday, and they even hung around to watch Cam get her pictures taken with the characters. Yes, it was that entertaining. We were able to spend quality time with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald and Goofy. All were sucked into the inescapable vortex of Cam's charisma and ended up holding up the line of crying and impatient children so they could talk to her. She squeezed their noses, complimented their eyelashes, high-fived, hugged and even danced with all of them. Cori and I were in stitches, along with our new best friends, and I was almost sad to see the end of the photo line.

We had planned on attempting the World Showcase today but by the time we hit Canada it was after 5:30 and we were running out of steam. We reversed course, had a quick dinner at a nice Mexican spot and made our way out of the park. Oh, before we left the restaurant Cam had made two more new best friends, an elderly couple here from Texas with family in Colorado. Yes, they revealed all of this to a three year old while I pretty much just stood there and shook my head. They were enjoying her company so much they ended up being late to meet their own grandchildren. Again, just shaking my head.

Overall I found Epcot to be the most beautiful and well planned of the parks we've seen so far. Everything was flowering or covered in foliage, with spectacular fountains and waterways everywhere. It was very visually appealing all around, I really enjoyed just looking about and being surprised by the details and beauty at every turn. Plus the futuristic and technological slant was very well done even for being slightly dated. If I had to rate it, I'd give it four out of five unicorns.

Bean fell asleep on the bus ride home again, so we spent some time in the room then hit the pool for a very quick dip after she woke up. We're now winding down and preparing for a big day at Sea World tomorrow. I also think we'll go back to Epcot on Saturday to finish the World Showcase and maybe have a nice dinner there. I may have to hire a booking agent to handle all of Cam's appearance requests by the time we leave here.

G'night!

Disney - Day Four

2011-04-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Ah, Day Four at Disney. Already our new routine is feeling, well, pretty routine and we're getting cleaned up, dressed and out the door in record time. Today we had a slightly later start since we got to bed pretty late last night. Today we decided to lay siege to Disney Hollywood Studios before our big birthday dinner for Cori at 1900 Park Fair restaurant. Hair was done, sunscreen was applied and made our way to the bus stop for another day of intrigue and adventure.

I had consulted the maps of Hollywood Studios last night to try and prep our day and found that there just didn't seem to be all that much available. Probably enough to keep us busy for most of the day but nothing that really screamed "MUST DO!" Maybe the Indiana Jones stunt show, definitely Fantasmic if we could time it right, but other than that I decided we'd just play our day by ear.

We arrived at the park and after being greeted by the awesome and gigantic Mickey wizard hat we made our first stop at the Voyage of the Little Mermaid live show. It was roughly 20 minutes, and was cute for the kids, but was just a semi-live action rehash of the movie. I had hoped for some original material rather than stuff Cam and I have watched 267 times already. That's an exact figure for those of you at home. The wait plus the show got us right up to lunch time so we took a break for grub and then made our way over to the big stage to watch Beauty and the Beast performed musical style. It was very well done and entertained us all, but again it was another rehash of the movie. Doesn't Disney have any side stories to tell with these characters? Perhaps Ariel sings a song about her new found toes, or we get a look at Gaston five years later as he battles alcoholism and a beer gut. Or maybe not. I guess that's why they stick to what works...

It was getting close to being time to leave for us to make dinner at Park Fair, so we rushed through two more "rides" which I would have been perfectly happy to have missed. The first was "The Great Movie Ride!" which sounded, um, great, so we hopped on. Turns out it was pretty boring and filled with cheese, recapping scenes from classic movies performed by animatronics and then filled in with our tour guide and another actor that tried to play an old west cowboy but could barely cover up his Australian accent. Nice try puadnah. This ride hasn't been updated with any "classics" since about 1980 so more than half the group was totally bored. If any of these kids knew who James Cagney was I'd have given them a dollar. Once it was over we filled our last half hour with Journey into Narnia: Prince Caspian. Sadly the journey only consisted of standing in line, then being shuffled into a big room where we all stood packed together while an extended trailer for a three year old movie played, then we were let out of the room and shown about five props before hitting the street. So far Hollywood Studios wasn't blowing me away. But we were going to come back later in the evening to pick up where we left off so we bid farewell for now.

It was time to hop a bus to the Grand Floridian resort for dinner. We arrived to an absolutely gorgeous, stately and imposing hotel. We had time to walk the grounds for about 30 minutes before dinner and I was very impressed by the place. I wouldn't mind staying there if we come back. Plus it has the super spiffy monorail service to the Magic Kingdom. That's a huge bonus in my book!

After a quick family picture it was finally time for dinner at 1900 Park Fair for Cori's birthday. This was another character filled extravaganza, with the crew from Cinderella along for the ride this evening. The restaurant is perfect for kids being buffet style, and there were plenty of dishes to choose from. During dinner we were greeted by the Wicked Stepmother and the two step-sisters, Anastasia and Drizella. They were a lot of fun, and Anastasia sat down with us and had a little chat with Bean. I almost expected her to finish dinner with us but the Bean magic released her back to her duties. We enjoyed our dinner, I enjoyed a very strong alcoholic drink, then Cori was treated to nice chocolate birthday cake and we were also served a ridiculously huge platter of ice cream. I left feeling way too full and we reluctantly made our way to the bus station.

We ended up making it back to Hollywood Studios only 45 minutes before Fantasmic was scheduled to begin and by this point it was already standing room only. I guess you need to be there about 90 minutes early to get a good seat. There was no way we'd make it through the show standing with so many people on full bellies and a quickly fading three year old, so we took a final walk through the park and then headed home. We had planned a night of swimming at our hotel but Cam fell asleep about 2 minutes before we stopped, so we came back to the room and called it a night. She woke up about ten minutes ago all angry that we can't go swimming now. This girl likes to party! Hopefully I can make it up to her with a day at Epcot tomorrow and some swimming when we get home.

Once again, I'd like to wish my Munchkin a very happy birthday and I hope she enjoyed herself. I sure wish we'd have had Krissy with us today but I know for a fact she's been watching our adventures very closely. She'd probably have some planning tips for me but she knows I always fly by the seat of my pants. We were all thinking of her today. Love you babe!

G'night!

Disney - Day Three

2011-04-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

Here we are at the end of Day Three. Today was spent not at Disney World but at Universal Studios. Our primary mission was to take in the Harry Potter attraction and everything else at the park was secondary. We succeeded on both objectives, but I think we suffered a bit of Magic Kingdom letdown. After the amazing day we had yesterday I knew it would be a tough act to follow.

By leaving the friendly confines of the Disney grounds, this meant we had to find our own transportation, meals and anything else today. We caught a taxi to the park and suffered through the ticket line to get our passes, then hit the park. After you walk past all of the themed restaurants, theaters and 10am margarita stands the first thing you see is the Incredible Hulk rollercoaster towering above the walkway. We entertained ourselves with the screams of grown men and women before hitting the Marvel Comics themed area of the park. This was a bit of a surprise and guilty pleasure for me, I had completely forgotten that all this Marvel stuff existed at Universal so the kids had to indulge me as I wandered into the gift shops and got our pictures taken with Spider-Man and the other costumed characters wandering about. A cashier at one shop foolishly offered me 10% off if I could name all the characters on a t-shirt of his choosing. I crushed his little quiz and took my discount. If only he knew the Galactus levels of comic book geekery he was messing with! Unfortunately Cam was too short to go on the Spider-Man Daily Bugle ride so we did a little more shopping and then moved on. As much as I loved the Marvel stuff, my first impression of Universal was "expensive."

The comic strip portion of the park wasn't all that great and was really just in our way, then we trudged through the Jurassic Park area since once again Bean was too short to ride anything but the Pterodactyl ride and it was an hour wait. No thanks! Thankfully Harry Potter and Hogsmeade awaited us after walking past a few dozen dino-themed eateries and gift shops.

The reproduction of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, at least on the outside, is outstanding. It's truly amazing to behold just how cool this looks as you're walking up to it. Unfortunately, once you get into the park there's not much too it. Hogsmeade is lined with stores from the Harry Potter universe and you can browse places such as Honeydukes, Dervish and Bangles, Olivander's Wand Shop and Zonko's. Olivander's is really neat. After a lengthy wait to get into the store, they put on a ten minute "wizard choosing" where a child is selected at random and they go through an act similar to the movie where a wand chooses the lucky kid. After that you're smartly ushered into the shop to buy a replica wand of your very own. Did I mention this place was expensive?

Outside of the shops about all there is left of Hogsmeade is the Three Broomsticks restaurant. We decided to make our pit stop here and ordered some semi-authentic Harry Potter fare. I do have to say the butter beer and pumpkin juice was very tasty. Cori wants to go back just for the butter beer. Like everything else at Universal the lunch was again, very expensive. We ate and drank our fill and moved along to see what wonders Hogwarts held for us.

Unfortunately, Hogwarts turned out to be a bit of a bust. For as beautiful and imposing the place is from the outside, all they have on the inside is a kid of indoor rollercoaster that once again Cam was too short for, and a gift shop with more expensive goodies inside. I had expected at least a bit of exploring or set pieces to be available but that was it. Thankfully we were able to ride the little Hippogriff rollercoaster outside Hagrid's shack, somehow Camryn was tall enough to ride this one but not much else. It moved fairly fast and had some great drops and turns, and being her first rollercoaster I wasn't sure what to expect, but pretty much the instant the cart stopped she looked at me and said "let's ride again Daddy!" So we did! After wearing this ride out we were again disappointed by the Dragon Challenge's height requirements and decided to bid Harry Potter farewell and make our way out of the park.

On our way out we passed by the Poseidon's Fury attraction and since it had virtually no wait time we headed in. The attendant gave Bean a look and warned me that it was "dark, noisy and scary" inside and I told her that she'd love it then. The "ride", if you want to call it that, was ok, they set it up pretty well with actors and neat sets, but the super cheesy 80's special affects in the big finale kinda ruined it for us, with Cori giving it a big eyeroll. At that point we figured our our day at Universal was done. We ended up catching a few little rides at the Dr. Seuss portion of the park and then made our way home. It had been over 90 degrees all day and we were a little worn out.

After naps and showers we settled on dinner here at the hotel and all decided on an evening in to recharge for another big day tomorrow. I think we'll give Disney Hollywood Studios a shot before we head to the very fancy 1900 Park Fair restaurant for Cori's birthday dinner with a cast of Disney Characters. She's really excited for this and I hope she enjoys it, she really deserves something special for being such an awesome kid.

The kids are snoring and it's probably time I join them. Maybe after I read a chapter or two. Hey, I'm still on Colorado time, the night is young!

G'night!

Disney - Day Two

2011-04-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

During our second day at Disney World I had some time to reflect and make some observations. I've noticed some strange and interesting things, such as:

Ice Cream and funnel cakes are perfectly acceptable as breakfast foods.
Good looking women with sloppy, fat men: is it love, money, or attraction to fat sloppy men? I'm very confused on this one.
If you don't believe in evolution I can prove you wrong. After viewing a large sample of the human population, I've seen the Missing Link. Several times.
It's impossible to tell a 12 year old girl from a 19 year old girl. This is terrifying on many levels.
There is still a great need for Stretch Pants and Short Shorts licenses in this country.

For Day Two at Disney World the Lanza Clan decided to take on the Magic Kingdom. I'm glad we waited until the second day for this park because I'm not sure anything can compare to this for sheer Disneyness, and I'd have hated to feel let down after our first day. As it was, the Magic Kingdom lived up to it's name and then some, we all had an absolute blast today. From the minute you walk through the front gates and see Main Street USA, to your first view of Cinderella's Castle, to the shows, parades, rides and shopping, this place is non-stop fun and entertainment. I can truly say we were constantly engaged for the entire 10 hours we spent here today. This was exactly what I expected from Disney World.

I really can't detail everything we did today, but I'll provide a few highlights. Cori was kind of scared on the Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion rides, and Camryn told her to "Don't be such a wuss." We all loved the jungle cruise, the live Dreams show in front of the castle, and we all agreed Pinocchio's restaurant sucked. There's no excuse for making crappy mac & cheese. Fantasy Land is by far the most fun of all the areas in the park. And we all thought the Tea Cups are super fun even though I wanted to barf several times before the ride was over.

However I have to share two great highlights from today with you. I know I'm going to cherish these as two of my best memories of this trip so far. The first was a quicky, but caught me by surprise, and I was so happy it worked out the way it did. We decided to check out the TomorrowLand area before figuring out a dinner plan. We were a little bummed that Cam wasn't tall enough for the Stitch's Great Escape ride (two measly inches!) and Cori wasn't up for attempting Space Mountain on her own, so we settled on the TomorrowLand Speedway. It's basically a big go-kart track on rails, you can control the gas but it pretty much steers itself. Cam could ride with me and Cori got her own car. I got into our kart and slipped behind the steering wheel, looked at the setup and thought, why am I driving this thing? I asked if Cam could drive and got the go-ahead. I stuck the runt behind the steering wheel and stepped on the gas. Even though this thing was on rails you could still steer a little bit left and right, and this proved to be the most fun we had on a ride all day. Cam was giggling hysterically at her control of the car, I was laughing at our drunken master style of driving as she slammed us back and forth, and Cori was tailing us and laughing at the entire scene. Add to that the fact Cori rear ended us three times in a kart that goes about 4 mph and we must have looked like quite the crew. By the time we finished this ride we were all so upbeat we knocked out a few more rides before heading to dinner.

Dinner turned out to another clinic in Camryn Magic. We're eating off of the Disney meal plan here, meaning we have prepaid for so many snacks, fast food and restaurant meals each day. The first two are easy to find and use up, but the restaurant, or "table service" meals are harder since most of the restaurants require a reservation. The best one in the Magic Kingdom is Cinderella's Royal Table. Inside of the big castle, featuring the four main princesses in person, this is every little, and probably big, girl's dream dinner at Disney World. Not quite knowing this at the start, I asked the hostesses if they had any openings for dinner and was told only if there was a cancellation, so basically fat chance, but I could try back later. Fair enough, so we checked out a few of the souvenir shops and I asked one more time. This is where the Cam Magic kicked in. As I'm asking the hostess about other table service restaurants around the park since there were no cancellations, Bean is chatting up the other hostess and being her usual irresistible self. This goes on for a few minutes, after which I'm now told if I can hang out for about 10 minutes they'll let me know if anything opens up. Interesting. We take a seat and watch about thirty people ask the hostesses for openings and they are all turned away. Seven minutes later, we are beckoned by Cam's new best friend and given a ticket to head inside and get our pictures taken with Cinderella and then head to our table for dinner. I look at Cam, shake my head and laugh. Whatever this kid has, I need to bottle it and sell it for $49.95 a pop. Dinner was incredibly fun, definitely a memory I'll cherish forever, and I hope the girls will too. As Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel and Belle passed our table, each were sucked in by Bean's gravitational pull and spent the most time chatting at our table. Ariel even nicknamed her Camryn Berry. They're like best buddies now. We all ate too much and left with huge grins on our faces. Thanks Cam!

That was pretty much it for Day Two. We took the bus home, another quick dip in the pool, showers, and now bedtime. Tomorrow we take on Universal Studios and Harry Potter. I hope they're ready for us!

G'night!

Disney World! - Day One

2011-04-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Lanza family has arrived at Disney World. We've been waiting so long to make this trip and we're finally here! And what an adventure it's been so far. Should I have expected anything less?

Unfortunately this trip got off to a shaky start yesterday. We were set to fly out of Colorado Springs at 8:30am but due to some high winds around town and crummy weather in our connecting city of Chicago we didn't even get into the air until 11:00am. Yeah, an extra 90 minutes in the airport and then sitting on the runway for an hour with a 3 year old was a blast. But thankfully we did finally take off and all was well. Thank god for movies on the laptop! However by the time we made it to Chicago we missed our connecting flight and had to sit around for another two hours to make the next flight out to Orlando. At last, at 8:00pm Orlando time, we walked off the plan to beautiful 85 degree weather and the Disney Magical Express awaiting our arrival.

We are staying at the Coronado Springs hotel on the outskirts of the Animal Kingdom part here at DW. This hotel is amazing, so huge and sprawling, lush green trees, ponds and swimming pools everywhere. There's one right outside our door! We got settled in our room and had a late dinner in the hotel. Getting used to eastern time wasn't easy for the kids and we didn't all get to sleep until almost 10:30 last night. To no one's surprise we didn't awake at the crack of dawn this morning.

For our first day of Disney festivities we decided to start off at the Animal Kingdom since we're right here already. The bus stop to the park was just a short walk outside our door so we waited at the bus stop. By the time we got off the bus, which was maybe a 15 minute ride, Camryn had already made about five new friends, all adults, and had half the bus wishing her a good time on her first trip to Disney. This kid should run for president someday. After the pleasantries ended we got to work on tackling our first park. We began the day in DinoLand USA. I had assumed this would be a hit with the kids with all the fun interactive activities available, but the random growling and chirping of the beasts kind of freaked Cam out. Yes, the kid that loves zombies and vampires was scared of dinosaur bones. So we made our visit to Dinoland shorter than I had planned. It worked out fine anyway since she was too short for the Dinosaur ride and Cori wanted to check out the Finding Nemo musical. This went over much better and we all had a great time. The show is really neat, with costumed actors carrying around giant character props they controlled like puppets, while still playing the role themselves too. It's kinda hard to visualize, but they pulled it off really well.

After the cuteness of Nemo we moved onto the Asia portion of the park for lunch. Even for a semi-fictional version of places like Nepal, Tibet, it was very beautiful and felt authentic. Authentic enough that I wanted to wash my hands frequently as we walked around. We got to see a really cool tiger exhibit where they are actually out and about as opposed to our zoo at home, then some crazy nasty giant bats, and finally watching a few minutes of the giant Everest rollercoaster that we couldn't ride before we moved onto the Africa section of the park. Africa felt even more authentic since it was about two-thousand degrees this afternoon and we were getting sweaty and tired. We took a break and rode Rafiki's train out to the nature reserve they have set up here and got to pet some animals before we decided it was time to head back to the hotel for some rest.

On our journey back we decided to make one last side trek to Camp Minnie-Mickey to see what was happening. I'm very glad we ventured down this path as it ended up being the most entertaining part of my day. They were having character meet and greet opportunities and Cam was all excited. We decided on Minnie Mouse and got in line. Of course, as soon as we step into line Minnie had to take a break to "water the flowers". This is their wording, not mine, and I hope it was not literal. She came back after about ten minutes of watering and eventually Cam got to meet her favorite mouse. Once again, the Camryn magic kicked in, and Minnie knelt down to have a little conversation with our girl. All I could do was shake my head and laugh. And record it in pictures and video of course. We got our photo opportunity and Cam had a few last words with Minnie, complimenting her on her eyelashes, then we took our leave of the Animal Kingdom and ventured back to the hotel.

We wrapped up the evening with an excellent dinner at the hotel. We had a fancy sit-down dinner with all the fixins. It felt like we were really on vacation now! After dinner and a relaxing walk around the gorgeous lake here, we decided to toss on the trunks and hit the pool outside our room. There were very few people out, just some adults enjoying drinks by the pool, so we had the whole thing to ourselves. We just now finished our showers and have started planning our day at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow. I think Cam might actually poop herself when she sees all the princesses. She's even excited to see her favorite of the Seven Dwarfs, Fashbul :)

G'night!

Messages in Dreams

2011-02-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

I need to write this down before I lose it forever. Part of me doesn't want to, but I know it's important, to understand my life and why we are here. I had a dream about Krissy several weeks ago. I dream vividly and often, but rarely of her since she passed away. When she died I thought that she'd come and speak to me in dreams but it hasn't worked out that way, either due to my subconscious or something else. But this time she did come and I dreamed and I should try to remember and hold onto her message, as hard as it was to hear.

As with all the dreams I've had of her since she left us, she is still sick. I know she has cancer but thankfully she looks amazing, not yet suffering and wasting away. We are in a hospital and there is some discussion of what course her treatment should take and what decisions she will make. It's very reminiscent of our visit to the University Hospital in Denver, it's probably the backdrop my brain gave to this scene. We are in a waiting room talking and she's suddenly in a hospital gown, and I've missed something, but I'm crying and attempting to convince her that no matter what the doctors say or do we will find a way to make her better. We had a discussion like this in life as well, I wanted nothing more than to instill some fight and hope in her and convince her no matter what we'll find a way to cure her. In real life we agreed to continue on, to keep up the fight, no matter how much her spirit had been broken. This time, in the dream, it was different. She held my hand, caressed my face, and told me it was ok. That it doesn't matter what we do, this was going to happen, was supposed to happen, and that it was ok. I refused to listen and cried at her, we have to try something, anything, to let me help. Again, so gently, she told me no, to let it go, and that she was ok now, that this was how it was supposed to be. She smiled so beautifully and I knew she was right.

It was at this point that I woke up, in the middle of the night, sobbing as hard as I had done in the dream. I was still mostly asleep but I remembered her voice, her touch and her presence and I missed it so badly. She hasn't visited me often in my dreams, but this was the most vivid, and I know she wanted me to understand how she felt when she died. That she was ok with it and that she had excepted this. I haven't, and can't, but I needed to hear from her that she was ok.

This has probably been the hardest thing for me to accept, that giving up her life was the answer to our prayers. Not a cure, but the end of suffering. When she was sick, I believed everyday that she would get better, and every setback was an obstacle to overcome. I never doubted her or doubted that we could do this together. So that is what hurts the most right now, and I have some guilt about it, that I believed so much and still she died. I hate thinking there was probably something else I could have tried, something I should have said, some treatment I should have made her try. But she finally told me that it doesn't matter now, she's ok and for now I have some small peace in that. I still miss her terribly, and wish she'd come to my dreams more often, but I am comforted she is with God.

Just another day right?

2010-10-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

One year ago today my heart was broken. One year ago today, we learned that Krissy had unresectable cancer, no chance for cure, no chance for life, a sentence ending in death. They broke my wife that day, broke her spirit and her strength, left us with pieces that we picked up but could never quite fit together again. Krissy fought hard, battled demons and pain and suffering, and although it's only been five months since her death, I truly lost her that day.

I hate marking these days that should otherwise have no special importance in our lives. This day, the 28th, will mark the day we journeyed into the horrors of cancer, every day a reminder of hardship and sadness. A year ago, last night, I slept in a hospital room, in a chair at the foot of her bed, praying that the doctors would finally give my wife relief from the pain she had been suffering through the previous year. What she received instead was the worst of any outcomes we imagined.

I've tried hard not to mark every day of significance since Krissy passed away. I don't want to look at every 14th on the calendar with despair, or any other day we marked with some importance during our lives together. But I can't get past it today. Today a clock started ticking. But the clock is broken. I'm broken. The minute and hour hands move relentlessly forward, but the second hand is stuck, trying to tick forward, hindered by some underlying mechanism that will never function quite the same again.

My memories of Kris these past few months have been of better days, when she was happy, healthy, full of laughter and fire. Today I can feel the past year under my skin. Last night I dreamt I was back in that hospital room, cold, uncomfortable, listening through waking and sleep for her breathing, the beep of IV machines, shuffle of nurses. Today I'm watching them wheel her into surgery, kissing her one last time before she's taken away from me, never to return. I just can't forget what came next, the tubes, injections, sickness, uncertainty, fear, desperation, hope, determination, frustration, decent, heartbreak. The rollercoaster is just starting on it's uphill climb before lurching and hurtling down and around and upside down.

I can feel the wound that had scabbed over starting to open up again, raw, painful. I hear loss like this leaves a scar so we'll never forget. I'm not sure scar tissue is going to form on this one, this feels like it's going to bleed for a long time.

The Good Things

2010-10-21T00:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've had the urge to write here. After Krissy's birthday, I really felt like my emotional batteries had been drained, and in a way I still feel this way. This month of October is bringing me back to the time a year ago when Krissy's health worsened and we went to the hospital for two weeks, and when we were given her terrible diagnosis. This has been a gray, numbing couple of weeks. Strangely enough though, I've found reason to be happy even to the point of questioning whether I'm in denial at the moment. I truly feel alive and thankful for the things I have in my life at the moment. Of course, these feelings bring with them guilt and longing for things I can never have again, but it's getting easier to reconcile my current life with the one I had just a year ago.

Everyday I'm overwhelmingly thankful to have such beautiful and wonderful children. My girls really keep me going, and without them this would be so much more difficult. With Cori I have seen her grow into such an astonishing young woman and I marvel at her courage every day. She reminds me of why it's important to stay positive and always think and talk about the great things Kris left us. We are able to talk about our memories of her, what she would have wanted for us, and that we have amazing lives yet to live and should treasure every day. It hurts, but it helps too. With Camryn I have the ultimate reminder of her mother and a source of such pure joy I can't imagine what life would be like without her. While her questions about mommy have gotten less frequent she still understands she is missing Krissy and that she is not coming back. However, she is just so happy and full of life, you can't help but smile and laugh in her presence. She has her mom's spunk and attitude and it gives me comfort to know a piece of Kris lives on in this wonderful little girl. Both of my daughters remind me so much of Krissy that sometimes I just have to shake my head and thank God that she left me with such beautiful reminders.

As unlikely as I had thought it would be five months ago, life has indeed continued on for my family. I have such tremendous support from my family and we enjoy all of the time we spend together. Dinner every night, football games on Sunday, weekends out... I feel we've been therapeutic for each other without really knowing it was happening. I can almost talk about those painful days without crying. Almost! I think we're all at roughly the same point in our healing process and I know I wouldn't feel as good and as healthy as I do right now without their presence. The same can be said of my close friends, all of whom have just let me be myself and have given me open ended love and support throughout. I also know I will never, ever, starve as long as the girls at work are keeping an eye on me.

I've been trying to figure out what I've learned from all of this. From the heartbreak of Krissy's diagnosis, the fear and uncertainty of helping her heal and cope with the horrible affects of cancer, the hope of recovery and trying to stay so positive for her, then the sudden and crushing acknowledgement that her life was ending. I learned in some ways I'm much stronger than I expected myself to be, and in other ways just how helpless and uncertain I feel. I learned how to take better care of our health, but it's been difficult to stay on the rigid track we attempted while Krissy was undergoing treatments. I learned people are capable of amazing love and generosity in ways I could never expect. I think the most important thing I've learned over this past year is that no matter how much it hurts, or how much sadness you endure, there will always be good things in your life and they must be acknowledged and nurtured. I'd be an absolute fool to ignore or neglect the positive people and events in my life simply because I have sadness and grief over losing the love of my life. We have to laugh, we have to play, we have to live. Krissy wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Birthday Wish

2010-09-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't written to you for some time now, simply because it has hurt too much to do so. But on this day, a day I wanted so much to celebrate with you, I have to tell you that I miss you. So, so much. I walked in the shade of your brilliance for so long, grew so accustomed to your light and energy leading and protecting me, that this vacuum you left behind is sometimes too much to bear. Sometimes I have no idea where I am going without you beside me. So many times now I have simply wanted to talk to you, to hold you, to laugh with you. I can never do these things again. Your headstone is the final, physical reminder that your life with me has ended and I will have to carry on without you. It's still surreal and unfathomable to me, to know I have a full life ahead of me and I won't be enjoying it with you.

I drove into the mountains this weekend to be with my friends and attempt to enjoy a last weekend of summer before the fall comes to remind me of this past year of pain and sorrow. I thought of you the entire time as I wound around those roads we traveled together just nine months ago. I felt so much promise then, so much hope, that we could beat this thing and you would be a success story. I thought it would happen, I truly did, but in the end this was God's plan for you and I struggle every day to accept it. I saw you in every ray of sunshine this weekend and spoke to you in the dark as I stared into the embers of the campfire. I didn't find any answers but I found memories I had forgotten and will continue to savor and reflect on the great times we spent together.

If you made your peace with God before the end and accepted your fate, I will continue to do the same, even though it will never ease my hurt to not have you here with our children. Already they are changing and growing in your absence. Camryn told me that it's time for you to come down from Heaven already. She understands you have left us and soon will understand just how permanent it is. Coral is confused and angry and we are all trying out best to lead her through this to some understanding of why her mother is gone. I think they will be ok, but it's not going to be easy, not ever. I just continue to teach them how much you loved them and how important it is to lead lives you would be proud of.

I'm finding solace in simple things now. Butterflies have become your avatar and we see them constantly, in the most unlikely places. They flutter up to Josh in the welding shop. They flash across our paths in the cemetery, in the car, at work, everywhere. Jen has given us three butterflies to raise and release in your memory and I can't wait to see them spread their wings and fly away on the currents of your spirit. They are children of summer and so perfectly reflect the path of your life: born, beautiful, carefree, living quickly and furiously, and then gone from the world all too quickly. I will always see you in the beautiful colors of their wings.

As I finish writing these words it is no longer your birthday, but this was the only gift I could give you. We may have started a new tradition tonight, a small gathering in your honor, choosing to relish your memory for one day rather than mourning it. I drank to you, and polished off a few of your favorite amaretto sours, even if they were a bit too sweet for my taste. You always loved that drink. Even if I couldn't spend today with you I would spend today for you, and I think we all did it in our own fashion. Cori sent balloons to you and Cam wants them back. Happy birthday my love.

Permanence

2010-09-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

After many weeks of artist's block, hand wringing, coordinating with the memorial folks and then just plain ol' waiting, Krissy's headstone is finally complete and residing over our plots. I must say, that even after drawing it out and seeing the comp images of the design, I wasn't quite prepared to see it cut forever into stone. It's fitting, and in its own way reminds me of Krissy. Like my beautiful wife, it stands out amongst the gray and black of the cemetary, you really can't miss it when you pull into our section. I always said you could never miss Krissy in a crowd, even at 5'. I'm very happy with the work that Spence Memorial did for us, they were extremely helpful every step of the way and put up with my constant badgering over email and inexperience with a design like this.

For those interested in the details, the stone is a blue pearl granite, imported from Asia, and really has to be seen in the sunlight to catch all the beautiful facets and colors it contains. I hand picked and hand drew everything for this, and I really couldn't see myself doing anything else for my wife. I truly wanted to give her an everlasting memorial, and adorned it with images from both our lives. The center design is a celtic knot I drew for her that ended up as a tattoo on her wrist. As with the phoenix, she assigned great meaning to this tattoo also, turning it upside down from my original drawing and discovering it was really a heart, with three points for the loves in her life, the girls and myself. I knew as soon as I decided to design the headstone that I would be using this as the centerpiece. The continuation of the border ends up in scroll work that I wanted to represent waves, of the ocean between us right now, but eventually they will meet and retreat together to somewhere new and wonderful. I'm not sure I pulled it off but as an overall design for the stone I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks. My only intention was to honor my wife and to create something unique as an everlasting memorial to her, to show my love and my heartbreak. I hope she likes it.

It's also strange just how permanent and final the stone makes everything feel. I told a friend the other day that now it feels like the final piece of putting her to rest is in place, and it's a strange feeling. I do feel better about visiting her at the cemetery now that it's there though. Something to focus on, something solid. I hope others can visit her now and feel a bit more at peace.

Always Among Us

2010-08-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

She was there. I had expected her to be watching that day, a day she had looked so forward to in life, but I wasn't prepared to see her. Amid the late afternoon sunlight, on that beautiful lawn as Eric and Larissa recited their vows, Krissy was there. Just before the candles were lit in honor of those lost, Krissy, Aunt Louisa and Larissa's father, she showed us that she was still here with us and watching on this most wonderful day. A butterfly, beautiful and graceful, fluttered directly before us and then sailed away to take shelter in the shade. Every one of us saw it and immediately knew, this was Krissy making her presence known and blessing this day for her beloved cousins. I still can't properly describe the affect this had on me. Equal parts joy, sorrow and longing coursed through me at that moment but more than anything I was so thankful she gave us this sign that she is watching over all of us.

Those five days in Michigan for Eric and Larissa's wedding were a welcome distraction from the past few months of turmoil. We had an amazing stay with the Evenhouses, their hospitality was so incredible. I truly felt at ease there and had not had a chance to really relax my mind and body until then. I still feel a little bad that we had nice rooms and beds while the bride and groom were sleeping in campers and floors, but everything seemed to work out just fine.

The kids also seemed to let their hair down a bit and really enjoy this trip. From their first airplane ride, to their first swim in Lake Michigan, to dancing and laughing at the reception, it was such a blessing to see both girls get a chance to be kids again. I really enjoyed watching them playing with such abandon. I even dragged this white pasty body into the water with them and only paid for it with a mild sunburn.

I feel like I should say thank you to Eric and Richie's father, (Uncle) Rich, for taking the time to talk with me and really making me feel welcome with his family and for also being a mentor to me as I continue to struggle with Krissy's loss. Uncle Rich was married to Krissy's Aunt Louisa, who was also lost to cancer far too young, and was left with two young boys and an uncertain future ahead of him. Everything seemed to turn out just fine and it gives me hope for my own journey. He's an amazing man, with two amazing sons, and an inspiration to me whether he knows it or not. He's also damn funny, I can absolutely see where the boys get their sense of humor from. Uncle Rich, thank you.

The highlight of the weekend was obviously the wedding. Eric and Larissa are just two outstanding people, obviously crazy about each other, and obviously perfect for each other. The ceremony was touching, the setting was breathtaking, and the reception was a blast. I've got plenty of incriminating pictures to prove it too.

I was so happy when I learned Eric proposed to her after Krissy's benefit auction this past January and Krissy was ecstatic. She wanted so badly to make it to this wedding. I felt I carried her with me, imagining her out on the dance floor or laughing so hard as she always did around the boys. I made sure I drank in every detail and enjoyed as much as I could, so I could live this for the both of us. I turns out I didn't have to try to so hard. It turns out she was with us after all.

From the Ashes

2010-07-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

The Phoenix. Born from fire only to die and rise again from its own ashes. It's a mythological symbol of rebirth and renewal, and a personal one as well. How so? I'm glad you asked! But let's start at the beginning.

The image above is a tattoo I designed for Krissy about six years ago. It's the first tattoo I've ever drawn, and after she was brave enough to have it inked on her lower back, was the first of two tattoos I drew to make their permanent home on Krissy's body. This history of how this particular tattoo came to be is a bit funny, but perfectly fitting if you know anything about Kris and I.

I suppose I should backtrack a bit. This was actually the second tattoo that Kris asked me to design, but the first one that we both decided was good enough for ink. Long before we started dating, she asked me to design something circular to go around her belly button, to hide an old piercing scar. I came up with something that looked like a ring entangled with vines with leaves radiating out from the center. She liked it, but decided it would hurt too damn much with all the detail I put in, so we scrapped it. Fast forward to about six months after we started dating and Kris decides she wants to me to design something for her lower back. Being the comic book geek I am, I had been reading X-Men and she happened to catch a panel of Jean Grey as the Dark Phoenix. The character has a stylized phoenix symbol on her chest and is usually drawn in dramatic fashion, surrounded by flames that also appear to be in the form of a phoenix behind her. Something about it grabbed Kris and she asked me to come up with a design based on this character. I, of course, was ecstatic she was appreciating my beloved art form so I jumped on it. It took me about three months, and probably six drafts, but I finally came up with the design above. She and I walked to Holy Rollers one evening after work to make it permanent. I was still amazed that she liked my artwork enough to actually tattoo it on her, and was totally in love with her fearlessness. Even after several years of seeing the phoenix on her body, I would shake my head and smile, still a little in disbelief that she could really want something I drew on her body forever. The chick had to be crazy!

Krissy always had a way of adding importance to things in life and this was the same for her tattoos. Her lion came to symbolize her ferocity and protection of our children, and after Cori was born became a sigil of her baby girl as well. Her zodiac, while obviously displaying her astrological sign, was a permanent connection to her sister and a reminder of how close they would always be. The phoenix also took on new meaning, but unfortunately it wasn't until after she was diagnosed with cancer that we looked to its symbolism to provide some hope and understanding of her new existence. While asking the whys and hows this could possibly be happening, we fought to find hope and faith to see her through the difficult healing period after her surgery so we could begin cancer treatments. In a moment of despair, while reaching for hope, we started talking about the things she could find strength in. She touched her back and that moment the tattoo took on new meaning, and she decided that she had it tattooed for another reason and that was to show she would not give up and would rise again after having fallen so low emotionally. She would be the phoenix and I believe it gave her a shot of strength when we were looking for anything to lift the darkness. I really latched onto that thinking and would remind her of it many times as we journeyed through her treatments together.

After Krissy passed away and I gathered around me the things that reminded me of her, I came back to this drawing several times. At first with anger, that she didn't rise and prevail, that she only smoldered and faded away, and it pissed me off that it didn't make a difference in the end. Then I'd alternate between sadness and happiness as I conjured up the memories of drawing it for her and the tattooing and all the times I'd seen it on her in the past. And now, for the past few weeks, I'd just look at it, set it aside, take it out and look at it again. The symbolism was still not lost on me. Despite being born from the panel of a comic book and rising from my love and desire to create something special for Krissy, I felt like it just wasn't ready to die amongst the cold ashes just yet.

So this Friday I took the phoenix out of my sketchbook for the last time and went back to Holy Rollers to complete the cycle. Sorry about the crappy pic, those self-taken shots in the mirror never turn out well. It is my first tattoo, and really didn't hurt at all. It seems to be healing nicely and I'm looking forward to taking off this surgical bandage covering it up. I had no doubts about getting this tattoo. It will be my personal memorial to Krissy and a constant reminder of her love and trust. I will carry it with me forever, a permanent symbol now with more meanings than I could have ever foreseen when I first put pencil to paper.

Krissy may have fallen, but I will carry her spirit on with me, up from the fire and born again in me. She will always be my phoenix.

State of Me

2010-07-12T00:50:00.000-07:00

Hello! Welcome to Brain of F, my little corner of the blogosphere and home to the random thoughts that will occasionally spill from my head. I'm a 33 year old father of two wonderful girls, self-proclaimed geek and recent widower. Yeah, still getting used to that last part. Never in my wildest imaginings did I picture this to be my life, but here we are, so I suppose I should honestly state what and who I am from this day forward even though it's truly painful to accept.

Wow, that was a downer right? So how exactly am I doing? I've been asked this quite a bit lately. This week will mark the second month since Krissy passed away (on a side note, I still can't bring myself to say she died. Bugs die, plants die, but my Kris faded away from me) and I honestly think I'm doing "ok". What that truly means is a bit more complicated, but as I see it I've done ok with my day-to-day life since she's been gone. I've squared away our finances and feel pretty comfortable that we can pay our bills and still goof around once in a while. I've wrapped up much of the estate and medical chores that needed to be handled and really just have a few loose ends left. I'm back to work and probably 90% functional and I recognize that I still can't fully focus on my job even if I totally avoid the aisle she sat in for so long. But I feel I'll be full speed again relatively soon. I don't feel completely depressed about what has happened. At any given time I'm still very sad, angry, confused or guilt ridden, but it's not consuming me. As unlikely as I thought it would be at this point in time, I have a lot of happiness and fulfillment, mainly about what the future may hold and that I have such beautiful daughters to spend it with. They truly keep me going every day and things might be much darker if it weren't for their amazing spirits. Ironically I'm kinda balling as I write this but I guess that's how therapy works.

One thing I see, feel and try to cope with every day is the vast void the lack of her presence has left in my life. It's tangible and physical, I literally feel the emptiness in the wake of her loss. The house is quieter. The car rides are longer. The bed is colder. She was such a vivacious presence in my life and now there are gaping holes where she used to stand, laugh, kiss and breathe. This what is hardest to accept right now, that those holes will never be filled again. When I was asked if I would be alright living in the house we shared for five years, I immediately knew I would. Obviously, this home is a constant reminder of the time we shared but I wouldn't let that go for anything. I need the reminder when I wake up each morning and when I talk to my kids about who she was. It's good to have this home and know we created it together, and even though she is gone it will continue to be a good place for us to live.

However, I have noticed one negative change in myself. Maybe negative is to harsh, but I don't like this feeling. I feel like the creativity has been sucked out of me. This is one reason why I haven't written here in so long, I just couldn't find the words. I've decided that I want to design her headstone. As difficult as it has been, I feel that it's just something I have to do. The clipart they offer through the memorial shops just isn't going to cut it for my wife, I don't feel that I'd be honoring her by slapping on the same border and floral pattern that I see on every other headstone at the cemetary. I have the idea for it in my head but I'm having a hell of a time getting it onto paper. I put the pencil down and it's not moving the way it used to. I never thought of it before but I suppose Kris really was my muse. Pretty much everything creative I've done in the past decade has come from her or been for her. Without her voice and encourage I feel a bit lost. I think it will come back to me in time and I suppose it will have to if I'm to feel good about designing this memorial. Hopefully in the coming weeks I can preview what I've been working on for you.

So now life goes on. As I get my legs back I'm slowly catching up on the things I've been neglecting around me. Like housework. It sucks but someone's gotta clean those toilets. I have a gigantic pile of thank you cards that need to go out and I think I'm finally ready to start on them. I've started working on some systems to keep me organized as I take on all of the things that Kris used to do for me. Organization has always been a dirty word and she was so amazing at it. But I'm getting a handle on stuff like our budget, Cori's schooling, doctors appointments and keeping track of our busy lives. Being a single parent is a ton of work but I have so much help that I'm not worrying if I can do it any more. To be cliche, I'm taking things one day at a time. I really can't plan more than five days out anyway so it works for me.

I am so very thankful to everyone that has supported me these past eight months, from family to friends to people I have never met, you have all been so incredible to me and my family. I know I don't have to, but I'll get around to thanking every one of you.

I think this post means I'm back to blogging. Probably not as frequently as I'd like but I'll keep writing if you want to keep reading. I think the site is ready for a redesign. Change, as I'm finding, is about renewal and there are many things in my life that are ready to change and grow with new purpose. I'll have more to say about this soon.

G'night!

Krissy's Eulogy

2010-05-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

I've been told many times since Krissy's funeral how impressed people were with our cousin Elly's reading of the eulogy. Personally, I felt that Elly was the perfect person to read for Krissy. Not only does she have an excellent sense of humor, she displayed such poise and confidence that she gave every word the reverence Krissy deserved. Krissy always had such a deep love and respect for Elly, I'm certain she would have loved her reading as well. So here it is, one last time, for those of you who either couldn't attend the funeral or would like to cherish her memory one more time. Thank you to Elly and Cesa for allowing me to post the eulogy in it's entirety.

Kristen Sanchez-Lanza

Sunrise: September 20, 1974 Sunset: May 14, 2010

Family and friends, it’s an honor for me to share this tribute and celebration of Kristen Sanchez-Lanza.

Krissy, or Kristen Antonia, as she was called when she was in trouble, used to say she got her height from the Sanchez side. Now, to some this would seem a paradox given she was small in stature; but, on the contrary, what she meant was she was proud of her heritage, and of course, to be associated with other wonderful short people in the family.

When Krissy was born, Uncle Bennie and Aunt Debi knew they would have their hands full. Krissy wasn’t just adorable, she was also very determined and independent. At four years old, with the longest eyelashes covering her little glasses like tiny windshield wipers, Krissy would sit and watch her favorite T.V. show, Mr. Rogers. One day while watching an episode, Aunt Debi came downstairs to check on her. She saw Krissy sitting quietly but knew something was out of place. She looked closer and noticed Krissy’s new hairdo. “Kristen Antonia!” Aunt Debi exclaimed. “Why did you cut your bangs so short?” In a matter of fact way, Krissy replied, “’Cause I couldn’t see Mr. Rogers.”

And, as things go, more antics would follow. Over the years, there were many times Krissy spent with cousins and friends laughing ‘til the wee hours of the morning, taking trips to San Acacio to stay with her Nana and Papa during spring break and summer, dancing it up anytime she had a chance; and THEN, there were BOYS. Just what Uncle Bennie was looking forward to—barring up the windows and late night surveillance missions. I’m sure Krissy wasn’t the only one that left a lasting impression!

As we all know, life has its ups and downs and regardless of the challenges, Krissy moved through life with purpose. Not too long ago she told me that had it not been for all her experiences, she would have missed out on the best things in her life—her husband Frank, and precious girls, Cori and Camryn. Fiercely loyal and devoted to her family, Krissy always protected those close to her. She always looked after Cesa and her cousins in a thoughtful, caring, and protective manner; and, if Krissy befriended you, you knew you had someone who would always have your back. You could also bet that if she was going to do something, Krissy always put her heart and soul in it. Cesa says it was almost as if Krissy knew all along she needed to make each and every moment count.

Recently, her Aunt Connie reminded Krissy she had been struck by lightning. She said, one evening during a rainstorm, Krissy sat on the floor in Uncle Bennie and Aunt Debi’s bedroom watching T.V. In an instant, a bolt of lightning struck the house and traveled right through the T.V. stand, between the cherished Michael Bolton and Billie Ocean albums right to Krissy. Frank recalled the story and added that when he ran into Krissy at work the next morning, he casually greeted her and said, “Hey there Krispy.”

It is difficult to imagine our lives without Krissy. She was kind, compassionate, sincere, and brave. In spite of her illness, Krissy maintained a fearless spirit and take charge attitude. Not only did she shoot from the hip as one of her friend’s described, but she was also forthright and, as Cesa might put it, a little bossy from time to time.

On a recent trip to Springs, shortly after her surgery, I had the pleasure of embarking on another adventure with my little cousin. As soon as I arrived at the house, Krissy and I were off to the ER. She wasn’t feeling very well so I decided I would take extra precautions to drive as carefully as possible along the way. As we zigzagged across town, we were chatting and then all of a sudden Krissy looked over at me and asked me how fast I was driving. I took notice of my speed and quickly replied, “Is something wrong? Are you ok?” Without hesitation, she responded, “Well, I will be once you start driving the speed limit. It’s 55 and we’re only going 40!”

It’s been moments like these and all the other good times we’ve had that console me. No matter what the circumstances, Krissy embodied all that is good in life. She was a wonderful daughter, loving wife and mother, devoted sister, loyal family member and true friend.

In Cesa’s words…

“To say my sister was incredible would be an understatement, she was extraordinary and for 31 wonderful years of my life, she was my mentor, my protector, but most of all, my best friend. Her laugh, her smile, and the way she lit up a room, those were just a fraction of the qualities I admired and envied so dearly. Our lives were brought together for a reason and for that I am so grateful.

There was never a time that I had to worry about her looking out for me. I’ll never forget this time when we were on the swing set at school and a classmate of hers decided to push me off the swings. I ran crying to her and she went over there, pushed him off, and graciously helped me back on. She showed him who not to mess with and, for the rest of her life, she would have knocked down anyone else who hurt her little sis. There was a time or two that I got knocked down by her as well, but I always figured that was payback for being so mean to her when I was little. For as rambunctious and mischievous as I was, she had the patience of a saint.

A dear friend of ours sent a quote by Hubert Van Zeller that sums up her absence:

"It is not that we feel cut off from the bigger spiritual relationship which survives death, but from the hundred and one lesser links which bind people together; incidental things which when looked back on seem of enduring significance, but which were taken so much for granted at the time.
The other person's sense of humor, prejudices, moods, all that has gone. For the rest of our lives we shall have to do without her mannerisms, her shyness, and her ways of pronouncing things.
The voice is silent - we had expected it would be - but that the yawns and bursts of laughter will never be repeated is almost more than we can bear...
These moments were not passing moments at all. They had something in them of eternity..."

She will eternally be the angel by my side and I am so blessed to have had her as my sister. Until we meet again…. Your little sis “Cheeza” loves you!”

I would also like to share with you special words from Krissy’s husband, Frank:

“I don't believe you can sum up a life that was so brilliant, even one as short as Krissy's, simply with words. She burned so bright and radiated such warmth that you only had to be near her to know she was beyond words. Krissy was everything to me and vice versa. To paraphrase something I once read, “We were to each the other's world entire.” She was my dawn and my twilight, my spring and my winter. I lived nearly every minute of the past ten years in her presence. Whether it was at work, at home or celebrating with friends and family, there was hardly a time when we weren't together.”

“My life was obviously not the only one that Krissy touched. Everyone that met her knew she was special. She was magnetic and beautiful, and completely unafraid of anything life set before her. If Krissy cared for you, there was no one more honest and loyal at your side. If you crossed Krissy's line you learned that she held nothing back to defend those she loved. She never backed down or left a friend that was in need. I know I will never meet another soul that is as kind, generous and honest as she was.”

“Earlier this week I was asked what was my favorite memory of Krissy. It's impossible to choose as every single day was a memory of her I cherished. I still remember how she wore her hair the first day we met, over ten years ago. It was short and blond by the way. I remember removing the partition between our desks at work so we could talk to each other between phone calls. I remember how angry she was at me when a Jared's bill arrived in the mail, and how embarrassed she was when my explanation came as I knelt down and asked her to marry me. I also remember how happy she was to be a mother to our two children and how fiercely she protected them.”

“I suppose if I have a best memory of Krissy, it was during our first real date. She held my hand as we looked up at a black mountain sky strewn with stars and told me that now nothing would ever be the same between us; our lives would be changed forever. In that moment, a meteor streaked across the sky and my life has never been the same since.”

“I'm so thankful to God for bringing Krissy into my life, and into so many of your lives as well, even if it was only for a brief time. Heaven has a new angel and I feel that she'll continue to defend and love us just as she did in life.”

Frank, Cesa, and I would like to share a quote which was dedicated to Krissy by her very dear friend, Lori, titled “The Broken Chain.”

"We little knew that afternoon that God was going to call your name. In life we loved you dearly; in death we do the same. It broke our hearts to lose you; you did not go alone; for part of us went with you, the day God called you home. You left us peaceful memories, your love is still our guide; and though we cannot see you, you are always at our side. Our family and friend chain is broken, and nothing seems the same; but as God calls us one by one, the chain will link again.”

We are forever grateful to God for Krissy being in our lives. She will be with us always as a reminder of what we are capable of and can endure. And, Krissy’s name in Latin, ‘Following in Christ,’ will always be a symbol of her will and path here on earth and in Heaven.

We will love you forever Krissy.

For You

2010-05-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Oh Krissy, you really are gone aren't you? I still can't comprehend it. It seems like I'll turn the corner and you'll be there watching TV, or talking on the phone, but I have to stop looking for you and begin to get used to the fact I'm here on this earth without you now. I know you're still watching me, and with me every day, but it feels very lonely right now.

We didn't really get to speak much this last week but I hope you're listening now. I'm sure there is a pretty sweet broadband connection where you are so I'll continue to write with the hopes you'll be reading. I know it took every last bit of strength you had just to speak at the end, but I was so happy we were able to share a few last kisses, and that your last conversation was with me. I don't know if I'll ever be able to repeat what you said, but your words will forever be with me. Even now, they shine before my eyes, they resonate in my ears, and they echo in my heart. I'll never hear anything as bittersweet as the three sentences you spoke in those last moments, and I'll forever be thankful for them.

Watching you leave and ascend to Heaven was the hardest thing I have ever done. I was grateful that at the end you let me hold your hand until God took you away from your pain. I hope it was beautiful and that your Papa was waiting to usher you through the gates. I imagine the celebration and dancing is still carrying on up there. You always could cut a rug.

I've spent the last day with your mom, dad and Cesa making arrangements for the funeral. I think you'd be very happy with what we chose. Everything is beautiful and touched with class, just like you were in life. I picked out two plots for us at the cemetary, right next to a tree and with an amazing view of the mountains. It's a place the girls and I can come to see you and feel immediately at peace. Someday I will join you there, but I promise it won't be until I'm old and gray and have raised our girls to be wonderful, strong, amazing women like their mother.

Not a single instant of these past few days have been easy for me. I think I'm always just a picture, or a song, or a memory away from crying. But just as I have done these past ten years, everything I do is for you, and will continue to be. I promise to live out the rest of my life in a way that will make you proud of me. I'll even balance the checkbook just the way you used to. Our girls will remain the honest, sweet, loving people we have taught them to be and hopefully they won't find it too much of a burden to take care of their good ol' dad when he needs it.

I have to go now, I still have so many things to do before we have your funeral this week. I will write to you again sometime, not too often since I know you'll be watching anyway, but just so I can get the words out. You always knew I could type things better than I could say them anyway.

I love you,
Frank

Praying for Peace

2010-05-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

Time seems to have slowed to a crawl now. Krissy is back into a deep sleep, much as she has been for most of the day today, and now we just pray for God to take her peacefully in her sleep.

There's not much new to say about her medical condition that I haven't said already. Her kidneys have completely failed and she's retaining large quantities of fluid. Her liver functions are very compromised and soon it will fail also. Next will be the lungs as they fill with the fluid her body can't expel. My hope is that God calls her before this happens, as she will go more peacefully this way.

After a very restless night of sleep, Kris was again very alert this morning and wanting to talk. It wasn't exactly a talk I wanted to have, as we discussed the accounts and bills that need to be taken care of, and access to her personal email and social network accounts so I can manage them. Morbid stuff but it's got to be done. She also spoke with the doctors and we have decided on a DNR. Should she pass away she does not want to be brought back through chest compressions or intubation. She made the right decision, this suffering is not something she should be forced to endure any longer. We didn't talk for much longer afterwards, she quickly tired and fell back to sleep. I haven't had a chance to have another conversation with her since. I fear that I may have had my last real exchange with her and it's far from the last words I wish I could speak to her.

Despite the constant sadness and worry of today, there were still opportunities for smiling, reflecting and even laughter. Krissy told me something I will never forget this afternoon. I've been asking her some pretty metaphysical questions about her journey towards Heaven, and she's been brave enough to answer me. Today I was quietly talking to her as she slept and she suddenly awakened. When Kris is awake her eyes are unfocused and she does not seem to see you, even if she acknowledges your presence. It's almost as if she is seeing past this world of hurt and through to a place of peace. I wanted to know if this is what she was experiencing and asked her to tell me what she could see. After a pause, she said "I see the ceiling." I had to laugh, not just at her response but at my expectations as well. She smiled slightly and then drifted back off to sleep.

This was the last I saw of my old Krissy today. I think it may be the last I ever see of her and it hurts. Yesterday I said I was not ready to let her go. After seeing this slow process of her body shutting down and the toll it's taken on her, I am at peace with her leaving this world and ascending to Heaven. She deserves it and should not have to suffer any more. I feel awful about wishing my wife could pass away but this is not an existence anyone should have to endure.

Tonight will be a long night. I'm exhausted in every way imaginable and don't think I'll be able to sleep as I watch my wife slowly slip away from me with every minute that passes. My heart has ached, physically, all day and I don't know if it will ever stop. I miss her already and she's not even gone so I don't know how it will feel when she has truly left me. I know I will find out soon.

Acceptance

2010-05-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

Six months ago, I don't think I ever thought there would be a day like today. But here we are, facing a grim reality, and today really happened. Krissy is very close to kidney failure and we've all had to come to grips with the fact that, barring an absolute miracle, she will not be with us much longer. Her kidneys have not responded to the treatment at all today, so the doctors have been playing with a varied combination of drugs to keep her body fluids in balance and keep her heart rate and blood pressure under control. It's taken too much of a toll on Krissy's poor little body and I fear I'll be sending my wife to God at the much too young age of 35.

The day started off well enough. Niether of us slept last night, but I was catching a few winks when Kris woke me up at 6:00am. I heard "Frank, wake up" and nearly fell out of my chair for fear there was something wrong. I blurted out, "What is the matter, what can I do?" and she calmly looked at me and said "Nothing. I'm bored, come talk to me." This brought a smile to my face and I gladly pulled up a chair and talked with her for a while. Nothing serious, just waking ourselves up, but she was so alert it was like talking to my old Kris again. We kept it up for about an hour before the nurses resumed their routine of poking and prodding, and at this point her pain had built back up and it was time for more fentynal. Since then she's been slowly deteriorating and has had to keep her pain meds going all throughout the day. But I enjoyed our talk and she made me smile as she has done so often for the past 10 years.

There's been a haze hanging over me today. So much of what I've experienced today feels surreal. After standing with Krissy while she received the bad news about her kidneys and future prognosis, I heard the words I never thought I'd hear until we were both old and gray. She looked into my eyes and told me "I'm ready to go, I've made my peace with God. I don't want to suffer anymore." Selfishly, I admitted that I'm not ready to let her go, but it hurts to see her in so much pain. I can't bear to see her go through any more of this hell, but I still can't believe she may be leaving me soon. To add to this air of disbelief, there have been discussions of where she would like to be buried, where to hold the funeral, what music to play. I had to stop and shake my head at one point, how can we really be talking about this now?

The only thing more heartwrenching than this was when I brought our daughters to see Kris. My Cori, at eleven years old, understands nearly everything that we have been going through, and her talk with Kris was brutal. My heart still hurts from the reality she is having to face at such a young age. Camryn is too young to understand, and may not even remember this when she is older, but it still isn't easy. I see Cori's tears and pray I have the strength to raise these two little girls on my own and instill in them the strong love and memory of their mother.

There has been a steady steam of family and friends to see her today. I know this is but a trickle compared to the flood of support she truly has out there. Between Facebook and email, I've received so many lovely messages of love and support, and I'm thankful for every bit of it. I haven't had time to respond to many of your wall posts or messages, but know that I appreciate every sentiment left for Krissy and I. Krissy's not able to check her posts or text messages but I've been passing them along to her.

I'm finally alone with Kris now, hoping for some rest for us both. There's no need to say goodbye to each other yet as we don't know how long she'll hang on for, but it feels like an unspoken certainty between us. She kissed me sweetly tonight, perhaps for the last time, but I will never know an end to the love I have for her. No matter the outcome of all this, or the when or the why, I love her. This is all I can say for certain and all I can hold onto as I watch her before me. She is ready for God and has put her whole being in his hands as she waits for his grace. All I can do now is follow her example and love her during every minute we have left.

Where We Stand

2010-05-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

I've been debating whether or not I should write this post for about a half an hour, but I can't sleep so I might as well get this all out. Krissy is in rough shape right now. After being in the hospital for two days and battling ascites, blocked bile ducts, jaundice and of course cancer, Krissy is now fighting another critical battle against her kidneys. They've slowly been deteriorating under the pressure of ascites and a tumor that is blocking her right ureter and are now close to failure. The doctors are trying a cocktail of drugs to jump-start her kidneys back into action and get her renal system working again. If they are successful then we can go back to getting the stent and moving Krissy to the next step. If the kidneys fail, we risk losing our girl.

Right now I'm sitting in ICU with her and watching stuff drip into her veins via almost a dozen tubes. They put a central line into her artery to deliver some of the heavy duty drugs and she's still pretty sedated and sleepy. It's been a long, difficult day, and I hope it will end with some rest and good news about her kidneys. I won't know one way or the other for several more hours, so it's going to be a long night. I'm exhausted and seeing Kris in this much pain is breaking my heart. I just want her to get some relief from all of this. I'm going to be praying very hard that her kidneys will start functioning again and she can get her strength back.

This is about all I can say for now, and I apologize this is such a short and jumbled post. My brain feels like scambled eggs and I should probably try to sleep. I know I won't, but I should try. I will try to post more tomorrow once I have an update on her condition. Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts and prayers for my wife, I'm so thankful for you all.

Six of One, Half Dozen of Another...

2010-05-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

It's been several weeks since my last update but it feels like forever. I suppose it's been a mixed bag of events. On one hand not a whole lot has happened and on another quite a bit has been going on for Krissy. And now here we are in the ER again, so I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you all what is going on.

A few quick highlights before I dive right in. We visited a fancy pants oncologist at the University of Colorado and had our hopes dashed, and were told that the Oasis treatments weren't working at all. Not exactly Hope, Love and Faith huh? Since then we've found a new oncologist here in the Springs at Rocky Mountain Cancer Center that actually supports Kris in her fight and has been a great help to us so far. She's also seeing a naturopath and acupuncturist in Denver that have been very positive forces as well. Our kids have had birthdays, I just hit my 10 year anniversary at work and there's a volcano in Iceland that I can't pronounce but looks pretty awesome in pictures, I suggest you Google it. Ok, that pretty much catches you up on the small stuff!

To start off, since Krissy's last trip to Oasis she's had a few minor complications that I can best describe as setbacks to her treatment plan and have now ballooned into serious issues. During her last trip to Mexico, she was at the very onset of developing ascites, or build up of fluid in her abdomen. The doctors there weren't sure if it was inflammation from the tumors or actual fluid, so it was a watch and wait situation until a few weeks later it was obvious it was fluid. Since ascites will continue to build up until it's drained or processed by the body, it causes some serious discomfort. Basically, Kris felt like she was pregnant again. So last month she had a procedure to drain it where they pulled just over two liters from her body.

Just after this we had new CT scans done and the results were good and semi-bad. The good, very good in fact, is that her tumors have only shown slight growth since her initial scans from last October. This is amazing news for what was supposed to be a fast growing, aggressive cancer. The downside is that this marginal growth has blocked her bile duct and has given her a nice orange tint. The jaundice has caused her liver functions to elevate and this isn't a good thing, so they need to stent her bile duct open and get those juices flowing again. Here's where we have run into complications.

This takes us back to the ascites. After the initial draining she felt better for about a week until the fluid came back. There was even more fluid build up this time and she was very uncomfortable, so her doctors decided to place a catheter in her abdominal wall so she could drain herself, in the hopes of making the stent surgery easier.

Did I mention we've had a few complications? So in a normal person, a stent can be placed in the bile duct during an endoscopy, they just go down into your stomach and slide the stent in. However, our girl Krissy has had the equivalent of gastric bypass surgery so the pathway from the stomach straight to the bile duct has been cut off. In order to access it now they'll have to go in through her side with a needle, just above the liver, and insert the stent into the bile duct this way. It's trickier, and involves leaving a drain tube in her side until it heals. Unfortunately, her ascites is holding this procedure up, as the constant filling/draining of her abdomen can cause the stent to leak and lead to some serious infections and pain. During all of this mess, Kris has felt like crap and has dropped to about 80 pounds. Complicated, right?

This convoluted mess leads us to the ER tonight. She's been self draining the fluid and last week pulled three liters out. I'm amazed that any person, especially someone as small as Krissy, can be carrying around that much excess fluid. I can't imagine what that feels like for her. Well, just after draining she started to experience some excruciating pain in her stomach that radiated all the way up to her shoulders. After a few reluctant pain killers, she was able to sleep. We called the doctors and they wanted to see what was going on, so we spent last Thursday at Memorial while they observed a drain and determined that when the fluid level in her abdomen gets low the catheter is suctioning up against her intestines and causing all that horrible pain. They gave her some new guidelines to follow while draining and sent us on our merry way. Tonight she drained off two more liters, trying to go slowly as they recommended, and she felt fine until about ten minutes after she was done. Then the pain kicked back in, even worse this time, and was so intense painkillers weren't getting through. She could barely breathe, so with Krissy's folks at the house I called 911. This is probably the scariest situation we've faced yet.

And here we are, Kris and I, in the ER waiting to be admitted to the hospital. I have some frustrations with the doctors as I sit here and play Dr. Google, but I'll have to write those up in another post. For tonight, all I ask is that they give my baby some relief and help us sort this situation out so she can get back to kicking ass. Keep the prayers and good vibes coming our way, every bit you send is hugely appreciated.

And the Road Goes Ever On

2010-03-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

For those that have been following Krissy's battle against cancer, you know that she's made huge strides and shown great bravery as she walks this path towards healing. I've said it many times, I don't know another person with as much heart and determination as Kris has packed into her tiny frame. Today she took another huge step towards her goal of being cancer free. After 13 years, she decided to resign from working at PROFITsystems and focus full time on her recovery and spend more time with our daughters. This Friday will be her last day at the office.

This was obviously a tremendously difficult decision for her to make, on many levels. She wanted to work. You don't realize how far from normal you feel until you're forced to take an extended leave from your job. The routine becomes a part of you and once it's gone you feel idle and even guilty at times. Our office has been absolutely amazing to both Krissy and I, so her decision to quit working was made even more difficult because we spend everyday around such great people. Of course, they're very supportive of her, and they've taken such good care of us for so many years that it's hard not to question whether this was the right thing to do. But it is, and will give her all the time and rest she needs to kick cancer to the curb.

This is also going to be challenging for our family. She's not taking a paid leave of absence, this is unemployment and I'll be the sole earner in the house. Not to mention our insurance situation will be shifting around, and we'll also be pulling Camryn out of daycare. This is a very positive change though, as Kris will get to spend much more time with the kids when it matters most to her. Cam is definitely daddy's girl, but she needs mommy's influence again now that Kris is able to keep up with her.

This big life changer is going to take some adjusting, and quickly, but I'm really very happy she made this decision now. I'd rather she take the time away from work to heal and focus on her every day challenges than force herself to work when she doesn't have the energy to put in eight hours. It isn't healthy and now she can work on herself instead of feeling like she's letting people down by calling in sick or not feeling her best at the office. I know, no one really feels that way, but when you're out all the time it can build up the guilt pretty quickly.

For me personally, I have some bittersweet emotions about it. I'm 100% positive this is the right decision for her but it also makes me pretty sad. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but Krissy and I have worked together for almost ten years, the majority of them just a cube or desk apart from each other. We met, became friends, fell in love, got married and had a child during our time at PROFIT. I spent every single day waking up with her, driving to work with her, working (and sometimes arguing) through the day at the office, then driving back home and spending the rest of our evenings together. I've spent more time with Krissy between work and home than any other human being in my entire adult life and I've loved it. So to know that after this week I won't hear her voice over the wall, or work together on a call, or know she's always just a few feet away from me will be tough to get used to. It'll still be a good place to work, but it will be diminished and frankly a bit lonely. But I know this what she needs to do and it's a small sacrifice to make for her to win this battle. I'd gladly work this job and nights as a junior apprentice burrito wrapper at Taco Bell if I knew it would guarantee her success.

So there you go, new adventures for the Lanza family are in the works, never a dull moment around this house! I'm excited for Krissy to begin this next phase in her life and recovery, and pray for the day when she can tell the world she is cancer free and ready to take it on full force.

G'night!

Day Twenty Four: Endings and Beginnings

2010-03-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here we are, at the end of another week of treatment at Oasis. I'm so very ready to have Krissy home for a while, so we can concentrate on getting her well and living our lives with the kids. She will still have a long road ahead of her, and possibly more trips to Oasis, but for now we need to continue her home regimen and gather as much information as possible to help her completely heal. I'm heading out to the airport soon to pick her up, we can't wait to see her again! I also can't thank Lori enough for spending this past week with Kris, it's been huge for her to have someone so close share this experience with her.

So here you have it, their last day at Oasis for the time being. Thanks for tagging along for another week with us!

Well we are coming to the end of our stay here at Oasis, today was our last full day and Krissy had another full day of treatments. She received another O zone treatment, more Kemadalin, Vitamin C, Vitamin K and Perftec, so she had all the good stuff pumped into her before we are off to CO.

Before starting her treatment we headed down to the dinning area so Krissy could get some good nourishment, she was pretty hungry as she didn't have much for dinner last night. She enjoyed a bowl of oatmeal and had a bit of the fresh fruit. I have been spoiled with all this fresh cut fruit here and hope to continue that when I return home. At breakfast we sat with Joselyn, Alicia and her 2 sons who are from Sacramento. Alicia was here 5 years ago going through treatment as she was diagnosed with breast cancer. From what I understand her only treatment was at Oasis. She did do chemo here as well as all of the other treatments they offer and has had a clean bill of health. She is here this time for her followup at Oasis but also decided with her sons and husband to volunteer at the orphanage in Tijuana. What a neat family and how great to know that Alicia is doing so well with her health, gives everyone here hope for sure.

Krissy recieved her O zone treament and Perftec after breakfast so we both read a ton from our books. Krissy finished reading Lovely Bones and I finally started Eclispe, yes for those of you that know me I finally finished New Moon. :-) We then spoke to the Doctors about the results of Krissy's CT scan and the good news is there has not been any growth. Of course we were hoping for shrinkage, however the fact that there has been no growth is very positive. They are going to change 1 thing to her regime at home but are going to continue the same protocol otherwise. They seemed real positive so again continue all the wonderful prayers and positive thoughts for our beautiful Krissy.

After speaking to the doctors we walked to the pharmacy, the weather was a little cooler today, however the sun was shining. It was great to get out and move our legs a bit. Once we returned we went to lunch where Krissy ate pretty well, she had 2 treatments of Vitamin k and Vitamin C treatments after lunch so she knew she needed to get some more good nourishment. After lunch we headed back up to the room so Krissy could continue with her treatment. While waiting Debi called via Skype with Coral and Camryn so that was great for Krissy to talk to them and see their sweet little faces.

Krissy received both doses of Vitamin c and k, in between each we went to dinner, it was a quick dinner as Krissy didn't have much of an appetite after her 1st dose. Sandy and Stan were having a movie night tonight, the feature was Evan Almighty, however Krissy was getting her second dose of Vitamin c and k so I decided to stay in the room with her. I did go get some of the popcorn they were having which was a nice night time snack. Well that is it for today, tomorrow we are off early in the morning to head home. It has been an amazing week to experience, we have had our ups and downs it has been very spiritual and very hopeful. I feel so blessed to have been able to be here with Krissy on her journey to great health and heading home tomorrow to continue Krissy's journey of great health.

Day Twenty Three: Toldya It Was Corn

2010-03-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

After a long day of work and a short evening of dinner, baths and bedtime, I unfortunately missed talking to Krissy over Skype. I'm getting this post in just before I turn in for bed, hoping we can talk more tomorrow. It's hard not seeing and talking to her everyday like usual! I love you babe, keep kicking ass. Now back to you Lori!

Last night was a bit rough, we had a bar down the street playing loud music until wee hours of the night and also a group of people in the halls by our room talking and laughing until somewhere around 11:00. After a rough night of sleep for both of us we were awakened by one of the nurses as Krissy had a ct scan first thing this morning. I am asking everyone to please pray for Krissy that she has positive results, nothing but lots of healing prayer and positive thoughts!! After her scan we went down for breakfast where we sat with our new friends Joselyn and Jewels, Joselyn is really having a hard time trying to find her inner strength and faith to continue her fight. Krissy is so amazing, after all she has gone through she is there for Joselyn, answering her questions and giving her inspiration to continue to fight. I still am not sure why this has happened to Krissy and why she is having to go through all of this, however her strength and faith in God is just speaking volumes when it comes to her fight and her will to help other people. I have always said she may be small but she is Mighty!! She is such an inspiration to me and many people her at Oasis.

After breakfast we decided to just relax in our room while we waited for Krissy's treatments to begin. She received the Immuno therapy where they have donors here at Oasis donate white blood cells, if you all remember Frankie and Cesa talking about it, this is where Krissy smells like creamed corn. It was funny, instantly she started to smell like it. They gave her a break in between her next treatments so we decided to have lunch. Today was International day and todays theme was Hawaiian so they had cute little center pieces made of fruit, we enjoyed pineapple chicken and rice which was very delicious. We had lunch with Melana, her son Trafon and Joslyn.

It was time to continue Krissy's treatment so back to the room we went where she received vitamin k and vitamin c. Today was not as nice outside it was cooler, cloudy and windy so we decided to stay inside. Once Krissy was done with the vitamin c we decided to go to dinner before she received her kemdalin and second doses of vitamin k and c for the day. The vitamin c does not agree with Krissy to well so she didn't eat much. Krissy was kind enough to go down anyway and I was able to eat, we did meet 2 more ladies, Renee and Rhonda from LA. Renee actually did 2 weeks of alternative treatments in Santa Barbara and is receiving additional treatment here at Oasis. Back up to our room we went for Krissy to continue her treatment, TV, reading, emailing and just relaxing.

That is all I have for today so until tomorrow.

Day Twenty Two: He is Always With Us

2010-03-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

Holy cow I actually went to bed early last night! That's probably why it's going to snow after having had all this beautiful weather. I had a good talk with Kris and Lori over Skype last night, it was great to see her and know that things are going well. Since my evening was over with pretty quicky, I'm going to hand the reigns over to Lori.

Happy St. Patrick's day to you all!! There was obviously no green beer here today, they did have the healthy "green drink" that they put out at every meal, I just couldn't bring myself to try it though. :-)

We started our day just a little later as Krissy had a bit of a restless nights sleep, so we opted to sleep in. Once we got ready for the day we headed down to breakfast where we enjoyed the food and company. We sat with Joann and Dennis who are from Wisconsin, Melana who I believe lives in San Diego and Stan and Sandy who are amigos here at the Oasis, they are also from Wisconsin. Lots of cheese heads here at the Oasis (including me, that's why I can say that hehe!)

Krissy and I have really lucked out being here this week as we have had nothing but beautiful sunshine and warm weather so far. If it wasn't for our kiddos and husbands that we are missing so much, we may decide to stay. Anyway we did enjoy a bit of the morning sun by sitting in the Courtyard where we met Jewels who lives in Oceanside, CA, she is here with her Mom that has been diagnosed with ovarian (insert the c word here). What a neat person Jewels is, she was asking Krissy a lot of questions about Oasis and Krissy's story. Jewels like I, is so impressed and inspired by the love and overwhelming feeling of healing here at Oasis. I really enjoyed talking with her.

We decided to go inside to find out when they were going to start Krissy's treatments as it looked like she had a good day of different treatments today. They called her to go downstairs to receive the O zone treatment, where they take her blood and then through this machine add oxygen it and then give the blood back to her as it goes through a UV light, pretty amazing stuff! She came back to the room where she then received genoxal however, before receiving the kemdalin Krissy was feeling hungry so off to lunch we went. I must say this was probably the most disappointing meal we had so far, they had fish, rice and salad, it was not real flavorful. The juice I tried was not very good either, not really sure what fruit it was, so we both agreed to go to El Yogurt for dinner, which I was excited to try. At lunch though we did meet Jewels mom, Joslin who had a ton of questions for Krissy. What a nice lady, however she seems to be scared and nervous, she is new and not sure about everything lately. I think Krissy helped put her at ease somewhat so that was good to see.

Back to the room we went for Krissy to receive her kemdalin and watch Ellen. Krissy handled all of her treatments really well today and still had energy to go to El Yogurt for dinner. I must say I totally enjoyed dinner, a chicken burrito and beans, of course I had to try their frozen yogurt too. I had the strawberry and it was delicious, it was a really nice treat to get out for a bit and then enjoy a great dinner with Krissy. When we returned we went to the chapel for the healing prayer. Wow this was intense and words just cannot describe how I felt, I truly felt God's presence. He was there with his hands and heart on everyone and especially for Dennis, Krissy, Joslin and one other woman whose name I cannot remember. It was incredibly spiritual and emotional. I have always believed and trusted in God, however unfortunately when you get into your day to day hustle and bustle sometimes you forget he is there. This experience was such an eye opener and one I hope that I never forget.

Well it is now time for more of American Idol and then off to sleep, until tomorrow.

Day Twenty One: Little Blessings

2010-03-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

Tonight we're on time and under budget! I'm really missing my wife this time around, the house seems so much more quiet and empty without her than it ever has before. It could be that I'm feeling down, as I learned that our good friend Sharon passed away on Sunday. I had prayed that she would find healing and be able to return to her life in Australia with her husband and two little boys, but unfortunately she lost the battle after slipping into a coma over the weekend. My heart goes out to her sister Jenny and to all of her family. Sharon made a big impact in our lives during the short time we knew her. At least I can take comfort knowing she's not in pain any longer.

Well it's getting late again so it's time to turn it over to Lori. Their day awaits!

Once again we had a great night sleep and woke up around 7:00am. Today we were both able to have full showers which made Krissy happy. We then went to workshop, what a great way to start our day. It was lead by Bruce and Vickie, we sang a few songs, said what we are thankful for, Bruce read from the Bible and ended with hugs all around. From there we headed to breakfast which again I enjoyed, we had banana pancakes with strawberries on top, yummy! Krissy has been eating really well here which is so awesome to see. We sat with sweet little Ferrin again and her Daddy, Matt. They are leaving tomorrow to go back to England, which will be great for them to get back home I am sure.

After breakfast we went back to our room where Krissy had her 2nd treatment of the week, today she received genoxal and kemdalin. We had a pretty mellow morning I relaxed, checked e-mail and read while Krissy received her treatment and took a nap. Once her treatment was done it was lunch time so off to the dining area we went.

Todays lunch consisted of spaghetti, which we were told the noodles were made of artichoke and wheat I believe, it was actually very tasty. We also had Oasis approved french fries and of course I thought of Frankie, I know he would have enjoyed them. The Oasis staff had put together a small little birthday party at lunch for Ferrin as her 3rd birthday is on March 28, so they had ballons, made a cake, had presents and a pinata it was so very sweet, unfortunately she was not really into it as I think she was tired. The thought was very sweet though.

We were blessed with a beautiful warm and sunny day so we decided to go to the courtyard to read and enjoy the day. We then returned to our room to watch the Ellen show for some laughs and decided it was to nice so went back to the courtyard. This time we enjoyed the company of little miss Ferrin, she had Krissy and I play boat, airplane and pretend we were eating pizza and strawberry pudding oh and we gave eachother pretend presents too. We have really enjoyed Ferrin these last couple of days and will miss her. We then went to dinner which was tasty and while dinner was going we had a sing along with Bruce and Vickie, it was a lot of fun and everyone really seem to enjoy it. This place just exudes Positivity, Faith, Hope and Love. These are the words that Oasis lives by, Hope, Faith and most if all Love! I have felt this everyday!

Well it's time for a little bit of TV before bed, Krissy is going to get me hooked on American Idol watch, until tomorrow.

Day Twenty: Back in the Saddle

2010-03-16T07:16:00.000-07:00

Here we are again, Kris is back for her third round of treatment at Oasis and I'm home alone with the girls. I'm cautiously optimistic about this third trip, knowing that she is still early in her treatment cycles and that no change, or even a small change in the wrong direction isn't necessarily a bad thing. This is going to be a long road for Krissy and I have to be prepared for bumps in the road, no matter how discouraging they might seem in the short term.

Krissy left on Sunday and this time her best friend Lori accompanied her down to sunny Tijuana. I'm sure those girls will take lots of walks and watch The Sweetest Thing about a thousand times. So without further ado, I'm going to turn you over to Lori and let her show us Oasis through her eyes. I'm a bit behind posting their first day, so I'll try to have tonight's update written on time. I was pooped and fell asleep on the couch with Camryn :)

After a Great night sleep for both of us we woke up early to get our day started. It was a great start for me with a nice warm shower, however for some reason Krissy's shower was cut short, all of a sudden the water just turned off and we had no water in our room for about 30 minutes, ugh!! While finishing getting ready, a nurse came to draw blood from Krissy, little did he know he had his work cut out for him. Let's see after the 3rd and 4th vein he was able to get just a little bit, Krissy was so funny, she told him she must have left her blood at home. He then continued to try to draw more and by the 7th vein he was able to get a little more. Krissy handle it all so well and was such a trooper, I was just hoping her day would take a turn for the better and I believe it did.

Off to the cafeteria for some breakfast, I was looking forward to seeing how the food would be and I was pleasantly surprised, it was actually quite tasty. While at breakfast we saw Bruce and I met his wife Vickie who gave Krissy a big welcome hug and were so happy to see her. I was in awe of all the people who work at Oasis, many of them remember Krissy, all said hi and gave her hugs, it was great to see.

After breakfast we went back to our room where Krissy received her 1st treatment of the week which was Genoxal. Yay, they hit her vein the 1st time, Krissy was happy about that after what she went through this morning. Once her treatment finished we decided to enjoy the beautiful sunny day, so we went to the courtyard and read for a bit and also enjoyed watching a little girl named Farron, from England who was almost 3 years old. What a sweet little girl with a sweet little accent. We learned that her mom, Jo, had passed away yesterday, which was very sad news to hear. I know this news hit Krissy really hard, but also know that this will make her fight her fight even harder.

We decided to go to lunch where again enjoyed some delicious food and had great company. We met another couple who are Amigo's here at Oasis of Hope and also met Farron's daddy, Matt. He seemed to being going through all the motions, however after all he has been through he was still very positive with his road ahead for he and his daughter. Talking with him and seeing Farron again was really hard for Krissy, however in some ways I feel that God maybe placed them here for Krissy to meet so it will continue to give her the faith and strength she needs to continue her fight for great health.

After lunch we decided again to go enjoy this beautiful weather and took a walk to the ocean which is just a few blocks away. It was nice to get out, walk and enjoy the beautiful view and sounds of the ocean. We then went back to our room to catch up on emails, read and relax for a bit.

We headed down for diner and enjoyed an interesting meal of broccoli and tofu, Krissy opted out on that dish and chose to have the salad. We met 2 woman from Canada that sat at our table with us and are also true believers in the natural and holistic way of healing. From dinner we headed to the chapel for group where everyone told there stories and it amazed me how positive everyone was and the faith they have in God was so incredible. We are now back in our room for the night, going to watch a little TV and call it a night, until tomorrow.

Day Nineteen: Home Again Home Again La De Da

2010-02-19T21:10:00.000-08:00

Our final day at Oasis began very early. The alarm went off at 6:30 and Krissy was up and at it for treatments to begin promptly at 7:30. First off Ozone with UV light, then on to breakfast, before the last rounds of Vitamin C, Vitamin K, and Kemdalin. It was the best day of weather we had in all week, probably reached 70º by 10:00. Krissy actually did really good with the Vitamin C, she was only queasy for the first hour, and then she was fine. We went outside and basked in the sunshine, til we got too hot and me little suburned, so we came in, grabbed our stuff, said our goodbyes to Casey, Karen & Jim, Beth & Earl, Dottie & Carol, and headed for sunny San Diego.

It took almost an hour to cross the border. The cars were lined up for hours but we got to go through the fast lane, that however did not mean we got to cross any sooner than the 500 cars lined up to get through. It was interesting to say the least. At one point I was almost having a full blown anxiety attack because all I could see was cars all around me, people selling their merchandise at the car windows, and border patrol picking random cars to inspect. I almost felt claustrophobic, so I just tried to keep my head down til we got to the booth. After about 45-50 minutes of waiting, we finally got across, thank goodness. We met up with my cousins Voni and Analeisse and had just enough time to shop and hang out before our flight. It was the first normalcy I had felt in an entire week.

Our flight was delayed a 1/2 hour, which felt like an eternity, but was fine because it was only a 1/2 more before we were home sweet home. Frankie was waiting for us and Camryn and Cori were ecstatic to see their mommy. Once we got to my house, I was greeted with the warmth of my hubby and an Oasis approved beer I had been waiting for. Something about the Oasis' approval of coffee, beer, and wine, just makes it easier to accept the changes to our diet. How bad is that....or good?

Overall I have to say this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am honored my sister asked me to go with her. Sometimes we need to take the blinders off to really see what life is really all about. We are all guilty of getting caught up in the material side of things that we forget the true value of life and relationships we have with others. Last week was another life lesson for me. Even though my stay there was short, it was long enough for me to really evaluate things within my life. My advice, say "I love you" as often as you can to the people you love! So on that note, I love you all....God Bless!

Day Eighteen: Watched Pot Never Boils

2010-02-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

TGIF! Today was a big day of treatments for Krissy.... Ozone, UV light, Perftec, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, and Kemdalin. With several hours of her time being tied up, I decided to play on the computer, go outside and sit in the courtyard, watch some daytime tv and read The Lovely Bones. I finished Dear John last night, my hope is that the movie is relatively close to the quality of the book, because I really enjoyed it. With Saturday fast approaching, it seems as though the day went by really slow. They say that when you're anxious for time to fly by, it actually slows down, and that was very true for our Friday. Its exciting to think that we'll be heading home tomorrow, but I wish there was a way that we could keep in touch with EVERYONE here because we genuinely care about their progress. You create such a support system here, that it's hard to say goodbye. My hope is that Krissy will cross paths with most of who are here now when she comes back in 4 weeks.

Laura and Ron came to say their goodbye's to us this afternoon, but I missed them. They had plans for the evening and tomorrow they're going to spend the day in San Diego. Another family we saw leave today was Helen and her mother and son. They're from London and although we never formally we met them, we always smiled and said hello in passing. Helen was the patient here, battling breast cancer. Her son looked to be about 10 and you could see how ready he was to go home. The other night for dinner, he had a plate full of banana muffins and some juice. Imagine kids who don't always like eating their vegetables and now only having vegetables to eat. I can only imagine what he'll eat when he gets home! I heard another Aussie has arrived. He was talking with the father and son from Melbourne (who are originally from Argentina) at lunch and there was no mistaking that accent.

Restful evening it was, watching the Olympic opening ceremonies. Krissy's treatments didn't finish until after 7, and the Vitamin C always make her feel yucky. It was the first night I ate by myself but I brought my tray back to my room and watched The Proposal on the laptop while she rested. Tonight before bed I'm going to pray real hard for everyone here and everyone who will be arriving this weekend. Whether its future goals or dreams, whatever it is you want, if you pray and believe in it with all your heart and soul, anything can happen!! God Bless!

Day Seventeen: Downgrade to DEFCON 3

2010-02-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

What a difference a day makes. I admit to feeling pretty down when I heard the news from Krissy yesterday. I'm not sure if it's because I'm too close to the situation or if I'm a worry wort, but kneejerk reactions to any kind of change in Krissy's condition seem to be the norm for me lately. I'm still not pleased with the test results but I had to stop and question, what did they really mean? I'm not a doctor, and even if I played one on TV, slight changes in her condition one direction or the other may be perfectly normal. And after reading Cesa's update tonight it seems that this is the case, we just have to give these processes time and understand that "improvement" will be measured in the long term. So for myself, I just resolve to keep my head down, support Krissy every day in her battle, and trust that prayers and determination will see us through. As Camryn so wisely stated to me at dinner last night, while working so hard to shovel slippery spaghetti noodles into her mouth and dumping most of it in my lap, "Be patient Daddy!" Ok, attitude adjustment completed, now it's time for Words de Cesa!

I guess all that praying last night really wore us out, or maybe it was that no one was riding the elevator all night, either way, we got a really good night's sleep and slept in this morning for the first time since we got here. Breakfast today, for lack of better words, was awful! Their attempt at french toast was a failure at best, but we understand the effort and the reason why the food is the way that it is here. Krissy and I kind of picked at our food before deciding that what we really wanted most was coffee. We ate some fruit and then went to Starbucks. We got to come back and enjoy our coffee in the courtyard because of the beautiful weather again and then came up to see if Dr. Lagos was making rounds again.

Dr. Lagos came in and told Krissy, with a smile on his face and his hand on hers, that the protocol will not change. He said after meeting with the other doctors this morning they decided that all will remain the same. I asked him why the tumor would have grown a little and he came and sat next to me and said, "the growth is not much, almost the same as last time, with a slight (as he pinched his fingers together) difference." He said they felt that the pain in my sister's side was not related to the cancer and that she can keep on doing everything she's been doing. Their bedside manner is so different from any of the doctors that I'm used to. I only met him for a brief minute on Monday and as I pass by him in the halls, he always says, "Hola, Francesca". So his words of advice to Kris before he left, keep up the healthy lifestyle, exercising and eating right and he told her he expects good things. Also, while she was visiting in Dorian's (patient coordinator) office, Dr. Cesenias, the head oncologist, told Krissy that he wasn't worried about her and that it typically takes 3 lymphocyte treatments before they really start analyzing the effectiveness of the treatment and ended with "and you'll be fine". Crisis averted!

What good news that was for both of us....I think we got a surge of adrenaline and didn't know who to call first. She did the immune therapy today, or as Frankie and her will call it, "corn therapy". LOL...this is the lymphocyte transfusion that causes her to smell like corn. At first I didn't notice a difference in the smell, but it definitely kicked in later. If you ask who your lymphocyte donor is, the hospital will tell you and then you can meet them and thank them. Her donor for today's transfusion was Isaac. So today was a themed lunch, carribean to be exact, and on the themed lunch days, the staff is invited to come and join the patients and their companions to eat and get to know them. Isaac, ironically, came and asked if he could sit with us. He is the main hospital coordinator here and as he sat down, Krissy told him thank you for being her donor. He said he was honored and felt it was not coincidence that he picked us to sit with. While we were eating, we met our neighbors Karen and Jim. They're from Grand Rapids, MI, a city we're familiar with, and Karen is battling ovarian cancer. After 6 cycles of chemo, she decided no more chemo, so here she is. We also briefly met Earl and Beth from Ontario, Canada. Not sure what the type of cancer is because Earl had a treatment to get to, so they just had time to introduce themselves. I have to admit, today's lunch was probably the best yet, not because of the food, but the company and the 2 hour conversation we had with them.

The rest of the afternoon we spent relaxing in the room watching Ellen (Krissy) and me reading my book. After Ellen we walked down to the pharmacy for Kris to get one of her prescriptions and then over to El Yogurt to get me a frozen yogurt. At dinner, I noticed there were several new faces. Some people have left or are leaving tomorrow and new ones are coming in. I did happen to notice that a gentleman, whose wife had been taking her meal trays to their room, is now eating with his wife in the cafeteria. I take that as a good sign and he looks to be doing good. No service tonight, which we were kind of bummed about, but we'll just say our prayers in silence before turning in for the night. Tomorrow is movie night, they prepare air popped popcorn with olive oil and veggie salt, but we're thinking we'll skip out on the movie and just snag some popcorn and return to our room to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies. Can't believe just a couple days left here for us. The week started off slow, but has picked up momentum. I'm getting anxious, Krissy also, to get home and see our families. Thank goodness for Skype and facebook, but it doesn't compare to being in their presence or any of you for that matter! God Bless!

Day Sixteen: Carry the Fire

2010-02-10T22:29:00.000-08:00

It's all Cesa tonight folks, I'm done tuckered out. My only contribution tonight will be to the title, inspired by The Road. No one said this was going to be easy, but what burns brightest inside will see us through. Enough of my waxing poetic, time to turn you over to Cess.

Apparently Colorado isn't the only place with unpredicatable weather. Seems as though the storm we were supposed to get blew over us. Yesterday evening they were already sand bagging the doors and prepping for what we thought was going to be high winds and lots of rain. To our delight, we woke up to clearer skies and no wind and we made it in time to see all the beautiful faces from all over the world at breakfast. I guess I should have remembered to tell you sooner that there are people here from London, other parts of England, Australia, and many other great US states. On the menu this morning, much to my surprise, was egg in the hole! I thought that was only an "American" thing, but apparently lots of things make they're way across the border, just like Peter Piper Pizza.

While the nurses were getting Krissy set up on her IV treatments, I decided to take a walk and get to know the 3rd floor a little better. I also have a hard time with needles and blood and they were having to fight Krissy's arms to find a good vein. She has tiny veins and they were not cooperating with the nurses. As I was walking around, I noticed an article posted on the wall about Donald Factor, the son of the very famous makekup artist Max Factor. He was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1986 and after virtually no options for treatment in England, he came to Oasis of Hope. When you hear a diagnosis of liver cancer, one automatically assumes "terminal" because our liver is the laboratory of our bodies and is one of the main powerhouses to complete the functions of our organs. Donald Factor underwent this surgery to create a port that delivered the medication directly to the liver. Long story short, he survived through the miraculous efforts of Dr. Contreras and his team here at Oasis. As I read this, I couldn't help think to myself that if only Josh's dad Garry would have known of this place, maybe he too could be here today to tell his story. Everything in life happens for a reason though, and we have to believe that there is a beautiful world we will enter into after this life, and some are just meant to go before us to prepare for our arrival.

Marcia left this morning and I wish we would have had her for one more day because we got some pretty upsetting news. The results from the scan came back and it seems as though the tumor by Krissy's pancreas and intestine has grown slightly and the one in the lining of her stomach has increased a little as well. That was a blow initially, but the powers that be, sent us comfort in the form of Laura and Ron. As we were walking down the stairs to lunch, they greeted us with a smile and saw that it was not returned so easily. Immediately Laura asked how the scan went and we both started crying. She hugged Krissy tightly and said, "It's ok, Ron's scans were different all the time and not always good, but he's here today cancer free and that's all that matters." Everyone here is not given the same protocol, they are very similar, but they're all tweaked to find the perfect regimen. Krissy's will now probably need to be readjusted, and tonight we will pray for the guidance and direction we will need to go in tomorrow.

With this much needed sunny, warmer, weather, Krissy and I got to venture out again. This time it was to find the Church, our place of solice, but the doors were locked when we got there. So we headed back and I attended the relaxation workshop led by Dr. Lety Wong, the psychologist here. I was the only one in the class, so I got to meditate all by myself. It was very relaxing and I came back to the room with a much clearer head. Earlier in the day I had attended Dr. McCarty's seminar on nutrition and as Frank told us in the blog from the first round....we eat TERRIBLLY BAD in the US. Looks like its going to be the Mediterranean diet for me. First I need to have a slice of pizza, because that's what I am craving so badly, but after that....I'm restructuring my meals.

For dinner we decided enough with the plethora of fruits and veggies and off to El Yogurt we went. Krissy's protein levels are low, so she needs to start eating more fish, chicken and adding the vegetable proteins, so all the more reason to eat out at the hospital approved restaurant. I had chicken enchiladas and Krissy had a chicken burrito and for dessert, raspberry frozen yogurt with lots of sunflower seeds, almonds and walnuts. Healing service was at 7 and that was just what we needed before retiring to bed. We prayed for Krissy and Casey. Casey is a young father from Atlanta. He has been battling colo-rectal cancer for quite some time and it has advanced to his lungs. He has two little boys, ages 3 & 5, who bring a light to his eyes when he speaks of them. After several rounds of chemo and it not working, he was sent hopeless from Atlanta to the light of Oasis.

Today didn't go exactly how we would have planned, but there's always renewal by hearing someone else's journey and we never forget the promise of tomorrow! We're 1/2 way there.....God Bless!

Day Fifteen: Totopos?

2010-02-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness, everyone in the Lanza household woke up feeling well and well-rested. Finally having my appetite was great, one of those things you don't miss until it's gone. Camry was re-fitted for glasses this afternoon after trashing her first pair at daycare two weeks ago, so we begin the adjustment phase all over again. I might have to take a long break from contacts so I can show her that daddy and sissy and mommy all wear their glasses, so Cam can too. It's rough when the one year old has the indomitable will of kung fu sensei.

As live goes on here at home Kris and Cesa continue their adventure at Oasis. After a few days without my wife, I'm not sure which is more difficult, being in Mexico with her or being home alone and wondering how she is doing all the time. I find myself feeling a lot more anxious this time around although I don't really have any reason to be. I'll be glad to have her back this weekend.

Well, without further delay I'm going to turn it over to Cesa and catch some extra sleep tonight. Take it away sis!

Where to begin....typical weekday morning, except Krissy had her CT scan so she got to drink yummy contrast with apple juice. They were a little late taking her down so we got to breakfast late and had a quiet meal all by ourselves. When we returned they started her genoxil, then on to kemdalin. While hooked up to her IV, Marcia and Dottie knocked on the door and asked if they could visit with us. These two women are incredible. They come once a year, Marcia for 2 weeks, Dottie for a month and work with the amigos. They have no cancer experiences of their own, but devote themselves to helping others with their spirituality and deep love for every human being. They visited for a while and then we prayed. I have heard many great things about Bruce and Vicky, and I'm sorry to have missed them, but I'm blessed to have crossed paths with these two lovely ladies.

Pretty uneventful Tuesday. At lunch there was some fresh guacamole so I saved a plate and brought some up to our room to eat with my "totopos". Something about eating fresh guac on lettuce just doesn't appeal to me as much as good old fashioned tortilla chips!
Weather was pretty crappy today, windy, cloudy, and cold, so we stayed in all day. This afternoon Kris was pretty tired so she napped and I switched between reading, crocheting and watching daytime tv. Those that know me well, know that I can't sit still for long, so this down time is kind of kicking my butt. If I could run circles around this place I would, but they would probably think I'm crazy and Lord knows its not safe to run around outside. I'm adjusting, but the two cups of coffee each day doesn't help!

After Ellen we went to Starbucks....figured we better go get our coffee before this nasty storm comes blowing in. Apparently the next day or so is supposed to be very rainy and cold so we might be done with our beautiful weather for the next few days. As we were walking to Starbucks, I saw the Peter Piper Pizza sign again and I had forgotten to mention that the other day.....what a blast from the past! I know there are several people reading this that will have flashbacks after hearing that name. I thought that was only a Colorado Springs thing and I also thought that left with our old school 90's permed hair....apparently everything makes a comeback, let's just hope the perms don't!

Tonight it was prayer and reflection with the amigos, Biggest Loser (my other source of inspiration) and relaxation. Biggest Loser was filmed in Colorado Springs for tonights episode, made me proud of our hometown but made me miss Colorado even more. Reflection group was very fulfilling. We met Jorge who is here with his wife Conchita. She, ironically, is battling gastric cancer as well. We didn't get the chance to hear much of her story, but she was offered no hope in San Diego, a story all too common in this place. He drives back and forth from San Diego and he looks tired, but as he stated, "I am so blessed that my wife and I were told of this place, I know we made the right decision." He went on to say that he has always been a man of faith, but this experience has renewed his faith. Amen to him and Conchita for being here!

As the night winds down, my reflection for the day is, we always knew the Oasis was a gift from God and I am priviledged to be amongst these angels here. While this place can be hard to be in at times, it also renews my strength and faith like Jorge. We are all too aware that things happen in life that we have no control of, but its the people we meet along the way who enrich our souls to make the journey more beautiful!

"God is love, Rev Run" (LOL to those who understand this quote)

Day Fourteen: Blessings

2010-02-08T22:59:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is midnight already and I haven't finished this post. I'm feeling pretty crappy today, I think I caught Camryn's stomach flu bug from this weekend and I fell asleep in the glider with her a few hours ago. I guess I needed the rest. Thank god Cesa has a meaty post tonight, because I'm turning it over to her and hitting the sack! G'night!

First morning at Oasis was pretty uneventful. We woke up to a beautiful sunny day with no wind. We watched the news and the Today show while we waited for the lab tech to come take Krissy's blood. Since the labs were done late, we missed morning service, but were still able to make breakfast on time. The menu for this morning: eggs, refried beans, oatmeal and lots of fruit! I swear I'm going to come back skinnier and I'm lovin it! During breakfast we met our first two people. Marcia and Dottie. They are here with the "Amigos de Esperanza" since Bruce and Vicky are in Italy. They were so friendly and told us about a lecture going on tonight about trauma as it relates to cancer, couldn't wait to hear tat one!

After breakfast we came back up to our room and waited for Krissy to get her treatment schedule. First thing on the list, Genoxil. While Krissy was hooked up to the IV drip, I decided to grab my ipod and go sit in the courtyard and do some more crocheting. It was so nice, I decided to come back and grab my bag of goodies, ie, gossip mags, journal, book, sunglasses, and head back out to my comfy spot. Soon after I got settled, Krissy came and joined me and we read our magazines and basked in the sunshine. Laura, a lady we spoke wth briefly last night came over and talked to us for a while. She and her husband are here with the "Amigos" and he went through treatment 4 years ago and is living cancer free after a battle with prostate cancer that spread to his lungs. After our visit, we came in for lunch. Albondigas de pollo, beans, and veggies galore. We ate quickly because we really wanted to venture out while it was so warm. First stop, Calimax (local grocery store). We wandered around, skimming several aisles and walked out with advil (for me), Totopos (tortilla chips), water, and chocobanana oreos (for me of course). Next stop, the dollar store.....very interesting in there, but fun to see. Last stop, the beach. We walked down alongside the US border and saw the wall of crosses. Wasn't quite sure of the story, but based on the mural "Ni Una Muerte Mas, Reforma Ya", many people had attempted to cross the border and never quite made it. Dorian later confirmed it. As I stood there, I looked at it thinking, "that wall is the gate to a freedom many will never know, as well as the difference between a life of poverty or that of wealth. We have a lot to be thankful for and those types of things are just little reminders."

At dinner we met Vera, a very cute woman who has tumors on the liver and gall bladder and is here with her friend (I can't remember her name right now) who was here several years ago with ovarian cancer. In 24 months she was here 22 times but is now living cancer free. Now she is delighted to be with her friend sharing the experience. We attended that trauma seminar i mentioned earlier after dinner, and it was very enlightening. The research on trauma, emotional and/or physical, has a tremendous impact on our health at the cellular level. I challenge everyone to do their homework on this, its worth the knowledge. The overall message from this lecture though was when we allow ourselves to find forgiveness within and through our belief and faith in God, we can be delivered from those burdens and be in a constant state of healing.
While today we heard those survivor stories that fill us with joy and hope, there are those I see and quietly say a prayer for because their battle will be much harder and possibly longer. We were told there are 19 patients checked in right now and there are several that don't leave their room. We see their friends and family in passing and they look weary, but never without a smile. The warmth and friendliness of the strangers around us brings a smile to my face but also reminds me that hope is almost tangible here because of the amazing light this place radiates. As Vera put it so plainly this evening, "Thank God for Mexico." Until tomorrow........God Bless!

Day Thirteen: Veggie's Revenge

2010-02-07T21:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome back everyone! Yes, it's that time again, Krissy has begun her second of three scheduled trips to the Oasis of Hope. We'll all gather around the virtual campfire every day to recount her tale, this time with the assistance of my lovely sister Cesa. Wow that really makes me sound like a cheesy gameshow host huh? She'll be supplying the words and perspective from Playa de Tijuana as only she can while I take up the position of ghostwriter. I'm really looking forward to getting her point of view on the treatment process at Oasis as well as hearing about the new folks they'll inevitably run into.

To quickly recap, Krissy has completed her first 12 day cycle of treatment at Oasis and we've been getting back into the swing of things during the four week break at home. It's been a bit difficult sticking exactly to the diet she's supposed to be on, especially now that we're both back to work, but I feel Kris has done great with her recovery path and is on the way to being cured. Unfortunately, we haven't had any real world proof or feedback to show us that these treatments are working as we don't currently have an oncologist at home to run tests and scans for us. Hopefully we can have a new one on board by the time she returns from this session in Mexico. We've received such incredible support throughout this ordeal and we're truly blessed to have friends and family around us providing love, prayer and overwhelming generosity.

Well, I think I've rambled long enough, let's hand the mic over to Cesa for a rundown of the girl's day at Oasis!

Hey there! Today started off rough, leaving the kiddos and husbands behind was hard, especially at 6am. Once we were in the air, the only thoughts crossing my mind were "what's this place going to look like, how will the people be, will it be anything like I imagined?" Well, to my surprise, it was just how I pictured it, with slight variations. Luis was the first person I met. He was our chaffeur from San Diego and he was so excited about the Super Bowl... not so cool that he was cheering on the Colts, but very nice guy. Dorian was the next friendly face and he was happy to see Krissy again. He showed us to our room and made sure to ask if we were hungry because lunch would be served soon after we settled in.

Lunch was interesting. Lot of veggies, and more veggies, and more veggies, but there were some very nice people sitting around us and I sat back and listened to bits of information that I could use to start piecing their stories together. We were all going to go on a shopping trip to one of the markets, but to our disappointment, the shuttle was not able to make it back in time and we were left finding things to do on our own. We came back and watched some tv, read a little and then decided to go to Starbucks for afternoon coffee. When we got back, we turned on the TV, did a little searching and found the Super Bowl. What a great way to finish the day, watching the New Orleans Saints win their well deserved 1st super bowl championship! Now after all the excitement, we're winding down. Krissy is sleeping and I'm juggling gossip mags, gossip TV, emailing and crocheting. I'm excited to see what tomorrow has to offer, maybe nicer weather, a stroll to the beach, who knows, but I'll be sure to let you know! All our love!

Thanks Cess! Reading that makes me wish I were there with you guys, I miss Krissy already and it's going to be a long week without her by my side. At the same time I'm grateful to Cesa for taking this trip with Kris and allowing me to stay home with the kids so we can maintain some sense of normalcy in their lives. I know she's sacrificing a lot to be away from her own family and I'm very thankful for her help.

I spent my first day "home alone" by doing mounds of laundry, eating mac & cheese with the kids (with veggies of course, I'm not that bad of a father!) and wrapping up the evening with the Superbowl. Cori had to watch the game to count commercials for a school project, while Camryn would look up every 20 minutes or so and yell "Go Broncos!" at the TV. I've never been so proud.

I should go so I can fold this four foot high pile of clothes on my couch. I'm looking forward to Skyping with Kris and Cess again tomorrow to see how they are doing and hear what the doctors have to say about the course of treatment. Stay tuned for more adventures from Oasis featuring Cesa Brooks, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

Catching Up

2010-01-31T19:25:00.000-08:00

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it. Just over a week ago, my wife Krissy, at one time known as "The Girl with Months to Live", was dancing like a rockstar on stage in front of dozens of people. Yes, the same girl that just three months ago had massive abdominal surgery and was handed a life changing diagnosis of terminal cancer, was having a blast at the benefit auction event that our friends and family held for us at the Thirsty Parrot. How is this possible you ask? I suppose I should start at the beginning...

I'm not sure exactly when the wheels started turning on this auction idea, but by the time Kris and I came back from Oasis it was already taking shape. So many of our close friends and family were involved in the creation of this little, and soon to be quite big, shindig. With the word spreading around Facebook and email we soon had piles of donations coming in daily. Each day I was shocked to see not only who and what were donated to our cause, but also to see the bids coming in from friends, family and strangers for these items. Everything coming in was so nice I was half tempted to bid on a few things myself but I thought it would be pretty cheesy to win something from an auction being held for our benefit. Soon, the final day came and we spent an amazing evening last Friday at Thirsty Parrot (thank you very much for hosting us!) while I was continuously reminded of what incredible people we've been blessed to have in our lives.

So there we were, laughing, hugging, talking and walking about the bar and taking in the fact that this was all being done to help Krissy fight cancer. After the bidding closed and the items were cleared out, DJ Brandon Lee started pumping out the jams. Thanks to Cesa they were seriously old school too. It didn't take long for all of the girls to hit the dance floor and watched Kris dance with a big goofy grin on my face. Before I knew it, she was being coaxed on stage and introduced to the entire bar. I stepped off to the upper side of the stage and watched in wonder as my wife climbed up in front of a cheering crowd and proceeded to dance like the past three months had never happened. She looked strong, resilient, and beautiful. I hope no one looked up and saw me watching her, because I was crying like a baby. Tears of joy of course, and a host of other emotions that coursed through me too quickly to keep track of. At one point in the near past I didn't think I'd see anything like this ever happen again. I didn't know if I'd get to see Krissy sit up and enjoy a meal or hold our kids, let alone mingle at a club and dance on a stage. That girl is strength incarnate, if I can manage just a tenth of her strength and determination in this lifetime I'll count myself a lucky man.

In case you were curious, the auction was a tremendous success. So successful I think I'd have to invent new adjectives to describe just how awesome it was for Krissy and I. Perhaps "supermcfrickatastic" or "incredimazingmousness" come close to describing it. You know that scene in Spaceballs where they thought they couldn't go any faster and Darth Helmet pushes them to Ludicrous Speed? We blew way past ludicrous with this auction. With all of the generous bids and donations received we're now able to afford the next two treatments at Oasis without putting ourselves into massive debt. There are still donations coming in too, it's just amazing. I know I've said this before and I've been told we don't have to say it, but we will find a way to show just how grateful we are for all of this and say "Thank you" to everyone involved. Whether that's accomplished by Krissy coming out cancer free or us sending everyone complimentary passes to a Neil Diamond tribute concert remains to be seen. Oh, I'd never really do that second one. Probably.

Needless to say, we can now breathe a little easier. We're not out of the woods yet, and we have no idea what our costs will be in the future as Kris continues her fight, but this keeps us ahead of the game for a while. We can actually keep the few vacations we booked for our kids last year before all of this happened. We spent this weekend in Aspen at the Winter X-Games, something we'd paid for last February and were able to keep without feeling stressed. It was much needed for my family. While relaxing, it wasn't without it's adventures and mishaps, so if you're still around tomorrow I'll tell you about our weekend in the mountains.

That's it for me this evening. Now that we're home and busy as hell it's hard for me to find time for blogging, but I really enjoy writing here and will try to do it as often as I can. Kris heads back to Oasis next weekend and Cesa will be going along this time. She's been tasked as my proxy in Mexico so it'll be an interesting week of posts from Oasis while she's there. I'm also planning on taking my first art class in what seems like forever later this week. I'm sure hilarity will ensue. Until next time, g'night!

People Are Crazy (In a Good Way)

2010-01-19T20:44:00.000-08:00

Before I sat down to write this, I stared at a page of roughly 80 items that have been donated to the benefit auction for Krissy. I keep looking at this page in an attempt to wrap my head around the fact all these people have donated their time, effort, money and possessions for no other reason than to help my wife fight cancer. It's almost inconceivable to me. I'm a fairly proud, stubborn man that has a hard enough time asking for directions, let alone asking for help with the thousands of dollars of medical bills we're accumulating from both Western medicine and alternative treatments. Turns out I didn't have to ask. All of this came about from the goodness of your hearts and before I could blink it's snowballed into so many amazing things for our family. I hope I can say and show my thanks well enough for you all to really understand how much this means to us.

We've been home almost ten days now and I've still got Oasis on the brain. I've been dreaming about the hospital's hallways in various forms for several nights now. These dreams don't really make sense to me, and don't always resemble Oasis as I saw it, but as is the nature of dreams I just know that is where I'm walking when I sleep. I've dreamed of searching for the doctors and staff while slipping on the floor as I walked along stainless steel hallways. I've dreamed of being there with Krissy and eating at El Yogurt, then waking up hungry for chicken enchiladas. I've also dreamed of having cancer myself and arriving at Oasis as a patient only to find everyone else in my family now has cancer as well. They are all there to receive treatments and my heart breaks at seeing them in various states of the illness. I remember crying in my dream, and then elation when I realized Krissy wasn't a patient with me and that she was healed. I had taken the cancer from her and was going to have to be as strong as she was during her fight. The nurses try to give me IVs but no blood would draw until they stuck a needle roughly a foot long into my hand. Afterward I have difficulty walking because the needle is so heavy and I don't want it to break off in my vein. I never found out how this dream ended because Camryn woke me up at 3:30 in the morning wanting to be held. "I hold you Daddy" and I happily took her into my arms, still heavy with the remnants of grief from my dream. I guess I should cut back on the dried mango before bedtime.

Krissy is doing so well back at home. She has been energetic and determined as we get back to our ol' day to day lives. She is now back to work part time and doing great. I could hardly believe how wonderful is was to hear the sound of her voice over my cube wall. The office seemed empty without her presence these past few months. After ten years of working just a few feet away from her you get used to her energy always being there.

Today, Camryn followed the Lanza tradition and came home with her first pair of glasses. She's worn them for very short spurts tonight as we get her used to having them on. I have to say, she's pretty gosh damned cute in glasses. Of course as her daddy that's the only opinion I can form, so I'll let you be the judge. Behold four-eyed cuteness!

My health tip for the day comes not from Oasis doctrine, but from an article I shared with a few people several weeks back. Titled "The 7 foods experts won't eat", their #3 warning is to avoid microwave popcorn. Unfortunately this yummy, buttery snack is full of perfluorooctanoic acid and other chemicals in the lining of the bag. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer and can actually stay in your system for YEARS. Popcorn manufacturers know about this risk and will be phasing these chemicals out of their popcorn bags... by 2015. I recommend switching to stove or air popped popcorn, or even the old fashioned baskets over an open fire if you still have a real fireplace. Toss some Vege-Sal on there and it's movie night!

I only have one update from our Oasis friends and sadly it's not a good one. Sharon is still in the hospital battling the infection from her central line and will not be allowed to go home until her fevers are under control. Her doctors feel that the treatments at Oasis were not effective and have even suggested they feel there has been growth in her tumors. This may be true since she's been pumped full of Western medicine since stepping off the plane. I pray the infection is dealt with very soon so she can get home to her boys, and then return to Oasis to continue the treatments. I have complete faith she'll fight this off and get back on track.

One last note. Our hearts go out to our friend Ricki, as she lost her dog Harper last night. He was an old, sweet, and loyal friend and always a welcome sight around the office. As anyone who owns dogs knows, they are our best friends and truly family. And while this is a sad event, I'm also comforted by the thought that he's now chasing sticks like a young pup with his brother Hunter. Send your prayers out to the Stark family as they heal from this loss.

Krissy is catching up on episodes of the Hills so I might try to get to bed early. Ah, who am I kidding, if I ever got more than 5 hours of sleep I think I'd go into shock. Perhaps I'll find some Fringe or Dexter to watch before I crash. G'night!

Darn You Eyes!

2010-01-13T21:32:00.001-08:00

Genetics are a bitch. Just as two wrongs don't make a right, two messed up genes to not produce perfect offspring. Unfortunately for Camryn, it looks like she's inherited her parents messed up eyeballs. What does our little Bean look forward to in regards to her vision? Well let's see what's on the menu between the two of us; Krissy has nystagmus, myopia, and astigmatism while I also have really bad myopia, astigmatism, colorblindness and plugged tear ducts when I was a baby. Nearly everyone on my side of the family has very poor vision and my great grandmother's last name is actually a derivative of "blind" in Italian. Guess we had quite the reputation :) The odds on Cam ending up with 20/20 sight sure don't look very good do they? She already inherited my tear duct issues and had surgery on her left eye last August. Yesterday Krissy took Cam in for the first eye exam since the surgery and I was holding my breath as I awaited the results of her tests.

So how did she fare? Well, if the fact that my soon to be two year old will be sporting glasses very soon, I suppose not so hot! It's not really a bad thing, I had just hoped she'd be the generation that got to skip ocular issues. Thankfully it's rare for girls to inherit colorblindness. Hopefully she can avoid the embarrassment of mismatched clothing and snarky art teachers that I've had to endure. Krissy said that the glasses she fitted with are really cute and not at all the pop bottle bottoms that used to be the norm for kids when we were little. Now the real challenge is getting her to actually wear them. I'm sensing a few expensive replacement visits to the eye doctor in our future...

On the Oasis front, we're still readjusting to home life and trying to keep on their program. It's hard to consistently come up with healthy and fulfilling meals when you're cooking for yourself. I sure miss that cafeteria! But we're doing our best. I actually lost about seven pounds down there and don't plan on putting it right back with junk food. Kris is also going to get bored quickly if we don't get our menu sorted out soon.

Today was also part two of the nutritional class with Dr. McCarty. He was supposed to talk about menu options and go into more detail on the nutraceuticals that they utilize, so I'm bummed we missed out. I've emailed a few of our Oasis friends to see if they can send me the notes since I'm not sure if Krissy will see this same lecture on her next trip out.

One thing that is still screwt up is our sleeping cycles. We were only an hour behind Colorado there but combine that small adustment with the fact our kids were sleeping in two completely different enviroments for two weeks and you've got a slightly rough readjustment to being back home. Cori is trying hard to get back into school, dance and home routines and is doing a great job. For a 5th grader she sure gets piled on with the homework! Cam is having the hardest time, since she was able to sleep with her sister and grandparents during our time away. Now she's back in her own crib and not liking it at all. I've been up about every two hours the past few nights getting her back to sleep in her own room. It'd be easier to toss her in bed with us for a solid night's sleep, but that's just not healthy for any of us in the long run. She'll get back into the swing of things but until then she's keeping daddy on his toes.

I've received a lot of questions regarding my post about the nutritional class and treatments from Oasis, so I'll be putting up another one to help clarify some of the things I wrote about. Most especially nutrition and how it relates to the work they do at Oasis. I've got a ton of notes to sift through and will hopefully have something up in the next few nights.

We're just over a week away from the charity auction for Krissy down at Thirsty Parrot and I'm already astounded by the level of support she's receiving. Dana, Cess and the gang are doing an incredible job organizing and gathering donations for this thing. Some of the stuff I've seen is simply mind blowing, makes me tear up a bit just thinking about it. I expect to have a webpage listing all of items available for the silent auction in the next few days and Dana will email everyone on our contact lists. If you know anyone who might be interested please forward the info to them. As always, we're incredibly blessed and thankful for all of our friends, family and even the strangers that have reached out to help us during this time. I have no idea how we'll ever properly thank you all!

I suppose I should get to bed before the Camryn alarm goes off again. I'm a tad hungry and trying to avoid naughty food before bedtime. I think I'll snack on some dried mangoes, which are not nearly as tender as what we had down at Oasis. These are more like mango jerky. I guess that's the price we pay for living next to these beautiful mountains!

G'night!

Thinking Thoughts

2010-01-11T16:31:00.000-08:00

Have you ever sat back and wondered what you were doing with your life? Maybe wonder if there was a way to enjoy yourself more or find more time to spend with the kids. Yeah, I have plenty of times before too. Today ended up being a surprise opportunity to take stock of my life and the choices Krissy and I may make as she recovers from cancer.

Today I had a good talk with our friend Ricki on this very subject. She's taking a bold step and making a huge change in her life to pursue the things that will make her happy. I know that even before we learned of Krissy's cancer, I felt we spent too much time focused on the daily rat race and not enough time thinking and planning the things that are actually important to us. Now, every day is precious, and even when Krissy is cancer free I don't want to feel like we wasted a single moment.

The problem, and I'm sure you can all relate, is finding the means to break out of the daily grind and do something fulfilling. I'm not talking monetary means either. So many of the things I'd like to do for myself and my family wouldn't cost a penny, but they'd require effort, time and innovation to pull off. I'd love to start drawing again. I could probably be drawing right now instead of writing on this blog :) But sometimes the effort involved in finding the right frame of mind and the inspiration to put pencil to paper is missing. I've had this problem more often as I've gotten older and decided it's simply because I've let my right brain get lazy. Use it or lose it, and I guess I lost it. Or maybe it's sleeping and I need to wake it up. Is there a Creativity Dog for me out there somewhere?

I also can't see Krissy going to back to the same lifestyle now that she's feeling better. We both have to work of course, but I think we'll focus much less on the day to day stress that any job can cause and more on the big picture of improving our lives and spending as much quality time with our kids as possible. We haven't had the luxury of looking too far ahead lately, but I'd love for her to be able to take some classes or work on some of the business ideas she's had for so long now. She's expressed a desire to council others that are living with cancer and need an experienced ear to talk to. And just today she was offered a part time job at Dr. Jen's office. Krissy has become an inspiration to so many so quickly. I've always known she has too much fire to let it go untapped.

So, what the heck are we going to do about it? Good question. Personally, I've already begun the process of letting go of my hangups that prevent me from being proactive. Krissy is miles from where she started at the end of October and has made so many positive changes in her life already. I feel that this year will be bring many extraordinary changes and experiences to our lives. After all, I don't plan on letting a single moment go to waste.

And now to be completely hypocritical, I'm going to sit on my ass and play some Guitar Hero. Trying to finish Lazy Eye by Silversun Pickups on hard is an accomplishment too, isn't it?

G'night!

Decompression

2010-01-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

Day Two at Home! I'd start another suspense filled tally of our days in Colorado but I'm sure you'd all sign off when you realized the count never changes. But there will still be stories to tell, news to share and brain dumps galore to post here on BoF. If I'm sticking around, I'm taking you all with me (even kicking and screaming).

So, yes, we've been home two days already. After staying a second night at mom's house we decided to come back to our own home this morning. It's amazing how quickly you fall back into the same routines with barely a step missed. Cori is thrilled to have her room and bed back. I think I might have seen a tear of joy slip from her eyes, or maybe it was a tear of anguish now that she realized I'll be waking her up at the asscrack of dawn again. Camryn has resumed her usual post as Daddy's Girl. I missed my little shadow. Kris had another strong day that I fully expect it to continue indefinitely. She bucked up and sorted out her enormous regimen of pills and powders and broke everything down into breakfast/lunch/dinner/bedtime slots. If any of you don't know, Krissy hates taking pills, as she has the world's worst gag reflex. Watching her gulp down the fifteen or so pills this morning made me proud of my girl. She's gonna do alright!

We did receive a few tidbits of Oasis news today. Nicole emailed me with some news on her attempts to get back to Oasis. She had some lymph nodes in her neck biopsied but doesn't expect to find anything related to her brain cancer there. Tomorrow she goes in for another PET scan and hopefully she can return to Oasis in the near future. She's a sweet kid and way too young to be going through this crap. I'm praying she can start treatments asap.

We also heard from Jenny today. She and Sharon had a rough flight back to Australia but they were fortunate enough to get bumped up to business class so the ride was a little more comfortable. Sharon ended up being admitted to the hospital a few hours after they touched down. She's developed septicemia from the central line they installed in her artery. This is a bacterial infection in the blood and a pretty serious issue for someone that is already fighting cancer. More prayers to our Aussie girls that she's able to kick the infection quickly and get back to her home and family. Cancer dog is itching to wake up and start fighting!

Another surprise awaited us as we pulled into our driveway this morning. Our good neighbors James and Sherry were getting ready to walk the dog and we stopped to say hi. We haven't seen much of them lately and weren't able to get word of Krissy's cancer to them before we left for Oasis. It wasn't the most ideal of circumstances, but we got them caught up on the situation. We also found out why we haven't seen them much over the past few months. Sherry was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last April and had been out of town receiving her own treatments during the summer. And as is common for the majority of our conversations these days, she and Krissy compared notes on doctors, diets and what paths they sought outside of Western medicine. Krissy passed on the information for her naturopath Dr. Jen and the girls are going to start having coffee together when they are home during the days. It was another of those uncanny connections we've been making with people, and more evidence that God is always working in mysterious ways.

Even though we've slipped back into the comforts of home with relative ease, I noticed some changes hitched a ride back to Colorado with us. For instance, I can't eat as much at a sitting as I could just two weeks ago. I feel full much faster and don't have the desire to eat many of my old favorites. I even lost four pounds! Krissy gained one or two. These are good changes of course, and a promising start for our new way of life. There was also another shocking change. Krissy ordered black coffee from Starbucks and there was a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in California. Coincidence? I think not!

Well, my arms are tired from rocking a 22 month old to sleep after having two weeks off. Man that kid fights sleep like no other person I've known. Well, maybe except for me. There was a slight stomach bug going around Deb's this weekend and Krissy isn't feeling so swell tonight. I'm hoping she's able to get some rest. She'll also attempt to drive tomorrow after almost three months away from the wheel. If you have any time off tomorrow might be a good day to stay home. Kidding honey! :) Ok, that's all I got, thanks for sticking around. G'night!

Day Twelve: Home

2010-01-08T22:22:00.001-08:00

Home. Rarely does such a simple word conjure up a wider range of emotions. I can only think of a few others myself: love, daddy, pie. But, we are home now and I can barely describe the kaleidoscope of feelings I had during the day. It was great to step off the plane and take a deep breath of that cold crisp mountain air. It was exciting to see my brother Josh when he picked us up from the airport. And it was overwhelmingly joyous to open the door and finally hug our girls after so many days away. It was fantastic to look at Krissy today and really appreciate how healthy she looks. I'd even be so bold as to say she was radiant today. If her treatments were to end today, it would be the best $18,000 I've ever spent.

However, just because we are home doesn't mean that there aren't stories to tell from Oasis. Oh ho, far from it! I wrote a song about it, want to hear it? Here it goes. (No clue how that popped into my head just now after so many years)

If we flashback to seventeen hours ago then you would have seen our day start much too early with the nurses hooking Krissy up for the first of her four IV drips for the morning. She went through her two vitamin K and vitamin C treatments before 10:00 and we were able to clean up, pack and try to make our rounds of goodbyes before leaving at 11:00. I think we got to everyone except for Lee, seems he had a rough night and was still resting. We also didn't get to personally say goodbye to Sharon. She had a fever last night and they think the port she had placed in her artery a few days ago may be infected. She was feeling awful this morning and wasn't up for seeing anyone. We left our well wishes with Jenny and were rushed off to a waiting van and then taken to the airport.

We were accompanied on our journey across the border by Kelly and her mom Cara. I haven't written much about these two simply because we didn't see them outside of meals and they weren't overly sociable. After the van ride, I understand why. To put it simply, they are annoying. Well, at least Kelly is, Cara is much older and has a right to be crotchety. The entire ride back Kelly was asking such idiotic questions of our driver such as "Do you think if our car got smashed at the border insurance would cover it?" Or "Does anyone really buy the food these street vendors are selling?" I'm not sure, perhaps you should take a survey. The kicker came after sitting in line at the border for about thirty minutes. There were many street vendors selling religious items, most featuring Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is Mexico after all. After watching them walk by our window a few times she asks "So who is this religious lady I keep seeing? This Rosarita lady on all of the blankets, I'm seeing her a lot" I thought our driver was going to have an embolism, he turned around and gasped "THE VIRGIN!" Krissy helped him out and identified the mysterious religious lady to our clueless Kelly. The icing on the cake was when she turned to us and asked "So do you guys know who Esperanza was? I kept seeing notes about the Amigos de Esperanza at the hospital but I never saw her." As politely as she was capable, Krissy told her this means hope in Spanish and this was the ministry Bruce and Vicky belonged to. I said a silent prayer to God for strength to keep my mouth shut before I got into trouble. Thankfully we crossed the border ten minutes later and she kept busy with her cell phone.

Once we arrived at the airport we were greeted by our cousins Voni and Leisse. It was so nice for them to meet us before we headed home and we sat down for lunch at Chili's. We retold most of our tales over the first "normal" meal since we left. I ate the chicken with fries and found it's just not as tasty as it used to be and I can't eat as much anymore. This is a good thing, hopefully Oasis has helped us to make a life change in diet and both Krissy and I can continue down the right path. After we ate the girls saw us off to the security checkpoint and we made our way towards the flight home. I hope someday we can come back and stay with them in San Diego, it's an awesome town. And their company is pretty great too.

The flight home was uneventful and actually took less time than we expected. We were back in Denver by 6:20 and Josh hurried over to pick us up. We talked it up on the way home and before I knew it I had both Cori and Camryn in my arms and we were surrounded by our family again. Within minutes we fell back into the routine and Cam had me chasing her all over the house, while Cori excitedly showed me the book she's reading. Debi made us an awesome dinner of beans, chili and potatoes and I enjoyed a plate while we all talked and caught up. I don't even know how to thank Cesa, Josh, Debi and Bennie for taking care of our girls these past two weeks. It means so much to know they were in the best hands possible and had everything they needed while we were gone. Someday I'll figure out how to repay them. Maybe with a nice Rosarita blanket.

I also want to say thank you to everyone who has kept up with us through this blog over the past twelve days. I've been writing here on and off for almost two years but never felt I had anything to say that would matter to anyone but me and Krissy. I love Krissy and can't imagine a life without her, so this was one way I hoped to capture the experience for both of us no matter where the road leads. It's rewarding to know so many people came here and shared our journey over these past few weeks and posted such wonderful thoughts and prayers. I hope some of you came away with something unique from these little updates, whether it be knowledge you wouldn't have had otherwise, inspiration gained through the amazing strength and will Krissy possesses, or maybe just a few laughs. Either way, thank you for coming with us to Oasis and I hope you stick around to see what other adventures we stumble upon or what other randomness may fall out of my brain now that we're back to thinner air.

So, I'm off to cuddle with Krissy and Camryn, she had to sleep with us tonight. Tomorrow's a new day, thank you God. G'night!

Day Eleven: One More Sunset

2010-01-07T22:33:00.000-08:00

Holy crap it's already our last night here at Oasis. We are so ready to come home! I miss our kids, our bed, our house, our mountains and mashed potatoes. I can't wait to get back to all of these things and return to the routine of home. We're not done yet though, Krissy still has a very busy morning of treatments before we can leave. She'll be up at six a.m. tomorrow for two cycles of vitamin C and vitamin K. After she completes these we pack up and leave for the airport at 11:00. Yay!

Despite a busy day of therapies, we really didn't do a whole lot today. Kris was able to do her ozone therapy normally and her veins held up (thank you God) and then we holed up in the room while she sat through the last round of Perftec and more vitamin C. I caught up on episodes of Dexter during my downtime and Krissy watched Big Bang Theory with Spanish subtitles. I know, it was the pinnacle of excitement.

Due to the fact that I rambled at such great lengths about nutrition yesterday, I didn't get a chance to introduce two more acquaintances we made this week. First up is Omar and his mother Eva. He's here cleaning up the ravages of stage four colon cancer and is tired of putting up with chemo. Omar has actually done very well with chemo treatments but has had several lymph nodes turn up as suspicious and he's no longer responding to the drugs. His doctors want to step him up to the next level of toxicity to kill it off but he's made the decision to end chemo treatment and has come here to Oasis instead. He's a great guy, a lot of fun to talk with, and if you saw him on the street you'd never know what he's been through. He also owns an apparel company in California that produces athletic wear for city, high school and college teams.

I also didn't get a chance to talk about Lee, who is directly across the hall from us. Out of everyone we've met here, he probably has the most challenges to deal with and has had a long hard battle with his cancer. He has had melanoma for ten years and has been in and out of treatments for nearly that entire time. His last attempt to fight the cancer proved to be the most difficult and draining so far, and has left him in a very debilitated state. The therapy was experimental and from what he could tell me, entailed reducing his immune system to a near zero response then cloning his killer T cells and infusing them back to help kickstart the cancer fighting in his body. The risk was that he had nearly no immune system remaining to protect his body and his cancer actually became much worse after the treatment ended. It has now metastasized to his brain, stomach, lymph nodes and several external skin lesions. He is retaining massive amounts of fluid and had to have it drained, and is now too weak and nauseated to get around on his own. As such, he's been limited to spending all of his time in bed and is starving for some human interaction. We managed to pop into his room yesterday for a quick chat, and tonight we arranged to bring him downstairs for the sing-a-long with Bruce and Vicky. It was tough for him but he was able to enjoy some time out of the room with the rest of us. Afterward I spent about an hour and a half talking in his room and trying to wrap my head around everything he's gone through. I've come away with even more appreciation for the healing process here at Oasis and call for prayer to progress his recovery even faster. If anyone in this hospital needs the extra faith and support, it's Lee. God bless you brother.

On a lighter note, I was informed at lunch that since Krissy will have a new companion for her next trip Sharon would be voting her sister off the island and bringing me as her companion instead. Apparently I've done an adequate job helping Krissy during her stay and Sharon wishes to contract my services for her next visit to Mexico. I have no idea if I'll be getting a day rate or just room and board for this. I'm also not sure if Jenny is hurt or relieved by this turn of events. Of course, this was all just a big joke and another example of how our lunchtime conversations quickly spiral into the ridiculous. I'm going to miss laughing and hanging out with our Aussie friends.

Since this is probably my last night at Oasis, I joined Sharon, Jenny, Omar, Marilyn and Joy on a trip down to a little coffee shop on the beach to watch the sunset. Krissy's vitamin C treatments left her feeling pretty icky so she decided to rest in the room. The girls have found a nice place called Lat 32 for coffee and great views of the ocean. I ordered a hot chocolate and we all talked and watched another gorgeous sunset. It's amazing how fast the sun sinks below the horizon, almost like it's being swallowed by the ocean right before our eyes. Whether I come back or not, I'm grateful to have experienced as much as I have here at Oasis with our new friends.

I mentioned the sing-a-long earlier, and this was the final highlight of the evening. I think nearly everyone who was able joined Bruce and Vicky for some lighthearted singing in the cafeteria. Bruce even donned a bandanna and ponytails for a fantastic Willy Nelson impression. Let me tell you, that guy can belt out the tunes. Vicky is no slouch on the guitar either!

It's pretty late and I think this is the end of a fulfilling final day for me. While we will be going home tomorrow, this is far from the end of road for Krissy's healing and in some respects is really just the beginning of her journey. She'll be back on February 7th for her next six day stint. She has four weeks of dietary and nutraceutical support between now and then to continue her healing and we're praying for drastic reductions in her cancer by then. We've been told to expect very positive results from these therapies and I believe they are right. Krissy is an ass kicker and I fully expect her to kick the ass of this cancer until it's ass is completely gone. Until then we'll keep praying and healing, day by day. Now we just cross our fingers we don't get held up at the border before our flight! G'night!

Day Ten: I Made a Chart

2010-01-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

I feel dirty. I love Dr. Pepper and that makes me feel like a naughty boy. At least, now it does after today's nutritional lecture. Many of you have so nicely commented that I should write a book someday. I think I could write a couple dozen with the H-Bomb of knowledge that was dropped on my head this morning and the events that occurred afterward. And while I'm sure 3.7 of you would find it simply fascinating, I'm only going to ask the rest of you to suffer through the Cliff's Notes version today. Deal? Ok great.

To begin, I'd like you get familiar with this handy chart I created. Go ahead, take a look, I'll wait.

Ok, so this graph represents couple of different things that we learned today. The vertical value can represent any number of things: animal protein consumed, money spent on healthcare, amount of fat in the diet, etc. The basic gist is that in America, our lifestyle and diet is very unhealthy and we develop and die from cancers of the colon, breast, prostate, ovary and pancreas much more than any other country on the planet. Other countries, whether it be due to cultural preference or poor economic status, have diets low in meat and enriched grains while high in vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Makes sense, but what does this have to do with cancer? Well let me tell you!

Animal protein has a growth effect on the human body. This is why we need it from milk when we're babies and why you don't see any vegan bodybuilders. However, we don't really need it so frequently, or even at all as adults. Eating any animal protein causes the body to produce IGF-1 which is our natural growth hormone. It tells your body to start cranking out new cells and inhibits the natural functions that allow old cells to die off and be replaced. This is bad, because as adults we don't really need to grow any more and as a cell gets older it has a much greater chance at mutating when it divides. Mutated cells that replicate and don't die are called cancer. Keep the process going long enough, add in some other factors like a suppressed immune system from a crappy lifestyle and soon enough you've developed a tumor. It's just that easy!

So why don't we all have cancer? Well, we kinda do. According to research, every single one of us will develop cancer 8-10 times during our lifetime. The main difference is that for most of us our immune system will destroy the cancer before it becomes a problem.

During today's lecture, Dr. McCarty showed us what the absolutely ideal diet should consist of. Whole fruits and veggies, beans, whole grains and pasta. Foods that have not been enriched, like white bread or rice. These should be enjoyed with a few cups of coffee each day and rounded out with 1-2 glasses of wine or beer. That's pretty much it, and seems pretty inline with what common sense tells you after taking a hard look at our over indulgent American diet. So why is coffee good for you? Caffeine inhibits adenosine, a molecule that cancer cells use to turn your immune system off. Pretty cool huh? Also, and these are rough, but you should avoid milk, even non-fat, protein powders, hamburgers and any foods high on the glycemic index that will cause your insulin to spike. Insulin multiplies the effects of hormones in your system and insulin spikes cause a blood sugar crash, making you hungry more quickly. And lastly, cooking any kind of meat causes the creatine inside it become a powerful carcinogen called heterocyclic amines that are capable of causing all kinds of cancer.

Pretty grim stuff, yes? Sounds like our only hope is to become vegans and let the cows and chickens have their own island nation so they can live happily ever after. Of course back here in Realityville, we like to eat cows and chickens and have a bowl of Cap'n Crunch in the morning. Those of us that need to make a change are going to cut some of these things out completely and eat the rest in moderation. This is what Krissy will do. Some changes will hurt. I'm gonna miss my puffy Cheetos and Spaghetti-O's and my kids will eat more oatmeal and drink less pop, but otherwise you can eat pretty well and not have to wolf down meat at every meal.

There are a ton of other details I'm glossing over from today but you can see the exact same presentation we received today at Oasis's research page. Minus Dr. McCarty talking of course. I think it's important for everyone to step back and think about how they eat and live, and decide what is most important to their happiness and well being.

Wow, that was a lot of words, and I haven't even told you about the rest of our day. If you're up for an extra long post tonight then I'll keep going. Ok, here goes. After the lecture we joined a large group of this week's new arrivals and headed down to El Yogurt for lunch. Afterward we had a quick and encouraging meeting with Dr. Cecenas, followed by the bill for three month's worth of Krissy's nutraceuticals totaling just over $2200. These include laetrile injections that I'll have to give to her three times a week. Then our phone rang and it was Bruce, asking if we'd like a ride down to the beach and if he could take our picture for a DVD they are putting together. We haven't had a chance to see the sun set over the ocean yet, so we agreed. We were greeted downstairs by their friend Carlos, who is also a minister and provides literacy classes for the underprivileged children in a poorer neighborhood not far from here. He raises money for these projects by taking folks from the hospital down to the beach by pedi taxi, basically a cart he pulls on his bicycle. It was a lot of fun, we rode down to an overlook by a small lighthouse on the beach and watched a stunning sun set into the horizon, casting hues that even my colorblind eyes could appreciate. Bruce snapped a few pictures of us and we were carted back to the hospital for dinner. I tipped Carlos with everything I had in my wallet and wished him well, and Krissy has plans to visit the children he helps on her next trip down here.

During dinner I helped Brian bring trays of food up to their room since Michelle was still receiving her treatments and couldn't get out of bed. While there I noticed he was reading George R.R. Martin and is a fellow fantasy/sci-fi and comic book fan. I divulged my geeky passions for such things and left them to enjoy their meal. Funny the things you learn about people by accident! We wrapped up the evening at a healing session with Bruce and Vicky in the chapel. We attended this last week and only Krissy and I showed up. Tonight there were about twelve of us. It was probably the most beautiful and enriching hour I've spent here at Oasis. Everyone here for treatment was anointed and then prayed over by Bruce, Vicky and their companion. I think we spent the entire time in tears of joy and thanks. By the end, each person in the room had a bond with one another that didn't exist before, and I'm once again so thankful to have had Bruce and Vicky in our lives. Some people are good people, but these two radiate goodness and spread it to everyone they touch.

Well I think I'm about spent for the evening, that was much more than I had originally planned to type. For those of you still reading, you will receive a commemorative Lanza Star of Spiffyness for your efforts. You will only need to send in three proofs of purchase along with $2.74 for shipping & handling and this fine badge of honor can be yours! G'night!

Day Nine: One Tired Chicken

2010-01-05T18:59:00.000-08:00

Wow, Day Nine already. We're on the homestretch now! Today was a relatively quiet day even considering the heightened activity of all the new arrivals. Somehow we both overslept and missed morning service, much to my dismay. I've really enjoyed sitting with Bruce and Vicky each day and praying with them. The services are held in the beautiful chapel down the hall from us, with Bruce singing and then holding a brief sermon while Vicky plays guitar. Afterward we just chat for a few minutes about whatever is on our minds and then begin our day. It's a refreshing start for both Krissy and I and seems to set our day out on a positive course. I felt bad about missing service today and Bruce only gave me a little grief about it, all in good natured fun of course. We also sat down to a breakfast of oatmeal and potatoes stewed in tomato and chili sauce and caught up on the conversations we missed at service. We were just like peas and carrots again.

Treatments were a bit rough on Krissy today. She was due to receive her laetrile, vitamin D and double dose of vitamin C today to round out the therapy before she gets a day off tomorrow. Unfortunately the vein in her left arm blew out during her first drip of vitamin D. This drip is painful to begin with as it hits her veins cold, but once it blew she was in agonizing pain. We weren't sure if this was just a more severe reaction to the treatment or something else until her hand and wrist started puffing up. We got the nurse to look at it and they pulled the catheter right away. Krissy's veins are still pretty constricted and it took them a while to find another good vein on her right arm to restart things with. Luckily they got a good one and she was able to complete all her treatments today with no further issues. They also removed the catheter and will let her heal up and rehydrate all day tomorrow before completing her therapies on Thursday and Friday morning. Until then she'll have to deal with a swollen and bruised left hand.

While we had some downtime with the several hours of IV drips I took a break and walked down to the local supermarket just down the street. We forgot to bring nail clippers and I was starting to look like I was in the early stages of lycanthropy. That's becoming a werewolf for all you non-Harry Potter folks. After I found what I needed I decided to browse around just to see what our Mexican friends are buying at the grocery store. It's pretty much the same stuff we have in the states, obviously with more beans and chilis, and some notable differences in familiar products. For instance, they sell Coke products but here you can get it in a THREE liter bottle. The thing looks like a submarine torpedo. You can also get eggs in a 36 pack. I kept trying to find the poor overworked chickens who have to fill up those gargantuan cartons. They also have a full blown liquor section, with hard stuff like tequila and whiskey, wines and 40oz bottles of beer. Must be popular on Sunday! In the end I passed on the junk food and pop and bought a bag of sunflower seeds with my nail clippers and walked a few laps around the block before heading back to our room.

When I returned Krissy was watching the American Network channel with just seems to play reruns of all kinds of shows over and over. Usually it's either Dr. Phil, Friends, Big Bang Theory or some random selection. Today we happened to catch an episode of the Paula Dean cooking show. And let me tell you, knowing what we do now and eating fairly well for over a week, this show totally grossed me out. Even before, I was baffled how this old lady could cook and eat the stuff she does without having cardiac arrest right there on camera. Today she made gigantic steaks topped with about three ounces of butter (yes, she buttered her steak), deep fried potato wedges, creamed spinach and chocolate covered cheesecake for dessert. I guess you could say the spinach was the healthy part of this dish except for the fact she made with about two pounds of butter and milk. The cheesecake wasn't totally decadent until she covered the plain fruit topping with another huge dollop of fudge. The sad thing is this is pretty much how we used to eat "before" but I can tell you, we'll never do it again even when Krissy is cancer free. Our country is #1 in the world for breast, ovarian and colon cancer specifically because we stuff our faces with too much red meat and sugar. Our bodies need protein and sugar but only in moderation. You don't even really need animal protein. Oh, and you shouldn't deep fry your sugar, that's probably not good for you either.

Krissy had her last dose of vitamin C so late that it pretty much killed her appetite once dinnertime had rolled around. We went down anyway to see who was there and so I could grab a plate. Tonight it was Oasis-style stirfry, mostly sprouts, broccoli and peas lightly cooked in olive oil with yellow rice. It was really good. Kris was only up for fruit so we joined the other members of our regular mealtime crew and started chatting. And, as is typical for this group, the conversation quickly ventured into loony territory and we were cracking ourselves up again. This time Jenny regaled us with a story about the gay flight attendant, who after hearing about Sharon's destination and her reason for traveling, had to take a personal moment to collect himself because he was so overcome with emotion. The girls enjoyed his company and hoped that he was also on their flight home. Then Krissy and Jenny were discussing how much they loved their gay friends which somehow led Jenny issuing this comment: "And we love our American friends too, they're almost as friendly as the homosexuals back home!" Boy, you give these Aussies an inch and they take a kilometer. I'm not sure what our trip would have been like without them, but it's sure been a lot more humorous with them here.

We had one pleasant surprise last night. Nicole, the young gal from a week ago who had to return home for a biopsy, emailed me last night and said they were doing well and almost ready to have the procedure done. She'll be getting the biopsy soon and then have to deal with some insurance issues, but can hopefully come back for treatment in the near future. This was great news, Nicole and her family are such great people and we've been praying for positive news for her.

Krissy is now winding down with Dirty Dancing on the tube, so I guess that's my queue to put on the headphones and either watch a movie on the laptop or read a book. I think she puts that movie on just to punish me sometimes. Tomorrow is the nutritional class we've been looking forward to for a week now, so I hope to blow your minds with stats, diagrams and daily nutritional values. Stay frosty my friends. G'night!

Day Eight: Wake Up Dog!

2010-01-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

Ah Monday. A day of new beginnings, fresh opportunities and renewed purpose. It's also the harbinger of alarm clocks and that classic "case of the Mondays" state of mind. However, at Oasis, it's just Day Eight and also when you see the majority of the new arrivals for the first time. As we descended to the cafeteria this morning (after sleeping in until 8:15 no less!) we found the house to be packed. Where we had once been the first two people to breakfast every day for a week, we walked into a room of about ten folks breakfasting and started making with the introductions. We were only able to chat with Dwayne and his sister Mary Kay, unfortunately not the makeup mogul, and learned a bit about them.

Dwayne has brain cancer and is in the third and final cycle of his three month treatment. He hails from Minnesota and immediately started up on football talk with Bruce and myself. Sadly, I didn't have much to talk about since my Broncos laid down and let KC kick their sorry asses yesterday, so I humored the fellas with Brett Favre and Green Bay discussions. Bruce is a Wisconsinonian (or is it Wisconsinite?) so there was some good jibing going on. Dwayne revealed that his brain tumor has shrunk almost 50% since his treatments here started and he may consider surgery if it continues to decrease. He had a seizure last week which caused some concern about whether he could come for treatment this week, but he wanted to be here and so it was done. He looks great, his only noticable symptom is some limited mobility in his left arm, but otherwise he appears to be a man on the mend.

Krissy's treatments kicked off right after breakfast so I left her to the ozone therapy and came upstairs to read. Last time she received this treatment it took around forty minutes, but today I went through half of my book before she came back to the room. Apparently she's a tad dehydrated from the past few days of treatments and her veins are very stressed. They managed to get a good catheter in but the vein was so weak no blood would draw. Thankfully they have a Plan B for this treatment and were able to deliver the ozone to her blood with a saline solution. It just takes longer this way. After this she had a second round of the Perftec, followed by two doses of vitamin C and laetrile. Most of these medications are stored cold and really cause some sharp pain when it hits her veins. Kris is a tough little cookie but that last dose of vitamin C was really pushing her pain tolerance. Thankfully it's a quick treatment and she was able to relax a bit before dinner. I just hope she's able to hydrate enough to make it through the end of the week without being stuck too many more times.

I'll make just a quick note about the food today before moving on. Lunch was great. Epic in fact. We were treated to pinto beans, spanish rice and some delicious green chili stew with chicken. I ate two huge plates and Krissy ate very well also. If this is what happens when the house is full well I sure hope attendance stays high. Dinner was nice too, a hearty cornbread with rice and steamed cauliflower. Good stuff Maynard.

At dinner we met another new pair, Yo and her daughter Joy. Yes, you read that right, her name is Yo. She's even American! From California in fact, so that probably explains it. Joy is from Oakland but she seemed safe enough. Yo is here on her second cycle for stage 4 ovarian cancer and is doing very well. She also received conventional chemo here and was sporting a shiny bald pate upstairs. Finally, someone here with even less hair than I have! These gals are right next door to us and brought a guitar and a huge iMac computer. Wild I tell you!

The true highlight of this evening wasn't the food but the dinner conversation. We were shortly joined by Sharon, Jenny and Marylin; our Aussie Posse. As is usual, when introductions are made over and over again you eventually hear stories that were probably told many days ago but were fogotten. Tonight, Sharon recounted the tale of her visit to an old Chinese acupuncturist back in Australia and his words of encouragement. In order to instill her with confidence he held her wrist and stated "Your condition not so bad!" Thank you Confucius! The best part is how he explained what his particular treatment was intended to illicit from Sharon's body. "Ok, now we gonna wake up the dog! Wake up the dog, and dog gonna fight cancer! We gotta wake him up!" Something about how she tells this story, with her Australian imitation of a Chinese accent, just had us in tears tonight. As such, we now have a new mascot in our fight against cancer. I now present to you, Cancer Dog!

I'll probably have Sharon tell this story at least two more times before we leave, just so I can have good laugh.

We wrapped up the evening with Prayer and Share with Bruce and Vicky. This was attended by Marilyn, Michelle and Brian from yesterday, and Krissy and I. It was mostly about sharing our experiences thus far, how faith has helped us through and eventually to Oasis, and then a short blessing before we returned to our rooms. One thing that is painfully evident throughout all of our discussions with the good people here is just how insensitive the doctors and oncologists are back home. Nearly everyone here has a "We were told I had X months to live and to go home and plan for my death" story. It varies by person, Sharon was told she'd be dead by Christmas, Michelle was told she would die from breast cancer and nothing else in six months, even Bruce was told with chemo he might get a few years if he was lucky. And of course our Krissy was told "some months" no matter what we did. Now I'm no doctor (I don't even play one on TV) but I wasn't aware they all received a course in Precognition. What a handy ability that would be, to predict the outcome of another's life with such precision! Except that they forget no one can predict the future and only God knows what is in store for us tomorrow. I hope that someday our healthcare system will come to realize that it's not all about statistics, double blind studies and chemical interactions but instead about caring for human beings and accepting that love, determination and faith can conquer anything thrown at it.

As the wise Forrest Gump once said, that's all I have to say about that. I think I'll wind down with some Strangers in Paradise (such an amazing comic, thanks Terry Moore!) while Krissy watches Charlie's Angels. Tomorrow we will once again wake up the Cancer Dog. Fight dog, fight! G'night!

Day Seven: Please You Buy My Stuff?

2010-01-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot what day we were on today! Without the regular day to day routine from home you lose track of time pretty quickly. We're over the hump now, moving towards our last five days of treatment. Today was the second round of vitamin C for Krissy along with a new addition: activated vitamin D. This vitamin makes tumors even more vulnerable to the vitamin C and oxygenation process so more cancer killin' can take place. Today the therapy only made Krissy tired, she slept through lunch and some of the early afternoon. Tomorrow she'll be back on the oxidative blood infusions and Perftec/vitamin C combo. We're really in the heart of the effective part of the treatment and Kris will need to keep her energy up for the next three days until things taper off. Of course, the effects of this treatment are much less icky than what she'd experience from just one round of chemo, so I'm thankful for that. Nasty western medicine! :)

Sunday is typically new arrival day here at Oasis and true to form we met a few new folks. First up is Marilyn. Another Aussie from Brisbane like our good friend Sharon, she's back on the first of her follow-up treatments after already having completed her initial three month cycle. She had stage four ovarian cancer and after undergoing the Oasis program her tumors have shrunk nearly 80%, down to the point where she could now have surgery to remove it if she wished. However, she's keeping her faith in the program here and will continue the regimen until it's completely healed. She's the first person we've talked to that's currently in follow-up maintenance and to hear she's responded so well is very encouraging. It just strengthens our confidence in the decision we made for Krissy's treatment. We also met Michelle and Brian this evening at dinner and I'll get to their story in a bit.

This afternoon was the second of the scheduled shopping trips into downtown Tijuana. We missed yesterday's trip due to treatments and today Krissy just wasn't up for going out. I decided to give it a shot and waited downstairs with Jenny, Sharon and Marilyn. After sitting around for 20 minutes we asked if the trip was still on only to be told it was canceled due to one of their drivers calling in sick. Marilyn, being the feisty Australian that she is, said "Well why don't hire a taxi and take our bloody selves!" If that wasn't the best bloody idea I'd heard all day, I don't know what was. So we hopped in a cab, said "Artisan district downtown por favor" and started off on our adventure.

For those of you who have been to Mexico you know that most of the tourist towns have a nice part of town to draw vacationers and their money in and just outside of that is what the town is really like. Well, Tijuana has about four blocks of semi-touristy stuff to do and right around the corner is ol' dirty Tijuana. Make a wrong turn and you're bumping elbows with the roasted corn guy and the police. We found the "artisan district" was really just a few blocks of storefronts hawking the same silver jewelry, beads, handbags, sombreros, mini guitars and Spider-Man wrestling masks at every stop. They're all identical too, right down to the Spider-Man wrestling masks. Each one has a guy trying to persuade you to check out his wares and after three blocks it just kinda stops and the rest of the town starts. One hawker tried luring us by stating "Hey mister, I have the same crap all these other guys have but mine is cheaper!" I gave him props for honesty but had to keep walking. The funniest guy was outside an open patio bar & grill type place. As we approached he was clutching a rolled up rug, and once we were about ten feet away he dramatically unrolled it red carpet style and shouted "Welcome, we have been awaiting your arrival!" It was definitely good for a laugh, and if I were hungry I'd probably have gone for his pitch. We ended up settling down for a quick coffee in an off the strip cafe, I found Cori a cute trinket and then we caught a cab back. Unfortunately he got a flat tire about two blocks from the hospital. He dropped us off and I offered the help him change it, but he just drove off out of sight. Flat tires must not be as big a deal down here.

I arrived back just in time for dinner and Kris was up and ready to eat. After a pretty tasty lunch of pinto beans, baked potatoes (double yay!) and some crazy tasty breaded cauliflower thing in red chili, dinner was a bit of a bummer. Broccoli soup, rice and boiled mushrooms. I nearly said "meh" out loud, but that would have been rude. The rice wasn't half bad with the shrooms mixed in, and we had a chance to chat with our other new arrivals Michelle and Brian.

These good folks are from Pittsburgh and have three boys. Michelle has had breast cancer for two years that has metastasized to her bones and spine. She's in nearly the same situation as Sharon, but the condition of her bone cancer is such that she can't walk without excruciating pain so she's in a wheelchair for now. They're both very friendly folks and I'm looking forward to talking more with them this week. Since they arrived late on a Sunday, most of the staff was gone and they missed out on their introductory tour of the hospital and info packet. So we gave them the rundown of the place, now that we're seven day veterans and all. We also warned them of the hot water situation. Wait, I haven't told you about this yet have I? Well well, let's just fix that right now!

So, we have no hot water on our floor. We haven't had hot water since Friday. No, we didn't shower yesterday cause it was fricking freezing. This morning I bit the bullet and took an ice cold shower because I couldn't stand myself anymore. Yes, there was significant shrinkage. Thankfully the sister clinic on the fifth floor did have hot water and Krissy was able to go upstairs and shower like a civilized human being. I gave our patient rep Dorian some shit about it after breakfast and he's trying to get it resolved. I guess plumbers are hard to find on Sunday in Mexico. All I know is they better get it figured out by tomorrow or I'm washing up with hot water from the Deep Rock dispenser in the hallway.

Well I think I've had enough excitement for one day and will call it a night. We just finished watching Blades of Glory and now it's time to put visions of Will Farrell in a leotard out of my mind. Let's hope he's not replaced by short mexican men chasing me with red carpets. G'night!

Day Six: Momma Always Said

2010-01-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

Wow, we've been here at Oasis for six days now. This is the halfway point and from here on out the treatments will be consistently more intense until we go home. Today was a big question mark for us: how would Kris respond to the full cycles of cancer killing treatments after having such an easy go of it thus far? The answer ended up being "pretty well."

We started off the morning undecided about what to do for breakfast. We popped our heads into the cafeteria, saw our selections of oatmeal, scrambled eggs and dried bananas with almonds and decided we'd take a walk instead. And as luck would have it, Jenny and Sharon were of the same mind and joined us for breakfast at the yogurt place. I guess we're aiming to be regulars of this eatery before we come home. I ordered whole wheat waffles with strawberries and Kris ordered the french toast on whole wheat bread with fruit. When the meals arrived I took a big bite of my waffle to discover a fat almond resting within. Dammit, guess I'm skipping breakfast, or risk my throat closing up. Stupid allergies. But my awesome wife saved me and we traded meals. This is a big deal because I know how much she loves french toast. She must love me! But we both ate and both meals were very good (again), we chatted and then remembered it was time to head back to the hospital to begin treatments.

Krissy's treatments started about 10:30 with the oxidative therapy. This lasted about 45 minutes. Kris went into a room where a substantial amount of blood was drawn and was then infused with ozone to greatly increase the oxygen levels and then it's transfused back into her body. The theory here is that cancerous tumors are very low in oxygen and this makes it difficult for blood to flow through them, which is why your immune system didn't break them down like it should have in the first place. This therapy cranks up the oxygen levels in the blood and gets red blood cells moving again, allowing the lymphocytes she received yesterday to really get in there and start going to town on the cancer cells. After this transfusion, she then receives two high doses of vitamin C intravenously along with a synthetic blood substitute called Perftec. The Perftec "cells" are much smaller than our red blood cells and can carry more oxygen to tumor sites, while the vitamin C produces a toxic environment to the tumor while normal tissue is unaffected. All combined, this is like a dropping a couple of nuclear bombs onto the tumors and over time they just start to shrink and hopefully one day completely disappear. This is obviously what we're praying for!

But, as we all were told when we were little, if medicine was easy to take then it probably wouldn't work. Or, if it tastes like crap it must be good for us. The same applied today. The biggest concern was if Kris would have any kind of reation to the Perftec, as it can produce a wide range of side effects. Thankfully she handled this without any issues. The vitamin C was up next and after her second dose she became very nauseous and had to throw up. Sharon came by to check on her and said she'd been on vitamin C therapy for two months and got sick almost every time, so it's normal. After Krissy's therapies she was very tired and fell asleep for several hours. This was probably a good thing, since the doctors stated her healing would begin right away and she'd some some inflammation at the tumor sites. The best way for your body to heal is to sleep so I let her crash until she was ready to wake up.

One interesting thing about her diagnosis have been the CT scans. When Krissy was diagnosed with cancer back in October, we were told this was a very aggressive cancer, would grow quickly, and she's probably had it about a year. Always contradicting this were her ultrasound and previous CT scans that showed absolutely no change in her stomach from April through October. It always left me scratching my head. Well, here we are 2.5 months later and the CT scans still show no change, and no additional tumor sites. In fact, according to how the doctors read the scans here she's probably technically in stage 3 instead of stage 4, as they don't see anything on he pancreas as they did back home. Of course things change and perhaps it's a bad angle to tell for sure, but I'm still encouraged that nothing has worsened for her. In the world of cancer this is a very good thing. So all that is left is for her to get better. Let the healing begin!

A final note for any of the ladies reading about Krissy. If you have any intentions of having a baby, please get thorough screening before hand to rule out any possible cancers you may have a family history with. I say this because our friend here Sharon, was told she was cancer free from a previous bout with melanoma and then was told it was safe to get pregnant. Unfortunately, she still had cancer in her body and the hormonal change in her body caused the cancer to accelerate tremendously. Apparently estrogen can have this affect on many cancers. I don't want to scare anyone, but please, be diligent when it comes to your body. I sometimes wonder now if having Camryn was the catalyst for what Krissy is going through today.

On a happy note, they had POTATOES for dinner tonight! Yay! I feasted on delicious mashed potato cakes lightly fried in olive oil. Just in time too, I could almost see my potato reserves getting lower each day. And God bless her heart, Sharon brought me the last two potato cakes in the kitchen after they ate dinner. She is a saint among mortals I tell ya.

Well that's it from Oasisland for tonight. We're over the hump now, only six days left! We can't wait to get home and squeeze our kiddos and see the rest of the family. Hope everyone out there is having a great weekend! G'night!

Day Five: Coffee and Corn

2010-01-01T21:35:00.001-08:00

I'm writing this a bit later tonight than usual. We just returned from Movie Night with the volunteers here, Bruce and Vicky, and a few of our fellow Oasis friends. We watched "The Terminal" with Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta Jones. It was a fun little comedy, and Vicky brought homemade popcorn seasoned with Vege Sal, a vegetable based salt. It was pretty tasty stuff. The movie room was a bit cold but but everyone seemed to enjoy the show.

It's worth noting that we both started and ended our day in the presence of the incomparable Bruce and Vicky. You know the end, so I'll tell the beginning. This morning we headed down for breakfast, ate plain omelets with oatmeal and started back to our rooms. On the way we met up with Jenny and Sharon who were interested in getting outside and finding some coffee at Starbucks. Well, you all know that's the magic word for Krissy, so off we went. Unfortunately, the Starbucks in Mexico is not as dedicated its counterparts back in the States and after a short walk we found them to be closed. So we headed off to the yogurt place. Alas, they were closed also. We had one last option available, a small cafe down on the beach that Jenny had heard might be open this morning. We walked the three or four blocks down to the beach and tried the cafe but they were closed also. Slightly dejected we started back to the hospital. As we walked a bit we heard a familiar voice behind us and found none other than ol' Bruce on his morning walk. We explained the purpose for our morning sojourn and he smiled and said "Hold on, let me make a call, I can get you coffee." He informed Vicky of our dilemma and invited us back to their apartment for a coffee.

It was just a few minutes to their apartment, which was also right there on the shore front. He and Vicky live in an absolutely adorable two bedroom apartment with a grand patio that overlooks the ocean. Vicki brewed some organic coffee and green tea for the six of us and we sat and talked for about an hour over our drinks. I've always been fascinated with the ocean and was mesmerized by the waves and sound of the water as we talked. I could tell Kris was relaxed and enjoying herself also. What started out as a trip to the familiar Starbucks ended up being a happily unexpected morning among friends. Saying that Bruce and Vicky are good people is much more than an understatement. They packed up their lives, moved to Mexico and volunteer at the hospital full time, for the simple purpose of providing friendship and faith to people that are a long way from home. I'm truly grateful for them and they've given Krissy and I much needed support and prayer every day.

After our surprise coffee detour, we watched the tide roll in for a few more minutes and then headed back to the hospital to start treatments for the day. Today was the start of Krissy's immune therapy, where she received an IV drip of donor lymphocytes to supercharge her immune system. The process was very fast this morning and only gave her some minor discomfort. The lymphocyte solution must be kept cold at all times and stung a bit when it hit her veins. And in one of strangest side effects I've ever witnessed, it caused her to experience the taste of creamed corn or "old beer" as she described it, and made her breath smell like corn also. The nurse said they can smell the immune therapy patients for a few days after receiving this treatment. Totally weird! Other than bearing the aroma of a human corn cob, she's felt pretty decent with just some diminished appetite at lunch and dinner. Hopefully the oxygen/vitamin C therapy tomorrow goes well. I've heard the synthetic blood they use to carry ozone to her system can cause some discomfort and possible allergic reactions. It's called Perftec and is very safe, but they'll watch her carefully during the two and a half hour process. I'm sure she'll come through it fine, she's a trooper.

Outside of breakfast and movie night, this was a pretty slow boring day. The treatment only took 10 minutes and we had nothing else to do for the day. Kris wasn't up for going into town and there were no classes planned with most of the staff out for the holiday. So we sat in the room and surfed the web, read, watched movies on the laptops and basically vegged out. It wasn't bad but I have a feeling boredom is going to set in soon, with seven more days of this exact routine ahead of us. We have plenty to do but this room gets old. I'm hoping Kris feels good enough for one of the shopping trips that are planned for this weekend so we can get some air.

There were two new arrivals last night but we haven't had a chance to meet them yet. Two gentlemen were checked in across the hall from us. They popped their heads into the movie but didn't stay. I'm hoping to introduce ourselves tomorrow just so I can say hi if we bump into each other at lunch or dinner. The fellow that is obviously the patient, on account of wearing his jammies and carting around an IV, looks like he may have skin cancer or a condition that's metastasized to his skin. Hopefully his treatments start soon so he can get to healing.

I'm looking over at Krissy and it looks like she's just crashed for the night. I'm still kinda wired from popcorn and water. Crazy party animals right? I know, I should slow down. Anyway, I'll be signing off now and reading until I fall asleep. I hope you all back home had a great New Year's Day and are kicking off 2010 with resolutions to stay happy and healthy. I haven't decided on my resolutions for this year but I'm pretty sure #1 will be to love my wife the best that I possibly can. Number two might be to do something fitnessy now that I've lost a few more pounds here. Eh, maybe that'll be #3 or 4, Camryn is enough exercise for me. G'night!

Day Four: It Feels Like Cheating

2009-12-31T20:15:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty slow. The calm before the storm if you will. With only one short treatment of laetrile this morning we had the rest of the day free to do... pretty much nothing. It was nice though. Krissy was able to catch up on some of the cards she brought to sign and I caught up on some movies and TV shows I've been sitting on. Then we decided to get out of the hospital and had a nice lunch down at the yogurt place. Today we tried the chicken burritos. They were very good, but more like a big taquito than a burrito, as here they only had sauteed green peppers and onions inside. Krissy also indulged on a scoop of their home made sugar free frozen yogurt. It was quite good, full of whole strawberries and covered in almonds, sunflower seeds and raisins. For those of you that know me and my crazy food allergies, I of course had to avoid most of this treat but did sneak a taste from the middle of the scoop. It was really more fun for me to watch Krissy eat something "naughty".

Our friends Sharon and Jenny decided to take their light treatment day and visit San Diego. They were able to take cabs and the trolley to get into the city and had a nice day of shopping and sight seeing. You'd never know Sharon has cancer by her attitude and determination, that girl was adamant about marching out of here and seeing San Diego and damn it if they didn't do it. It makes me happy to see someone like her, who has received such negativity from her "Western" doctors, to tell them all to screw off and come to Oasis and then find the strength to get out and enjoy her time here. There are so many fighters in this hospital, including our amazing Krissy, it makes me humbled and thankful to able to experience this with them.

Tonight we got a chance to speak with Manuel and is wife Chindi from a few rooms down the hall. She has stage four colon cancer and had already done 2 years of chemo before coming here. Before she came to Oasis she had many of the same symptoms as Krissy: indigestion, vomiting and then the same nightmare of stomach decompression and surgery before her cancer was discovered. Her cancer causes her to have intense pain in her lower back, to the point that Manuel has to put scalding hot water bottles on her skin to alleviate it. However, after just one of her full treatments here at Oasis the pain subsided. Just like that. She's gone a full day and a half with no pain medication and was up and out of her room for the first time in a couple of days. Truly amazing. Think the doctors back home will want to know how it's done? Nah, me either.

When we returned from lunch there was a notice in the cafeteria that dinner would be at 6:00 tonight and would be "Very Special". Ok, cool, maybe it'll be brown AND black rice tonight. Woohoo! But boy, did they have a surprise ready for us. We walked downstairs and were greeted by a completely redecorated cafeteria, fully decked out with glowing crystal chandeliers, a huge dinner table with gold trimmed china, crystal centerpieces, new years masks and drapery on the walls and jamming holiday music. Last but not least, there were three huge platters of food. Oh, the food, it was absolutely delicious. We were served oven roasted turkey with tofu glaze and mixed veggies, fish and spinach egg rolls, apple and tofu salad, and a special hot fruit cider. Nearly the entire 3rd floor (our floor of cancer patients) were able to attend and a great time was had by all. I'm going to have my bro Josh, a.k.a. Sensei Egg Roll, try his hand at those fish egg rolls sometime, they were super fantastic. For desert we reveled in bunuelos with honey. It felt like cheating but the staff swears it wasn't. We all toasted to a new year full of happiness and health, shared hugs and a few tears of joy, and then said our goodnights. It was really a great time and an uplifting experience. Sometimes food and laughter is the best medicine.

Tomorrow Krissy moves into the meaty part of the treatment schedule. She'll receive the first transfusion of 70 million donor lymphocytes to bolster her immune system. These will start attacking the cancer cells that have been getting steadily weakened by the laetrile/genoxal/nutraceutical therapy from the past four days. Basically, her immune system will be jumpstarted and then it'll begin eating at the tumors, like it should in a regular healthy person.

This also relates to a funny observation I made about the hospital. There is a very high ratio of young staff working here, much moreso than you'd see in our hospitals. From the admin staff to the patient representatives to the nurses, they are all probably 30 years old and younger. One of our nurses looks like she's 14! However, there is a reason for this. They are all donors for the lymphocyte transfusions. The therapy requires lymphocytes from young, healthy and non-genetically related donors. The hospital employs these types of people and has a pool of 27 donors to cull these cells from. It's slightly strange at first, but then you think about how these people are donating their cells to help the very people they are working with to cure cancer and it adds another layer of appreciation for the treatment program here. At every level the Oasis is dedicated to saving your life. Pretty amazing stuff maynard.

Well that's enough rambling for one Near Year's Eve. I doubt we'll really stay up until midnight but if so we'll toast with some filtered water and maybe high five a nurse or two. I wish you all a Happy New Year, and pray for health and happiness for everyone here at Oasis and back home. G'night!

Day Three: Darn You Starbucks!

2009-12-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

Our third day here was full of fun little revelations. The first being that Krissy can and should drink coffee and alcohol. I know, hard to believe right? We had our second class today on the ins and outs of the Oasis treatment regimen and it's truly amazing how ignorant American doctors are when it comes to treating cancer. Many of you know that the only cancer options you have from Western doctors are: surgery, radiation and chemo. That's it. They won't tell you to improve your diet, take vitamins, go to church, or do naked rain dances. If it doesn't involve cutting or chemicals it's off the table. Not so here at Oasis. They use a truly incredible approach to fighting cancer that involves some cutting edge science, old fashion common sense and regular love and faith.

So what are some easy things that Krissy can do to not only combat her cancer but improve her every day health? Well, cut out the red meat, which we knew. Our country is #1 in the world for 5-6 types of cancer simply because our diets suck monkey butt. She can also start drinking 1-2 cups of coffee every day, as the antioxidant effects of coffee are counterproductive to cancer growth. Also, drinking coffee after a meal heals to counteract the amino acid interactions after eating cooked meat. She should also drink 1-2 glasses of wine each day with a meal for the same reasons. Nice huh? Of course this doesn't mean grande carmel frappaccinos, but some latte with low fat creme and a smidgen of sugar is just fine. I think I literally saw Krissy floating above her chair when she heard this news. Suffice to say we learned a lot today and have complete faith in the program here.

Today I got to do something a little special for myself too. The volunteer ministers, Bruce and Vicky, took myself and Jenny (Sharon's sister from yesterday) out for lunch. We walked down the street to a local place called Yogurt Plaza. I wasn't immediately ecstatic but hey it would be a change from brown rice and steamed turnips. Turns out it's a pretty traditional Mexican place that happens to specialize in yogurty stuff, including yogurt sauce for your enchiladas if you want. I decided to pass and had chicken enchiladas with a tasty sweet tomato sauce. They also serve toast with jam and salsa instead of chips. Different, but good. The four of us had a good lunch and good conversation, where I learned that Jenny and her husband own their own eco friendly fireplace company. Their website is pretty cool, check it out if you want to see what they do.

We walked back to the hospital and I headed upstairs to see how Krissy's lunch was. Our door was locked, lights were off and she's no where to be found. I wandered around for a bit, thinking maybe she was meeting with a doctor or chatting with our patient rep, but couldn't find her. I decided to see if she was down in Sharon and Jenny's room only to find that Jenny was also locked out of her room with no sign of her sister. Hmm, very suspicious! A few minutes later they come around the corner with big grins. Apparently while we were at lunch they decided to put the Oasis diet into action and walked to Starbucks for a latte. I had to laugh a little, but you could tell they were just so excited to be able to do something "normal". I'm glad Kris was able to get out and to do this for herself. After all, recovery is 90% mental and if this is good for her body as well then I guess the return of Starbucks to our lives is a welcome one.

Is tomorrow really New Year's Eve? Really doesn't feel like it from here. I doubt there will be any celebrating going on in the hospital, although I hear the sports bar across the street will be partying. Maybe Kris and I can share a sip of wine at midnight to ring in the new year. I'm looking forward to 2010 and the good things it will bring us.

We talked to the kids again tonight which was good except I think Cam is mad at me. She chatted it up with Kris but wouldn't respond to me at all. I guess Daddy is in trouble for leaving his little girl for so long. I can see where she's coming from, I'm bummed too. At least Cori was nice to me :)

I'm kinda tired tonight, more so than usual. I think this is because I'm not getting my usual overdose of carbs. My body is composed of 83% potatoes and I've only had one serving since we left Colorado. I may have to sneak offsite and find a baked potato or some fries soon before I lapse into a starchless induced coma. So on this note I'm signing off to watch some shows on the laptop or read until I crash. Tomorrow is Krissy's last easy treatment day until they start the big Vitamin C/Oxidation transfusions on Friday. I'm praying all goes well, and I know it will, just another step to getting her healed.

G'night!

Day Two: Same as the First Verse

2009-12-29T19:47:00.000-08:00

Kris and I are wrapping up our second day here at Oasis. Not a whole lot happened today on the treatment front. She received another round of Genoxal and Kemdalin, along with her cocktail of nutraceutical pills. These are designed to weaken any tumors and bolster her immune system before they hit her with the oxidative therapy later this week. We also attended a great lecture by one of the staff doctors about the Oasis treatments and how they work to fight cancer. Very interesting and enlightening stuff, I'm looking forward to part two tomorrow. Other than these few things we haven't done much else today. We should meet with her doctor again tomorrow to cover any new treatments and tests she'll receive.

Our medical records still haven't arrived from the Irvine Oasis site. This is starting to irritate me. We wasted too much time with that place in November and again they're wasting our time by not having transferred our records ahead of our arrival. They better hope everything arrives tomorrow because I really don't want to have to arrange to get this stuff from home while here in Mexico!

We met another of our fellow patients today, Sharon and her sister Jenny. They have traveled here from Australia. Sharon has stage four melanoma that has metastasized to nearly every part of her body, including her bones, putting her in quite a lot of pain on a daily basis. She is very strong though and very frank about what she's been through. She has a six month old son waiting for her back home and is hoping her stay at Oasis is what puts her on the path to healing. They also introduced us to more research and therapies I wasn't familiar with. It's amazing how much more we learn about cancer each day here. I hope our folks back home can put the other good people here into their prayers as well, every bit helps.

We also had a sad departure today. Nicole and her mother Tina had to leave the hospital and return home to get further tests for her brain cancer before the doctors can treat her here. She needs a surgical biopsy to determine the nature of her cancer and they just don't have the facilities to do it properly. I'm hoping they can get home and have their tests done quickly so they may return here to Oasis and get her the treatment she wants and needs. It's hard to see good people go through such hardship, but in the short time we have known them I can see they are a very strong family and will continue to fight no matter where the fight takes them. Good luck Nicole, we hope to see you back here soon!

The menu today wasn't as surprising since I knew to expect tasty selections. One new item was zucchini soup , it was really quite good. The broccoli soup, not so much. But I'm determined to at least try everything they put out for us so that I can take all the good ideas home with us :)

We were able to have a better Skype call to Cesa and our girls tonight. That really felt good to see and hear them for a few minutes. Of course, Cori was so sweet and Camryn was so wild, but that was exactly what I needed to see. Ten more days and we'll be home to have them run us ragged!

Well, I know it was a pretty boring update tonight, but that's all I've got. Before bed I'm going to try to brainstorm some fund raising ideas for Kris to help pay for the huge costs of this treatment. Sharon gave us some interesting ideas based on what has been done for her family back in Australia and I know there have to be plenty more creative things we can do. Maybe I'll do a live charity chest waxing event, and everyone can place bets on when I'll pass out from the pain. That ought to raise about $7.38.

Well that does it for me, check back tomorrow for more exciting updates from Playa de Tijuana. G'night!

Day One at Oasis

2009-12-28T20:36:00.000-08:00

Well we're finally here! Today marked the first day of Krissy's cancer treatments at the Oasis of Hope. Krissy has really been doing great these past few weeks and I'm very happy we decided to come here at this time. She looks amazing, feels so much better and is in great spirits. In fact she's doing so well that when we arrived they had to ask which of us was the patient. I feel she's going to get miraculous results from her time here.

Things started off pretty quietly. We woke up freezing in our room because the heat never kicked on and then she had her blood drawn around 7:30. After that we headed down for breakfast. I was a bit nervous about eating here, since all the guests eat what the patients are served. We're not talking hospital food here, but "a healthy and nutritious menu" which I assumed would only consist of wheatgrass shakes and avocado sandwiches. I'd surely starve! Much to my surprise and pleasure, the food here has been healthy and very good. We've had tasty soups, poached eggs on wheat toast, yummy brown Spanish style rice and refried beans. We were even served pan fried potatoes with dinner tonight, I almost jumped for joy.

The hospital itself is a very restful and positive place. All of the staff have been excellent, but not overbearing in that typical Western hospital fashion. It's a fairly small building with just a few floors, and there is a nice chapel at one end and a conference/activity room at the other. So far we've attended a few classes and a prayer session. After spending so much time in hospitals and being in such a sterile environment, it's refreshing to get out of the room and simply talk to folks about life and healing. There's also a little Catholic church down the street that we plan to visit and a small gym I might try out.

The most amazing aspect of our short stay thus far have been the people we have met. There are obviously other people here with various stages of cancer, some doing ok and others not so well. But, all have been willing to talk and share their experiences, and all are moving about the hospital unencumbered by tubes and machines. They're simply here to receive healing.

There is an incredible family across the hall from us. Nicole, who is only 24, was diagnosed with brain cancer two weeks ago. Her parents, Terry and Tina, immediately decided Oasis was the best option for her and she agreed, and I have to say I'm glad they were brought here at the same time as Krissy and I. They have such great attitudes and are just good people. I've done my homework on cancer over the past two months, but Nicole's father Terry taught me a few new things just this morning. We've had all our meals with them and I feel that we've made friends for life by sharing this experience with them. Nicole is a very energetic young woman, and watching her talk to Krissy about their cancer is a bit surreal. Neither of them look like what you'd expect a cancer patient to look like, but I guess that in itself is a good thing.

Tomorrow the doctors will meet to discuss Krissy's case and determine what other tests and treatments she might receive. We don't expect any changes, possibly more scans or x-rays. I'm not really concerned anymore about what they show, Krissy is doing exactly what she needs to do in order to cure her cancer and I've put my complete faith in her.

We miss the kids like hell. They are the one thing that keeps going and also makes these 12 days seem so much longer than it really is. But, they are in the excellent hands of our family and I know they'll be fine until we get home. Still doesn't fix the hurt in my heart that I can't hug them every night but we'll get by with the webcams and Skype until I can. But for now we have to be focused on Krissy and getting her healed.

Well, our room is now warm and toasty since they've cranked the heat on for us and I'm getting sleepy. Kris is comfy in her bed across from me, and we're watching Two and a Half Men on some channel that rebroadcasts American shows. Earlier it was Rachel Ray and Entertainment Tonight. Just like home! With that I'm signing off, I'll have more updates tomorrow. G'night!

For Those Who Wish To Do So...

2009-12-21T15:40:00.000-08:00

I haven't written here in quite some time, real life has been sneaking free time away from me lately. However, my post today isn't about my random thoughts but rather to notify anyone who may be interested in donating to my wife Krissy's cancer treatment fund that you can now do so via Paypal. Simply click on the link to the right and enter your dollar amount. Please remember a credit card is required to donate through Paypal.

For those that prefer brick & mortar, we also have an account set up at Wells Fargo. You can visit a branch and ask to donate to the Kristen Lanza Donation account under Lucas Sanchez.

Thank you to everyone for your love and support, and God bless!

Frank

Save the Date: Free Comic Book Day is May 2nd

2009-04-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

That's right, this Saturday is Free Comic Book Day all over this great nation of ours. If you're out and about this weekend make sure to swing by your local comic book shop and pick up some awesome free books. This is a great opportunity to not only check out some new comics but rediscover your local comic shop and see all great things they have to offer.

For more information on Free Comic Book Day, head over to their website. You'll find a list of the free books available this year and how the event got started.

Not sure if you even have a local comic book shop? Swing by Comic Shop Locator and find the closest store.

Even if you're not a huge comics fan, it's free stuff for you and the kids and is a good excuse to get out of the house. You can even bring the wife! I know I'll be dragging mine down to Bargain Comics after work to snag my stack of freebies and see what they have for my girls. Good times!

Don't Leave Daddy Home Alone....

2009-03-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

Things get a little crazy after daddy gives Camryn an unsupervised bath:

Yes, I was using the blow dryer to full effect. She's just got way too much hair to dry before bedtime rolls around. And besides, she loves it!

Snack Hack

2009-03-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

I tend to bring the same crap to eat at work each day, more out of economy than lack of wanting more variety. However, the same old shit does tend to get old after a while so anything to mix up the monotony is a good thing. Recently I stumbled upon a tasty enhancement to my old snack staple of pretzels. I usually buy a big bag of them and pack a sandwich bag full every day. Boring right? Well a few weeks ago I brought some leftover pasta and packed extra garlic powder in my lunch bag for added seasoning. Forgetting that sandwich bags are pretty permeable, the garlic's flavor seeped into everything I brought, including my pretzels. And you know what? They transformed into Kick-Ass Super Fantastic Garlic Pretzels! I was pleasantly surprised and scarfed the whole bag.

So now when I bring my formerly boring-ass pretzels to work, I sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon worth of garlic powder (not garlic salt!) into the plastic baggy and by mid morning they have once again transformed into Kick-Ass Super Fantastic Garlic Pretzels. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to spice up their standard snacks on the cheap!

Fun With Street Fighter IV

2009-03-05T08:51:00.000-08:00

I've been playing around with Street Fighter IV for about two weeks now and can say I am very happy with how this game turned out. It's not Street Fighter II Turbo perfect, but it's pretty damn fun. The graphics and animations are stellar and the online play is much better than I expected. The new characters are creative, not as fun or endearing as the classic lineup but they are all very well done. I'm making an effort to learn some of them, namely Crimson Viper and Rufus in arcade mode.

Having played with all the modes in this game and feeling very comfortable with it now, I've noticed a few things I like very much and some that are just head-scratchers:

The Good

If you enable online requests, you can get pulled out of your single player arcade matches by an online challenger. Normally this would sound annoying, but the game pops a big "A New Challenger has entered the ring!" message, almost like someone has walked up and slapped a quarter in your machine. I think it's pretty cool and had me feeling a bit nostalgic for my old arcade days. I leave the online requests enabled most of the time unless I'm working on unlocking characters or practicing.

The gameplay is pretty basic if you've ever played Street Fighter II. Gone are the parries and insane combos of SF III and Marvel vs Capcom. Instead you have a straight up fighter with the classic move sets, along with simple Super and Ultra combo specials. They've added a Focus counter system that is easy to use but has more advanced features if you choose to master it. I'm still working on the timing of focus dash cancelling through fireballs, it's pretty neat when you get it down. But, if you could hadoukan or dragon punch 15 years ago, you can still do it today.

The online play is nearly flawless. For a game that requires precise timing, I'd say that 90% of my matches are indescernable from offline play. You'll get the occassional laggy match, but they are usually so bad you just disconnect and start over. The added bonus of online play is the Ranked bouts, where you go up against players of much better skill than standard Player fights. I get my ass kicked regularly in ranked play but I'm learning some techniques and strategies I might have never seen otherwise.

The Bad

The kids that play this game online need to branch out a bit. Expect heavy doses of Ken, Ryu and Akuma if you venture online. Just last night, I played 15 matches and faced Ryu 10 times, Ken twice, Akuma twice and Crimson Viper just once. I've yet to face anyone playing as Dhalsim, E. Honda, Vega, El Fuerte, etc. I understand Ken/Ryu are easy to play and very popular, but learn some new moves guys! Just to rebel I've been playing as Cammy or Rose in most of my online matches.

Unlocking all the characters is pretty difficult. I've unlocked them all except for Akuma, Gouken and Seth. I will probably never get Gouken unlocked due to the crazy requirements, and Akuma is looking like a longshot for me even on easy. You need a combination of perfect finishes, ultra combo finishes, no continues and beating the game with every other character to get them all. I'm not necessarily worried about never playing with these guys but it'd be fun to try them in arcade mode at least. I think the unlocks should apply to online only, so if you earn them it has more bearing on the game.

This is a small complaint, but the menu text is tiny. I play on a 27" CRT and I can't read the text on many of the custom profile titles, the profile icons are small and blurry as well. I know I'm behind the times but the game should be viewable even if you don't have an HDTV. I don't like having to stand 6" from the screen to figure out what button it's telling me to press to see my ranking in online matches.

I'm still waiting for my Mad Catz Fightstick to show up despite pre-ordering it two months ago, so I'm going at it with the standard PlayStation controller. Not the idea way to play this game, I'd prefer a SNES gamepad if I could use it, but I'm getting by. This is a very fun Street Fighter game and probably the only one I'd recommend over Marvel vs Capcom 2 (which is still my favorite fighter ever). I will now leave you so I can practice my Hooligan combo with Cammy while getting pummeled online by 14 year old kids.

Valkyria Chronicles Review - Sorta

2008-12-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

I had intended to write a full blown review of Valkyria Chronicles until I realized something. I liked this game way too much to just review it but it would probably be a 10,000 word article as I waxed poetic about all of the things I loved about this game and why YOU should love it too. That wouldn't really be fair or conducive to a real review. So instead I'm just going to tell you why I loved this game so much and why I hope it eventually gets the recognition it deserves.

I should start off by saying that Valkyria Chronicles is a Strategy RPG, but unlike any SRPG you've ever played before. All of the unit deployment and management is done on the combat map, overhead in 2D which is standard enough. However, all of your troop movement and combat is in 3rd person, and you have free movement of your troops over the field. This is a drastic departure from the grid based movement/combat of pretty much every other SRPG I've played and it is implemented perfectly. Trust me, it just works. That's about all the technical detail I want to get into, so on to the stuff I deem to be Good.

So just what makes this game so special? Two things: characters and story. Once you get past the initial bit of cheese every Japanese game seems to be instilled with, the characters are extremely likable and eventually lovable. I'm always drawn to a few characters with each game I play, but I found myself caring about nearly every main character on the screen, and even felt attached to the minor ones you only see during combat. Each character has a unique personality, voice and game traits, something I'd love every RPG to have. Second, the story will keep you motivated to see more of the game. There are a TON of story sequences here, some fully rendered in the game's beautiful anime/watercolor technique and some are just stills with voiceovers. All are very well done, with great dialog, even when the game is being silly just for laughs. Hans the Porcavian had me giggling every time he appeared. There are several twists and turns throughout and the ending was very satisfying, even if it leaves little room for a sequel.

There's not much else I can say other than try this game for yourself. It's the best 40 hours of gaming I've played in a long time, and I'm already considering a second play-through so I can unlock more characters and beat my best mission scores. Valkyria Chronicles will not get the recognition it deserves being a niche JRPG and I expect it to be very difficult to find at retail next year. Buy a copy now while you can before it becomes the next Ico on eBay, you won't regret it.

Point of No Return

2008-12-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

My youngest daughter Camryn recently turned nine months old and suddenly she's not the little baby she was just last month. It's truly astounding how quickly kids learn and grow, watching the massive leaps she's made in just one month has kind of blown my mind. In what seems like no time at all, she's discovered how to crawl, wave hello, hold her own bottle, say "Mama" and "Dada" (although she hasn't quite connected the words to the people), pull herself up and stand on her own and get into everything she's not supposed to.

It all happened so fast and I'm now realizing the days of her being a baby are drawing to a close and she's charging off towards toddlerhood. On one hand I'm a little sad that her infancy is over but I'm also excited to see her doing all these new things. My oldest daughter Coral is nine already and I've forgotten how many new things there are to be discovered when you're little.

I suppose the next time I'm feeling this way will be when Cori starts high school and Cam heads off to Kindergarten. By then I'll officially be old and crotchety and probably won't blog about it with the whippersnappers.

No Bailout for Joo!

2008-12-11T14:58:00.000-08:00

This image nicely sums up my feelings about the impending auto industry bailout:

I really don't see why failing, corrupt, poorly managed corporations deserve ANY money from the government. If the American auto industry isn't competitive anymore then they either need to restructure, retool, or fail. It happens to small business every day, no one is bailing out these owners or even larger companies that are just unable to cope with these tough economic times.

I foresee bad things in the future if this bailout goes through. We're fast approaching a state-sponsored economy and losing the free-market model we've had for so long. If this keeps up the government will have a managing stake in our banks, mortgages and automobiles. Of course maybe this will set a precedent and we can all apply for personal bailouts the next time we screw our finances up. Only time will tell.

The Truth about the GOP

2008-10-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right, they're DAMN DIRTY SKRULLS!

Now if only I could find a photo with the true face of a Mr. George Dubbya Bush, we could expose them for the shapeshifting aliens they really are. This explains so many things, such as why McCain's arms are so short (botched genetic code during shifting), why Palin's hair is always so impeccable and why G.W.B. is hellbent on world domination.

These hilarious images were created by Serena over at the Aspen Comics message boards. Thanks for the laugh Serena!

*I am responsible for the content of this message and imply no political bias on the behalf of Serena or Aspen Comics. Thank you for your support*

Fresh Wheels

2008-10-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

This Saturday my wife and I had planned on having a nice dinner, doing some minor shopping and maybe checking out the Toyota dealership to see what prices on FJ Cruisers were looking like. By some strange twist of fate we ended up trading in our Chevy HHR and driving home in a brand new Mazda CX-9. I know, it makes complete sense doesn't it?

The details of this transaction are too varoius and sundry to list here, but the skinny of it is we got into this newer, much larger vehicle for roughly the same payment we've had on the HHR for three years now. Although this is not what I expected to be driving right now, I'm very happy with our purchase and I think it'll be a great car for our family. The CX-9 is huge, seats up to seven people, has AWD and drives great for such a large vehicle (it's bigger than our Ford Explorer).

Here are few pics of the new ride. And for the record, my wife said we could get a sports car for our next vehicle. I'm holding her to it!

Fringe: Getting better but...

2008-10-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Last time we were together I posted my issues with J.J. Abrams new show, Fringe. However, I did state I'd give the show another chance to win me over and the last two episodes have been a marked improvement. This weeks episode has finally added some truly mysterious and ominous details to the Pattern with the introduction of the new character The Observer and his ties to the Bishop family. I'm hoping this is part of the overall mythology of the show and will continue to creep up in future episodes.

This being said, I dig the addition of the new character, but he's just a tad too much like the Marvel Comics character The Watcher. Let's run down the similarities. Alien character tasked with watching the lives of Earthlings? Check. Possessing a code of non-interference but still can't help meddling? Check. Creepy bald dude with no eyebrows? Check.

Ok, I know the idea of a supernatural or alien being observing Earth is nothing new in science fiction. Marvel's Watcher is a throwback to 1950's sci-fi. Fringe is obviously very conscious of it's old school roots as well. I hope that Abrams can be a bit more subtle with his mixing and matching of all things sci-fi as we build the mythology of this show. But if we see a new character named Herald of Galaxius I'm going to lose it.

Frayed Fringes

2008-09-19T08:28:00.001-07:00

Last night I choked down the second episode of Fringe. I had planned on writing about the premier episode last week but it didn't leave me with the warm and fuzzies, so I decided to hold off until after this week's show to form my opinion. Unfortunately, warm and fuzzies are still MIA.

Before the season started, Fringe was touted as the next big thing from uber-geek J.J. Abrams. It was going to be the X-Files only better, with an emphasis on "fringe science". They also warned that the show would "jump the shark" frequently. This should have triggered my spider-sense, but I kept my hopes high.

So, on to the show. I'll summarize my issues with Episode #1: Joshua Jackson is a complete casting bust. I assume the main function of his character (Peter Bishop) is to provide comic relief and act as a bridge between his mad scientist father and the rest of the world. He only succeeds in making lame jokes in situations where even Mulder would cringe and generally being annoying. Agent Olivia Dunham barely seems competent to be a run-of-the-mill FBI agent let alone tackling these strange "Pattern" cases. Also, the music sucks. It sounds like they took the music from Lost and just shortened it by about ten seconds.

Ok, I feel better now. On to Episode #2. Again, last night's episode started off well just like the previous week's entry. Crazy super aging baby busting out of the stripper was awesome. Dr. Bishop is a trip and right now the only reason I'm still watching this show. We also have an unsolved case from Agent Dunham's past that looks promising. The suspense was starting to build as we see the killer take new victims while Dr. Bishop works on more crazy theories. But toward the end, things start to fall apart, badly. We jump the Great White Shark by taking pictures of a dead girl's retinas. The idea that the last thing you see is burned into your eyes is something I've heard of before but they take it to new ridiculous heights. Our intrepid team is going to get these images with with a borrowed electrical impulse camera from Massive Dynamics. No explanation of what the camera is supposed to be used for or why MD just loans it out like a library book, but we accept it'll take great afterimages from expired eyeballs. Then we get our revelation, an image from the dead strippers retina turns out to be a picture of a bridge! Wait, if this supposed to be what she last saw before dying wouldn't it be the face of the guy that killed her? Or the ceiling? No, it's the bridge that she looked at three hours earlier and couldn't even see from where she died. Ooookay.

It gets better. Later in the show, the last surviving victim goes into cardiac arrest after the bad guy's dad messes with her IV. She must be saved and Peter is just the man to do it. How will he restart her heart without a defibrillator? By wrapping some bare electrical wire around two giant washers and hitting the power, that's how! Of course, instead of burning two holes straight into her chest the makeshift device reboots her perfectly. These last twenty minutes were like watching and episode of Scooby Doo. If it wasn't for you darn kids, I'd have gotten away with it!

Now, I don't have a problem with a show coming up with crazy ideas as long as they're presented with a basis in reality and are taken seriously by the show itself. Unfortunately this is one area where Fringe fails. I was a huge X-Files fan and accepted some pretty crazy stuff from that show but they always made it seem like this stuff could really happen. When Fringe jumps the shark it's almost comical, the show is laughing about it as much as I was.. It's campy in its presentation and this has completely turned me off. I'll give this show a few more episodes to see if they can attempt to ground this thing in some semblance of reality. Otherwise, I'll be passing on Fringe and forgetting about the Pattern all of Massive Dynamics mysterious goodies.

Beware the Lungfish!

2008-09-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

For the five and a half people that actually read my blog, I'd like to recommend a new site for your perusal. My friend Greg has launched Lungfishopolis, a blog about two boys and their love for video games. Greg and Brandon are handling the writing chores and I have to say they've come out of the gates quite well. This isn't the standard preview/review site, but rather an amusing commentary from all corners of the video game universe. Knowing Greg, I'd expect to see quite a bit of emphasis on the virtues of retro gaming and an occasional rant about lacking the time to actually play everything he'd like to. Brandon has an excellent dry sense of humor and actually gets flown to Vegas to play video games. Some people have all the luck!

So head on over to Lungfishopolis, enjoy the scenery, take off your shoes and stay a while. Brain of F gives the site four Rabid Midgets out of six, nearly a perfect score on this scale!

Name that Hurricane!

2008-08-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hurricane is upon us once again, and our eastern seaboard looks like it will be hammered this season by tropical storms and hurricanes. While I feel for those poor folks living in the path of these storms, it has to be humiliating to have your home blown away by something named Bertha or Gustav. In the spirit of this naming convention I have decided to choose my own equally outdated names for the next few storms, starting where Gustav left off.

Hurricane Humperdink
Tropical Storm Ignatius
Tropical Storm Jeeves
Hurricane Klaatu
Tropical Storm Leonidas
Hurricane Moe
Hurricane Nostradamus
Hurricane Opie

I don't think we'll see more than eight storms this season so I'll stop here. Should we be particularly unfortunate and end up pushing further into the alphabet, I'm sure Hurricane Zebediah will be remembered for quite some time.

Beware the Baby Hijacker

2008-08-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

I received a very disturbing email when I arrived at work this morning. After reading it, I immediately notified the authorities and elevated our national alert status to Severe. If any of you have babies, please verify they have not been hijacked after reading the following email:

I'm not entirely sure what my fume could be or how they took a picture of it, but I am terrified. I also wonder how many people actually opened this virus laden hoax to see what the fume's picture looked like. Although ultimately an epic failure, this was some pretty hilarious spam.

John McCain: Original Fogey

2008-08-21T08:04:00.001-07:00

The presidential race is heating up and we're getting bombarded with political ads day and night. John McCain has a slew of smear ads running right now, which in my opinion makes him look rather pathetic, but this recent ad really cracked me up.

Yeeaaaahh, ok. Not only will he save us from rising oil costs, drug dealers and taxes, but now he's also The Original Maverick™. Mr. McCain, 1986 is calling and it wants its cheesy nickname back. I had no plans on voting for McCain but after seeing these advertisements, which are obviously aimed at conservative Top Gun fanatics, my resolve to vote for Obama has increased tenfold. So thank you John McCain, you've proved to me that you are indeed the Original Tool™

Villains > Heroes

2008-08-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

Season Three of Heroes is coming soon, and the theme this time around is Villains. I'm assuming that we see Sylar's return to badassness along with some other goofy good guy/bad guy scenarios built around our familiar cast. Hopefully they don't toss too many new characters into the mix like they did last season, we still know next to nothing about the new Season 2 newbies and it would be nice to see them developed a bit more.

The big "twist" to this next season appears to revolve around the good guys turning bad and vice versa. Alliances will change, loyalties will be tested, and mayhem will ensue. However, I'm going to spoil the entire season for you right now. I know the secret to who becomes a villain and who stays good. Ready? Ok, here it is: if the character has their hair slicked back, or dyed a different color, then they are a villain. There you have it, the earth shattering secrets of season three laid bare before your eyes. I'm really looking forward to seeing Evil Mohinder with slicked back hair go up against Evil Peter, with equally evil slicked back hair. Or imagine Evil Claire with sexy brunette locks battling Good Sylar, who strangely enough slicked his hair back for the opposite effect. I'm just curoius what they will do with the Haitian since he has no hair. I'm thinking an earring or an eye patch. Nothing says evil like an eye patch!

Ok, so you've probably figured out I'm not too optimistic for Heroes this next season. I want to like what they're doing, I really do, but it's starting to become apparent that Tim Kring has no f'ing clue how to handle these characters now and they're really reaching for something to unite the overall theme for the show. Kring has stated he's never read comic books but thinks he still understands how to create a show based on superheroes. I'm starting to lose faith in that statement, maybe he should pick up a copy of NewUniversal or Rising Stars if he wants to see how normal people with powers should be written.

Hardcore = NES?

2008-07-31T13:41:00.001-07:00

I've written before about my love affair with the NES emulator for PSP. I've been cranking it up whenever I have about 10 minutes to kill and it's filling the time fabulously. However, the one thing I'm finding is that those old games we knew and loved are hard. Like, really hard. It's amazing how just 10 minutes on an old 8-bit game can reveal how much your gaming skillz have deteriorated over the years. I tried my hand at Bionic Commando, Contra, Joust, Ikari Warriors, Metal Gear, Shinobi and others and the results were much the same: I suck at these games now.

Perhaps my sense of timing is shot, or my hand/eye coordination, or maybe I'm just plain rusty. Or it could be that I'm too spoiled by the shiny features of modern games and they've made me lazy. I've gotten too used to unlimited lives and continues, save points and game saves, bountiful power-ups and over-powered heroes. I played through 90% of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core without even dying. I couldn't think of picking up God of War without the liberal save points scattered throughout the game. Now I find it impossible to imagine playing an entire level of a game only to die and have to start over from the beginning. But that was the kind of gameplay we all cut our teeth on years ago, and we actually had fun!

Now don't get me wrong, most modern games are more enjoyable than the majority of those classics. I don't have the time to invest in a game that will take me countless hours to master it anymore. Maybe ten years ago, but not now. So being able to play through 20 minutes of a game and actually make some progress is rewarding, especially when time to game is so limited. But, if I have one complaint against modern games, it's that they seem to be specifically designed to save you the hassle of learning how to truly play them. Sometimes I'd like to play a game without a tutorial or on-screen prompt telling me what button to push. It's rare to actually discover what a game is about before it starts holding your hand through the intro. Part of the fun of gaming is discovery and overcoming challenges. Completely take these away and you lose a bit of the magic, which is something those older games still have to this day.

So as I fire up Castlevania and prepare to tackle Stage 3 without dying, for the fourth time, I console myself with the fact that the truly hardcore gamers weren't raised playing a Playstation 3, or Xbox 360, or a Wii (hah joking!). The Nintendo Entertainment System is where real hardcore gamers were born and bred.

UPDATE: Will Ghostbusters be Slimed?

2008-07-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

A quick update to this posting, from the good folks at G4:

Activision says Ghostbusters is not canceled. X-Play talked an Activision Blizzard spokesperson who emailed: "Regarding Ghostbusters: The Video Game: First and foremost, the game is absolutely not cancelled," but added: "In general (including Ghostbusters): The company is reviewing its options regarding those titles that it will not be publishing."

Here are two high-profile titles that are being considered for cancellation:

Brutal Legend: The action-adventure game starring Jack Black is slated for release on the 360 and PS3 has no release date scheduled yet.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand: This action game starring the famous rapper in the Middle East is scheduled for a fall release on the PS3 and 360. No word yet on what the status of this awesomely ridiculous game will be. We'll be bummed if we can't play this. Look at the trailer!

This is good news for Ghostbusters, bad news for the other two games. Not that I really cared about their fate to begin with, any game with 50 Cent deserves to be canceled on principle alone.

Original posting:
According to an article over at Ars Technica this morning, the upcoming Ghostbusters game for PS3/Xbox 360 is in danger of being canceled. Apparently the merger between Activision and Vivendi has put several titles into publishing limbo and caused massive internal confusion.

I was very excited about this game after seeing gameplay footage at E3. With a script by Harold Ramis and Dan Akroyd along with voiceovers by the original cast, sharp graphics and some creative mechanics, this game looked like a surefire hit. This one was on my watch-list when I buy a PS3, it would be a real shame if someone didn't jump in and buy the publishing rights to this game. I mean, who could resist blasting Slimer and riding around in Ecto-1?

Randomness

2008-07-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

I have a few random topics on my mind today, figured they aren't worth separate posts so you get the Combo Plate Special.

First up we have Hospitals. This past weekend my youngest daughter Camryn was back in the ER with another kidney infection. She's doing fine now and will be getting follow up tests to make sure we don't have to do this again, but geez health care is just a retarded business. The first sign was when the ER doctor wanted to do a lumbar puncture on her before checking her urine and blood for infection. Seriously? Yes, let's bend her in half, jab a needle in her spine and suck out the fluid before we do the easy shit like testing pee for bacteria. Especially when she had this same test a month ago with negative results. I didn't let him do it and and behold! her pediatrician agreed with me. This lumbar procedure must be big bucks for him, I imagine every kid with a fever gets a complimentary spine stabbing from the good doctor. At least our stay was only two days this time, I'm praying we can keep her healthy from here on out.

Next up is social networking. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone's MySpace, Facebook, Blog, or Twitter page. While I truly enjoy all of these forms of connectedness, sometimes it feels like work to keep up with them all. I wish there was one superior site that could unite all of my friends and family so I didn't need Digsby to keep track of everything. I often feel like I'm slacking off if I don't have something interesting to Twitter or blog about. And forget about MySpace, I'm neither cool nor young enough for anyone to notice my page there. I suppose this is a bit of a rant, but honestly I can only be so interesting even to myself let alone a handful of friends :)

Last we have the incredible goodness that is the PSP. This thing keeps me entertained in so many ways I can't imagine not owning one. I keep up on all my TV shows, movies, anime and music with it. I store pictures of my kids and can check RSS feeds with it. It can browse the web from any wi-fi connection. And of course it plays games too. But not just PSP games! It can emulate PS1, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and NES games. I have Final Fantasy VII, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Metal Gear Solid along with several hundred games for the older systems. I have the most fun with the NES emulator though. It's amazing how good these old games look on the PSP's widescreen, I forgot just how crappy my old 13" color TV was when I was a kid. The screen shots below show a few of the games I have loaded (kudos to the old-schoolers that recognize them). The PSP has saved me from boredom countless times, in my opinion it's the best handheld available.

I think that's all I have for today's brain purging. Now I'm off to check Twitter!

Aspen Homage

2008-07-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

If you've seen my other posts on comic book artist Michael Turner, then you already know he was an incredible artist that left us far too soon. He also touched the lives of thousands of fans and professionals during his career. As a way of saying "thank you" and paying our respects to his family, the fan community over at Aspen Comics are producing a tribute book to present to Mike's family and friends. The book will consist of pieces that are inspired by, or seek to recreate, our favorite works from Mike over the years. I decided to participate in this excellent project and submitted the following piece for the cause.

This was my stab at drawing Aspen from his comic book Fathom, and is based on the cover from issue #2. It's also the only colored piece I've ever done, seeing as how I'm colorblind and all.

I'm not sure if my piece will make it into the book, but Mike inspired me to draw it back in my college days so I felt I should take a shot at it. The folks managing this project are estimating 50-60 pieces for the book, so I think my chances of making it in are good. I will post an update when the final line-up is decided in a few weeks.

Interesting Notes About Fatherhood

2008-07-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some random observations I’ve made during my time as a father of two girls. Three out of five fathers may or may not agree with me.

It’s totally cool to sing Hannah Montana songs and then make up alternate lyrics. This usually involves making as many words rhyme with “fart” as possible.

Puke, snot and slobber no longer illicit any reaction other than to calmly reach over my shoulder and grab a burp rag.

Colorblindness is now considered a blessing, as I do not have to participate in choosing either my daughter’s outfits.

Nine year old girls are really just 23 year-olds trapped in a small body with no cell phone.

“Free time” is the ten minutes spent showering in the morning, and the 30 minutes before you fall asleep on the couch at night.

Talking to your kids like they are adults and playing with them like you are a kid produces the best results.

It is my job, nay, my duty to get my kids wound up just before bedtime.

Disney channel theme songs are encoded with subconscious messages that keep children from blinking during shows and trick grandparents into buying yet another tube of Hannah Montana lip gloss.

If my daughter wakes up grumpy, I do my best to irritate her until she either smiles or storms off to the bathroom. Either way her mood changes!

Girls are born with the knowledge that daddy is wrapped around their little finger.

Turner Top 5

2008-07-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

Last time I posted about the untimely death of comics artist Michael Turner. Although I'm still saddened by the loss of such a great person, I also found greater appreciation of his work as I pored over my collection. I have roughly 200 comics that Mike drew covers for in my collection, and this isn't half of what he'd accomplished over the past 15 years. After admiring these books again, I've picked out my top five favorite covers from my collection. Click through for larger images. Enjoy!

#5 - Teen Titans #1

I really loved this cover when it came out, it was the first time I had seen Mike take on any DC characters. He's always been good at those massive collages of characters but I think this one really ties together well. Plus each character has a unique look, something he was criticized for not doing early in his career.

#4 - Aspen Sketchbook #1

This book was only released on the Aspen website, but it's definitely one of his most gorgeous pieces. Aspen (center character) has such striking features in this one, and I love the sketches in progress in the background. I think the color scheme compliments it well but it's always Aspen's eyes that get me when I see this cover.

#3 - Ekos Preview

Ekos was going to be Mike's next book after he completed Soulfire. Unfortunately, his cancer treatments kept him from finishing Soulfire as planned and Ekos will never be published with his pencils. But, we do have this excellent preview book to see what might have been. The main characer Grell is pictured here, and is a huge departure from the sexy women and reality based books he had always drawn. I love the texture in this piece and how unique it was from any of his other work.

#2 - Fathom #12, covers A&B

While this is technically two covers, they're both for the same issue and were drawn as one piece. The composition of this piece blows me away, I can't imagine how long it must have taken to draw let alone lay out. I've never been great at planning out a new piece, so I really admire the talent and hard work involoved in this drawing. Plus the many hot women don't hurt.

#1 - Witchblade #4

In my opinion, this is by far the best cover Mike ever drew. This has fantasy, sexiness, horror, power, beauty and badassness all in one piece. I'm a huge Gieger fan and this piece reminded me of him immediately. It's one of the few images of Witchblade that Mike drew with the blade actually extended, and they never really touched on this power later on in the series. The color scheme is excellent as well. If I could afford it, this piece would the grail in my original art collection. For now, I'll have to be content with the poster sized version I have framed in my basement.

So there you have it, my Turner Top five. He's drawn hundreds of other stunning covers and interior work and I encourage you to hit Google or the local comic store and find your own favorites.

Michael Turner

2008-06-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

Michael Turner, in my opinion one of the greatest comic book artists of the past 20 years, passed away on Friday after a long battle with cancer. He was only 37 years old.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mike a few times and own a few pieces of his art. He was truly a nice guy, always had a smile despite sitting at a table and signing for hours on end and dealing with the everyday pain of his cancer. He even took the time to show up at last year's San Diego ComiCon, still bald from chemo, to assure fans he was getting back to work and excited to finish his cover series for Marvel and Soulfire #10. The man's talent always blew me a way, for someone who didn't even start drawing in comics until his twenties he quickly became a superstar in the field with Witchblade and his creator owned titles Fathom and Soulfire.

I'm not sure what else to say about this, other than that I'm extremely sad for the loss of a talented artist and all around excellent person. Hopefully you're resting easy now Mike, you'll be missed.

Anime Fest '08

2008-06-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

That may sound like a super fantastic Otaku nerd convention in Tokyo, it's really just referring to an anime kick I've been on for the past month or so. It's actually quite unusual for me, I'm not a big anime or manga fan and the art style in general doesn't appeal to me at all. However I've managed to watch two full length movies, complete an entire season of one series and start a second one, with a third in the proverbial queue. Here's a quick breakdown and my impressions of each.

Series - Ergo Proxy
This is the show that started me on this downward spiral. Interestingly enough, I discovered this series by seeing the cover of a DVD at Best Buy. It looked cool so I downloaded an episode when I got home. I watched it and promptly returned to Best Buy to purchase the series. The quick and dirty on the show is this: Main protagonist Real Mayer is investigating a mysterious creature known to her only as a Proxy. Things quickly progress into a dark futuristic view of dystopia and some very deep theological and psychological ideals mashed in with classic Japanese sci-fi. I was very impressed with the animation and thankfully it never strayed into "huge eyes" territory, which is one of the reasons I stay away from most anime. Combine that with excellent voice acting and a satisfying conclusion that made me wish for a continuation of the series and I had found a true gem. I will probably watch through the 24 episode season again just to pick up on details I know I missed the first time around. I highly recommend this.

Movies - Appleseed & Vexille
I'm combining these two since they are both produced by the same studio and are really very similar in most every aspect. For me, Appleseed was more satisfying mainly due to better characters, tighter story and more cooler robots. Robots go a long way in making something cool. Both are visions of a post-apocalyptic Japan (as was Ergo Proxy) which sure seems to be a major theme with Japanese entertainment. Appleseed does a better job than Vexille in explaining the situation at hand and then resolving the story. Vexille really had me going "huh?" for most of the movie, be it with gaping plot holes, completely uninteresting characters and really stretching at times to make us care about anything in the movie. At least Appleseed makes you want to jump in a mech and kick ass, Vexille just makes you want to smack someone. If it wasn't obvious already, Appleseed is my recommendation. I have picked up it's sequel and will post an update when I watch it.

Series in Progress - Witchblade
This series is based on the American comic books from Top Cow. The comic was one of my favorites years ago when Michael Turner was handling the art chores, and recently it's been getting rave reviews under new writer Ron Marz. I had heard of this anime version when it first came out but wasn't really interested until now. Play magazine has given it glowing reviews twice so I figured I'd check it out while my appetite for anime remained high. I'm three episodes in right now and have to say I think I'm hooked. While completely different than the comics, the animation is intense with a building story line of the Witchblade vs escaped genetically enhanced weapons. There's also a certain, ahem, adult flavor to the show, with strategically placed camera shots and the almost erotic manner the main character exhibits while in combat. It sounds like a weird mix and it is, but somehow it's working. I'll update again when I finish the series.

Stuff in the Queue - Blood the Last Vampire and Blood +
The movie (Blood the Last Vampire) and series (Blood+) based on a young girl caught up in the discovery of monstrous vampires and her mysterious ability to kill them. I happened to catch about 15 minutes of this on cable one night and didn't know what it was at all until I saw the same clip on YouTube. Gotta love the intarwebs. The main thing that intrigued me was the vampires. These aren't your romantic, debonair Anne Rice vampires that have been so popular. Rather, these things are nasty, violent, and barely humanoid in appearance. I found them much more interesting and saw great potential for scary stuff to happen here.

So there you have it. I'm sure my anime obsession will burn itself out soon and give way to another push into novels or games, but for now it's keeping me entertained.

Hut hut hut hut....

2008-05-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

While not quite as earth shattering as Greg's announcement of a new Beyond Good & Evil game, I was equally excited today to learn there will be a new Tecmo Bowl released for the Wii next year. Although it's overly simplistic and graphically inferior to pretty much every sports game released today, the original Tecmo Bowl games are still some of the most entertaining football games ever. I still fire up Tecmo Super Bowl on my PSP every once in a while (via a nifty SNES emulator).

IGN broke the news and there is next to no actual information about the game other than the confirmation it will be made. I'm still excited though, I haven't really played a football game since EA killed the genre with it's exclusive NFL license and endless boring Madden rehashes. Let's hope it makes creative use of the Wii's motion controls!

Baby Talk and the Holy Spirit

2008-05-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

No, that title doesn't refer to the latest Indiana Jones movie or a hot new inspirational self-help book. In reality it's just about a couple of recent, highly enjoyable events in my life. And just to mix things up, I'll start with the last one first!

This past weekend was my daughter Coral's First Holy Communion. For the non-Catholics out there, this is the holy sacrament where a child takes the body and blood of Christ for the first time. Now, I'm not a super religious person, but I do hold to my traditions and this is an important one for all of my family. Cori looked beautiful and she was very poised throughout the entire Mass. She did make me laugh a bit at the end, as she asked me if she could go pee about five minutes before receiving Communion. As much as would have liked to relieve her, there was no way she was getting up at that stage of the game. So, she toughed it out, took her first Communion and then sprinted for the restroom directly after. She always has a way of making events memorable!

The reception was held at our home afterwards and one of the best nights I've spent with friends and family in a long time. Everyone ate, drank, laughed and just enjoyed each other's company for a few hours. We don't entertain at our house very often but I'm glad we did, it was nice that everyone could have a good time in our home. You can find some pics of the gala event here.

Now, on to the second part of my post, the wonderful phenomenon of baby talk. My youngest daughter Camryn is 10 weeks old now, and is quite the chatterbox for such a little person. I'm not just talking about the standard baby cooing that all infants will start vocalizing around six weeks old. This is seriously full blown baby-to-parent communication. I swear she's trying to imitate what we're saying and form words of her own. The eyes are excited, the mouth is working, the tongue is trying to make the sounds and she's chatting away. If her little body were capable of it I'm confident she would be talking in complete sentences already.

Now I know what you're thinking. This is just daddy gushing about his perfect baby, everyone's baby makes noises at that age and no baby can actually talk at only ten weeks. Ok, maybe that's sorta right, but I don't believe it :) I'm pretty sure she knows what exactly what we're saying and is really a little adult trapped in a baby's body. I'm betting her first actual words will pop out in about six months, and it'll be something like "May I have an additional four ounces of that exquisite formula?" Seriously.

Game Review - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

2008-05-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is the latest in a series of games based on and around the events of the original Final Fantasy VII. This game, for the Sony PSP, is actually a prequel to FFVII and is centered on Zack Fair. While he only appeared in flashbacks in the original game, Crisis Core explores his character further and his influence on Cloud and Sephiroth.

The game consists of two main components: the primary Story mode and a side-quest style Mission mode. The story mode is the meat of the game and is where you’ll be getting attached to these now iconic characters all over again. Mission mode, on the other hand, is a long series of one-off mini levels that have you battling for unique materia, equipment and even bosses as you go. There are roughly 300 missions in this mode and each take about five minutes to complete.

In my opinion, Mission mode was a genius addition to the game, especially on a handheld system when 5-10 minutes might be all the time you have for a quick game. Not only can you knock out a few missions and get that all consuming sense of accomplishment, you can also build your character for the encounters you’ll face in Story mode. All of the leveling and equipment you gather applies to both modes of gameplay. Even after completing the main story mode, I still want can’t leave the world of Crisis Core thanks to these nifty little missions.

The gameplay here is actually pretty simplistic. This is real-time combat, not the turn based fare we know and love from most of the other FF games. So, this plays roughly similar to FF XII except you only control one character. You can queue up moves as you fight and scroll through abilities, materia, and potions with the L/R triggers. There are no complex combos or mini-games to learn, however you must understand the type of monster you are fighting and adjust your tactics accordingly. Materia and gear must be equipped before an encounter so this keeps you constantly thinking about how to best outfit Zack as you progress through the game.

Graphically this game is amazing. I’d say it’s right on par with God of War: Chains of Olympus in being one of the top two best looking games for the PSP. The in-game graphics are superb, with excellent characters, backgrounds, monsters and spell effects. The scenes that present the major materia summons are breathtaking and the CG portions of the game are straight out of Advent Children, so they are as good or better than anything you’ve seen in the theater. Most of the in-game cinematics are even done right in the game engine and everything still looks amazing. Square is one of those few developers that can perfectly capture emotion with their animation. I found myself locked into the facial animations of the characters during these scenes, just because they were so perfectly expressive.

As with most RPG’s, Crisis Core is fairly lengthy. I completed the game along with about 50% of the side missions in just over 35 hours, and could probably have done the core game alone in 25. For a handheld title this is pretty impressive, especially considering the tons of in-game and CG cut-scenes packed onto the disc.

Of course, the real reason to play any FF game is for the dramatic storyline. This game does not fail there, and even knowing the gist of what I should expect, Square Enix once again sucked me in with stunning visuals, incredible CG cutscenes and even the humor mixed in with the over-the-top Japanese style dialog. I really enjoyed Zack’s clichéd characteristics, for some reason in these games you just couldn’t have it any other way.

There is a ton of replay value here as well. Once you complete the game you can go back and replay it on Hard mode, while keeping your DMW, materia and stats. There is also the aforementioned Mission mode. There is a final boss in Mission mode not included in the main game, Minerva, who is undoubtedly the most difficult boss in the entire game. Clocking in with over two million hit points, it’ll take a lot of grinding and materia fusing to defeat her. I plan on working my way towards this goal now that I have the main campaign out of the way.

If you are a RPG fan, or a Final Fantasy Fan, or just looking for a great game to play, you should really try Crisis Core. Adam Sessler be damned, this is one of the best games for the PSP and would make a kick ass PS2 game as well.

Is this thing on?

2008-05-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

So, um, it's been a while since I've even thought to post here. Not that I haven't wanted to, but this little person, namely my now two-month-old daughter, popped into my life and things just haven't been the same since. I think my brain is just now returning from Super Happy Fantastic Baby Land, so I plan on posting more of my favorite random things here again. I think my first post back will be a game review (shocking!), then some comic book updates (uncanny!) and then whatever falls out of my head after that.

So, I am off to do some writing and pretend to work, and will leave you with a picture of my new favorite distraction.

Foppa Returns!

2008-02-27T10:39:00.001-08:00

Some folks may not know this, but I'm a huge sports fan. My favorite professional sports are football and hockey, in that order, but I'll watch the NBA and even some pro baseball if I feel like taking a nap. However, yesterday some news made me giddy about sports again. My home team, the Colorado Avalanche have resigned Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote. Yippee!

Now, anyone that followed the Avs during their glory years from the late 90's/early 00's will realize how huge these signings are. Forsberg was arguably the best player in the world during those years and Foote was the soul of the Avs defense. Of course, neither of them are the player they were 5 years ago, but honestly they don't need to be. This is going to be a huge emotional lift for the players and the fans and it couldn't come at a better time. With the Avs two points out of the final playoff spot it's time for them to make a huge push during their last 17 games.

Whether they make the playoffs or not, I'm more excited to watch Colorado hockey than I have been in a long time.

Come with me if you want to live

2008-01-15T06:59:00.000-08:00

Those words were spoken over 15 years ago, in one of the best action movies ever made. Terminator 2: Judgment Day raised the bar for special effects and action sequences and still holds up nicely to today's computer generated effects. I remember seeing this movie in the theater with my grandmother, of all people, and being totally floored. I still watch this movie about twice a year.

So having gushed about James Cameron's masterpiece, I found myself both excited and fearful for the new Fox TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I missed the series premier on Sunday night so I caught up on both episodes late last night. I hate giving a definitive opinion of a series after so few episodes, so for now I'll give my initial impression of the show; it's pretty good.

The series starts off in 1999 with Sarah and John still on the run, but settled down for the moment with a new relationship. But of course she knows only one thing and that is survival, for Judgment Day is always around the corner. Of course we couldn't have a show without Terminators and they inevitably track her down and start gunning for John in the middle of his new school. Thankfully, however, John had the wits to send another terminator back in time to protect him, this time in the guise of an attractive 18 year old named Cameron Phillips. Not much is known about this new terminator; what model she is, how much she knows or what she's fully capable of. The chase proceeds from there and the first episode ends with a nice twist to keep me intrigued about where the show is headed.

My main concern for this show was the acting. The only actor I know well is Summer Glau (Firefly/Serenity), and she's a fairly quirky character actor. However after the first 30 minutes I knew each actor was well suited for their role. Lena Headey is an excellent Sarah Connor, showcasing just the right amounts of intensity, fear and love for her son. Thomas Dekker is a nice change of pace from where Edward Furlong left the character of John Connor. Gone is the whiny kid full of piss and vinegar now replaced with a slightly more mature teenager who is more accepting of his coming role. Last we have the new terminator Cameron Phillips played by Summer Glau. I really found her awkward in this role up until the point that she's revealed as a terminator, and I suppose now that was the point. Once she goes into protecto-o-mode it all falls into place.

My main complaint so far is the guys they cast as the T-800 terminators. We've seen three of them so far and none were very menacing or convincing as a cyborg. Arnold never had to act robotic for you to believe he wasn't human, he just had that superhuman presence. These guys seem to be disposable so far so maybe we'll get some better actors to play our classic T-800. My other complaint is minor and they'll probably work around it, but John isn't going to be able to use the PIN crackers or other relatively low-tech hacks from 1999 here in 2007. They already address his tech lag in the second episode but I see this being a big obstacle for these characters as they try to stay hidden.

Overall I think this show has promise. If I were to rate it I'd give it 1.5 Thumbs Up. I only hope Fox gives it enough time to let us see where the story is going. They're infamous for canceling good shows before they have a chance to get off the ground *cough Firefly cough*.

It's Early

2007-12-26T07:08:00.000-08:00

And I'm tired, but I must say this: the Wii is awesome. I was able to play a few games of bowling and tennis with my daughter last night and we had a lot of fun. I can't wait to see what else this system holds for us.

Look at that face!

2007-12-10T15:45:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of our daughter Camryn from our last ultrasound. I was pretty amazed when I saw this on the monitor and even more amazed the tech captured it for us. You can see pretty much her entire face, including those chubby cheeks and little nose! She was taking a nap and looked so peaceful. I can't wait to see her again in March!

Spike Video Game Awards

2007-12-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Last night brought us the Spike Video Game awards. This year's event was hosted by Samuel L. Jackson, and was held in Las Vegas. Yes, there truly is an award show for everything!

Now, when I think about video games, Samuel L. Jackson and Spike TV are the first things that come to mind, right? Of course, it makes perfect sense! And while we're at it, we'll have a performance from Kid Rock and appearances from Tila Tequila, Steve-O, UFC fighters and Ralphie the comedian. Don't forget the body painted babes that also served to reveal the winners of each category with the name of the game painted across their bodies. All of this just screams hardcore gaming doesn't it?

I consider myself a gamer, even though I don't get as many hours in as I used to and don't get to play every new system the day it comes out. But as a self-respecting gamer I really can't see how these "awards" are good for the gaming industry, except to give the Grand Theft Auto crowd more brainless drivel to soak up. The whole thing gives the impression that all gamers are horny 15-22 year old males that play Tony Hawk 4 while chugging a Bud Lite. After all of the years that video-gaming languished with the status of something only geeks and nerds enjoyed, I had hoped any mainstream attention it received would be more positive than the tripe Spike is producing. Maybe I'm over-reacting but I feel crap like these Spike awards do more harm than good for the video game industry and just serve to fuel the far right critics who are already convinced that your Xbox and Playstation are gateways to Hell.

I suppose the real absurdity is having an award show for video games in the first place. I don't think you can neatly categorize and judge the truly great games out there and then say "yep, this one is the best!". How do you judge, let's say, first-person shooters? Just based on the genre you'd have to include Half-Life 2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock. Sure, they're all first-person, but the gameplay and style of each is completely different. And how will you judge them? Base it on graphics? Controls? Story? Difficulty? Personally I see video games the same as I see artwork, and they really can't be judged as the "best" when the content is so subjective.

I guess the ironic thing about these awards is they actually chose some pretty good games. BioShock won game of the year (wouldn't have been my choice), and other gems like Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Super Mario Galaxy, CoD4 and The Orange Box all won awards. I'm sure they were excited to receive their awards from such gaming notables as Tia Carrere, Criss Angel and Don King.

(yes that was sarcasm!)

Street Fighter IV

2007-12-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

Today the first glimpse of in-games images from Street Fighter IV were made available. I had been following the hi-res makeovers that Udon Crew had been doing for Street Fighter II HD Remix over at Deviant Art. The majority of their redesigns were amazingly faithful to the original game graphics and added a great amount of detail to each character. Having seen how much life they breathed into my beloved Street Fighter characters made me very hopeful for a true sequel to Street Fighter III, which was released almost 10 years ago.

Well today we get the following screenshot from SFIV:

Although the graphics are clearly "next-gen" (and I truly hate that word) this just doesn't scream Street Fighter to me. I has none of the character of SFII and it's siblings and there isn't any of the 2D pixel magic in the background either. Capcom claims that although the game is rendered with polygons the gameplay is 2D. So in essence they are doing something similar to Street Fighter EX, which I thought was a spectacularly crappy game.

Granted, this is the first shot of the game to be released and I haven't seen any of the other stages or characters yet. But based on this I don't get any impression of the 2D gaming goodness that I grew up with. This looks more like Virtua Fighter or Tekken to me and I could never stand those games. Hopefully some gameplay videos will surface soon, but until then color me unimpressed.

The Itch

2007-11-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm getting that itch again. It's that itch to create something, to break out the pencils and sketch or design. Every so often it hits me, I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and just need to get the ideas and impulses out of my head and onto paper. If I were a better writer I'd have a few stories to work on as well but plotting has never been my strong suit.

The main problem with this urge is that I'm terribly out of practice. All of the ideas floating around my head turn into rigorous tests of patience as I try to get them down on paper. Perhaps if I'd have kept up with drawing over the years it wouldn't be so frustrating to get back into "shape", but unfortunately I've let myself go. Like any other physical skill, drawing skill deteriorates without practice and I just don't seem to have the time to sketch and experiment like I used to.

What I should probably do is take 30 minutes at home or lunch and just free form sketch. It takes time to get the eye talking to the hand but some short practice each day will help. I know this itch is just going to get worse until I can satisfy it, and that's not going to happen until I stop sucking at drawing!

Semi-Heroic

2007-11-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

A few thoughts on last night's episode of Heroes:

Mohinder still appears to be aiding the company, but apparently only to destroy the virus. If this is really the only reason he brought Noah back remains to be seen.
Adam may turn out to be a good villain yet. But despite his intentions he still doesn't come across as very menacing. I wonder if Hiro will actually kill him.
Peter is extremely naive, to the point where it's almost unbelievable. And despite being the most powerful hero, he still stands around with that dumb look on his face and lets everyone he comes in contact with lead him around on a leash. Get it together Peter!
Niki, Micah and Monica are a complete waste of time at this stage of the story. They are contributing absolutely nothing to the show and merely serve to irritate me and take valuable screen time away from the other heroes.
Hiro is impulsive, but at least he takes action. His charge at Peter truly shows his character. I can't wait for an epic battle with Adam.
Sylar is still a badass, even without powers. I have a feeling that the more he manipulates and kills those around him, the more his powers are beginning to come back to him. He's also killed off one half of the Whiny Twins, which scores him bonus badass points in my book.
I'm surprised Victoria Pratt ended up being so insignificant. Sure, she knew the location of Shanti 138, but so did Bob, Kaito and probably Angela. It also appears that she didn't have any powers at all, but was merely a top player in the Company before calling it quits.

So we have one more episode left in this current story arc, and most likely the last episode for this season. There still seems to be a lot of loose ends and too much is unexplained. Is Sylar going to blackmail Mohinder into restoring his powers? Will Hiro kill Adam? Will Niki be cured? What deal does Noah make to rejoin his family? Will Ando join the action or be completely left behind? Will Maya turn on Sylar once she discovers her brother is dead? I hope we'll get answers to most of these questions before Heroes signs off.