Shrine of Dakine

Life changing events – we all have them.  Some are expected – marriage, having kids, new jobs, or buying a new house.  Some are anything but expected.  This is the story about a series of life changing events that has lead me here, and my story starts with a dog.

A basset hound – actually to be more specific, a giant nuclear-mutant-freak-of-nature basset hound named Barkley.   Barkley was Kristen’s (the love of my life) dog, and she picked him out of the litter shortly after his birth while she was still in college.  They were inseparable, and all over our house are pictures of their adventures. 

Everything changed one day after a weekly bath when Barkley was around six years old.  Kristen was drying him off and found some areas under his neck that felt swollen.  Coincidentally, Barkley’s behavior had been a bit odd as well – seemingly even less energy than normal (hard to measure with a basset).  The next day we took Barkley to the vet and found out he had Lymphoma cancer – that was in the beginning of 2006.  For the next seven months we took Barkley through chemotherapy trying to force the cancer into remission. 

It was my introduction to cancer.  Although I was aware that Kristen’s father was a breast cancer survivor, he was doing fine and to be honest I didn’t give it much thought.  But it was with Barkley that I started to learn about cancer and found out that 65 percent of dogs will get cancer.  I also learned that dogs respond to chemotherapy much better than humans, as many humans report they’d rather die than go through chemotherapy again.

And so for four months Dr. Macy, Barkley’s oncologist, used a variety of horrific drugs that decimated Barkley’s immune system to the point where we couldn’t take him for walks or around other dogs for fear of infection, and we got to watch tumors form and recede, but finally got his cancer into remission.  We’d done enough research to know that remission in dogs lasted anywhere from six months to two years on average.  With Barkley remission lasted one month.

Barkley lasted another three months, and while Dr. Macy used every weapon in his arsenal, the tumors grew all over, and Barkley ate less, slept more, until one day I took Barkley to Dr. Macy and he told me that he was out of tricks.  Barkley had a huge tumor below his left ear, and small tumors growing around his eyes, and who knows what else growing inside of him.  He lost 40 pounds, the tumors around his eyes started to burst open and bleed, and when it was clear he was doing nothing but suffering we had him put to sleep.

About a month later, we got a phone call that Kristen’s father had been in a car accident.  He was okay, but we learned that the accident was a result of him blacking out at the wheel.  As it turned out, the breast cancer that I had a simple awareness of was back and had metastasized into a brain tumor.  Doctors did emergency surgery to remove the tumor, but with further testing found that the cancer had spread to his organs and bones as well – he was stage five and given six to nine months to live.  We learned that in September of 2006.

Then November hit – a month we’d never forget.  On a Friday in mid-November we found out that my Grandpa had a bunch of cancerous tumors in his neck and shoulder area on his right side and would have to undergo 37 straight days of radiation therapy.  He was in his late 80s. 

Then on Tuesday we got the call from my Mom that she had gone to the doctor thinking she had a bladder infection.  In reality it was renal cancer, and she would have to have her kidney removed.

And to really give a great finish to the week, the very next day we found out that Kristen had melanoma skin cancer on her head – a growth she’d discovered a couple of weeks while doing her hair and had removed.

As weeks go, that one qualified as the worst week I’d had thus far in my life.

As the news rolled in, the research started.  I wasn’t too alarmed at first, as my stepmother had skin cancer and while the removals didn’t seem too pleasant, I never got the impression that it was life threatening.  However, Melanoma was a different story.  Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer, and if it spreads to lymph nodes, or organs, or anywhere but the skin it can be life-threatening.

Grandpa’s radiation was ongoing, and Kristen was the first to go through surgery.  Because the Melanoma was on her scalp and the skin is pulled very tight in that area, her surgeon had to cut a large area off of her head.  Also, to check if the cancer had spread the doctors did what’s called a sentinel node biopsy to remove the lymph node that the area of the tumor drained to.  If the cancer had spread, it would have likely spread to the lymph node first.  As it turned out, Kristen was lucky enough to get a lymph node cut out of her neck.

The surgery was a success, and then for a week we waited for the test results on the biopsy to see if the cancer had spread, and every day and every night I thought about what would happen if it spread – chemotherapy? Radiation? Or news that it was too late to do anything?  I didn’t sleep much.

Finally some good news, the cancer hadn’t spread.  The biggest sense of relieve I’d ever felt – the woman I loved was okay…and by okay I mean the cancer hadn’t spread, but as it turned out the surgery resulted in severed and damaged nerves in her head and neck which lead to severe pain that could last up to two years and required some powerful medications to relieve.

My mom was next, and her kidney removal surgery went well, and she also showed no signs of the cancer spreading.  However, after the doctors biopsied the kidney, they discovered the cancer was far more aggressive than previously thought, and gone untreated the cancer would probably have killed her in just a few years.

My Grandpa got through his radiation treatment, but lost his hearing in his right ear, his ability to taste food, and has difficulty speaking.  I found out he had more skin cancer removed recently.

Kristen’s father declined over the months.  Kristen went to visit often but, as cancer does, cancer started to win the war.

It was November – over one year after her Dad was given six to nine months to live – when we got the call that Bob’s (Kristen’s Dad) Hospice nurse had made the call that Bob was showing all of the signs of imminent death.  Kristen flew down and I followed a week later to help out.  When I arrived they had moved him into a Hospice care facility to better manage his pain and take care of him.  I hadn’t seen Bob in six months, and when I saw him I couldn’t believe it – the combination of cancer and drugs had decimated his body, and he must have been a hundred pounds lighter than when I’d seen him last.

For the next week I helped out Kristen, Bob’s long-time girlfriend Lynn, and several of Bob’s best friends as best I could – shuttling to and from Hospice, making sure everyone ate at least a bit of food, and spending the night with Bob to help make sure he was comfortable.   Bob made the conscious decision to finally give up the battle on a Sunday, lapsed into a coma on Monday, and passed early Friday morning.

Not that I’ve ever seen anyone else battle cancer, but when Bob was diagnosed he was given a year to live.  Five years later he was given six to nine months.  Fourteen months after that he was given no more than seven days.  Bob lasted another 2.5 weeks after that – refusing to meet anyone’s timetable but his own.

The combination of Kristen’s Melanoma, my Mom’s renal cancer, my Grandfather’s ongoing cancer, and Bob’s cancer has changed me forever.  Not only having to see what they all went through personally, but what their loved ones had to go through is something that maybe someone simply reading this who’s never been through cancer with a loved one can never understand, but believe me it changes you.

If you’re diagnosed with cancer, you basically have four options:

1 – Surgery

2 – Radiation

3 – Chemotherapy

4 – A combination of the above

There’s also a fifth option that repeat cancer patients sometimes choose, and that is refusing treatment because the treatments themselves can be so horrific, and letting the cancer run a rapid course to die.

The better course when dealing with cancer is prevention.  The number one thing anyone can do to prevent cancer is to not smoke.  The second best thing is to live a healthy lifestyle with exercise and a healthy diet.  The most effective cancer prevention diet is one that is rich in antioxidants.

Which finally brings us to Monavie. 

Monavie is one of the healthiest substances on the planet that you can put in your body.  It’s a super antioxidant that gives your body the ability to combat free radicals – now linked to cancer and other serious illnesses and disease – and give you a strong immune system.

Kristen was introduced to Monavie by the receptionist at our chiropractor.  So far, we’ve tried to supply it to as much of our families as possible, and are starting to share it with friends.  This is what we’ve seen only in our immediate circle that we’ve shared it with:

Kristen was able to stop taking Lyrica – she’d been dependent on it for pain relief in her head and neck for a year.  She feels great and has more energy.

Kristen’s mother has reduced her pain medication to only ¼ of what she had been taking for a long time.  She is able to exercise, walk her dog, and feels better than she has in years.

My mother and stepfather both report increased energy, pain relief in joints, muscles, and backs with greatly improved digestive functions.

My father has experienced increases in energy levels and no longer needs caffeine to get him through the afternoon.

Kristen’s mother’s husband, an insulin-dependent diabetic, took Monavie for two weeks and his blood sugar stabilized and he hasn’t needed insulin in weeks (but still tests his blood regularly).

I have experienced a huge increase in energy.  While I used to drink 2 to 4 energy drinks per day, I don’t need caffeine any more.

All of us have an improved feeling of wellness.  Ever have a bit too much to drink and feel slightly lousy in the morning?  This is the opposite.  Most of us are sleeping better than ever.

Monavie is truly amazing stuff, and is changing the lives of so many people that commit to drinking it. 

Our major motivation is the cancer prevention that Monavie offers because of the antioxidant and oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC) value.  I encourage you to research the science behind free radicals, antioxidants, and ORAC.  WebMD is a great resource.

I also have a different motivation.  First and foremost, I want to help with the war on cancer and promote prevention at every opportunity.  Because Monavie is a key ingredient to cancer prevention, the more people I can share it with the better.

But I also want more.  My ultimate goal is to establish my own charity organization to support the fight on cancer.  I plan on calling it Cancer and Canines.  It’s obviously very early, but my top goals of this organization will be:

Raise money for cancer research.  All cancer – cancer sucks and I want to help fight it all.

Personally assist people and families going through cancer – be it financially or through other means.  One area I’d especially like to focus on is using dogs to help people through their cancer treatment.  Dogs can greatly enhance the healing process and improve the moods of cancer patients.  I’d love to have a pack of stable, calm submissive dogs to act as service animals to visit cancer patients.  Also, cancer patients with dogs can sometimes have trouble exercising and properly caring for their dogs, and thus dogs can become unbalanced, frustrated, and end up causing stress and anxiety to the owner.  Simple things like walking and working with cancer patient’s dogs can put patients at ease and help the healing process.

Raise money for canine cancer research.  People will always be the priority, but 65 percent of dogs will get cancer, and I want to help the fight on that as well.

So that’s my new goal in life, to help people who are affected by cancer.  If we haven’t already sent you Monavie to try, we will soon.  If you have a critical need – a health problem like cancer or pain – or you know someone that does, let us know and we’ll get some to you.  Otherwise, we have a list and if you’re one of our close friends, we will get you some in time.

And just think – it all started with a dog.

Inspiration – it’s a strange thing, isn’t it?  The last thing I wrote that wasn’t a University of Phoenix paper and a requirement for my master’s degree was for our MSN spaces website about how 2006 sucked, and how I had 3 more months of suck.

If only.

As it turns out, 3 months of sucked actually turned into 6 months of suck.  But we’ll get to that in a second.

First, let’s talk about this inspiration thing.

So here’s the situation.  It’s 9:50 p.m.  I’m sitting on the couch, Kristen is asleep next to me and our two dogs, Sully and Snoop (a ball/fetch obsessive-compulsive rat terrier, and a hyper-active basset hound) are snuggled up with her.    

I should be sleeping.  Not that 9:50 is some unreasonable time to be awake, but for the past two weeks I’ve been working 11-12 hour days, and getting up at 3:30 in the morning.  I’ve also had two adult beverages, and to be honest I have a bit of a buzz, so I figured I’d be passed out by now.

But yet here I am, banging away on my laptop keyboard because I feel inspired to write.

Go figure.

So, the suck is officially over.  The best news is that Kristen and my mom are both cancer-free.  Also, my grandpa and Kristen’s dad are both doing well.  Kristen’s dad continues to play pool, teach others the art of pool (he’s an expert), and enjoy a retired lifestyle which allows him to keep a positive attitude and kick cancer’s ass.  For anyone burdened with free time and the feeling that maybe they should do something with it, I encourage you to find anti-cancer charities, fund raisers, or whatever else to help find a cure for such an indiscriminant disease.

So what’s happening lately here in lovely Las Vegas?  Our house is in closing, which is a good thing because if it didn’t sell I’d be getting a third job.  We’re hoping it closes tomorrow or Monday.  It’s been a nightmare, but hopefully it will be over soon.

Work is going well.  I’m thinking about writing something about what it is I actually do for a living, but I’ll have to put some more thought into that one before I do.  I don’t want to scare any of my family and loved-ones, but it’s seemingly more and more relevant as our idiotic government attempts to figure out what the fuck they should do in Iraq.

More on that later…maybe.

First, let’s focus on the positive.  I have a life again, which is going great.  For a quick review, I had a few things going on.  First, I was trying to finish my stupid MBA.  I never really wanted it, but realized it was a necessary evil for my career path.   Combined with my MBA, I was enrolled in a program designed for “intelligence training”.  If you don’t know, in my Air Force reserve roll I’m an intelligence officer.  All jokes aside concerning military intelligence, as an enlisted man prior to my commissioning, I went through over 8 months of training to be an intel guy.  Once I became an officer, I had the choice of going back to Texas for 7.5 more months of training to learn a bunch of stuff I already knew, or enroll in a 1500+ page correspondence course that was over 10 years old and complete it on my own.  I opted for the latter. 

Needless to say it was a son-of-a-bitch.  Somehow, with an overlap of my MBA and trying to complete the entire intel program in 12 weeks, and maintaining my job, I did it.  But let me make one thing very clear…I made it because of the incredible woman I’m engaged to.  While I locked myself away to study for hours a day and neglect all responsibilities associated with our home, Kristen took care of everything.  What I ever did to deserve her, I have no idea, but I couldn’t have made it through all of that hell without her support.  I know it drove her crazy, and baby, I can’t thank you enough for helping me get through all of that.

So what are we doing now?  Finally enjoying life.  My folks got us a Nintendo Wii for my graduation gift, and we’re playing lots of that.  We’ve painted, we’ve decorated, and I cleaned up the garage and can actually fit an entire car in it – it’s really cool.  My latest project is installing my old stereo in my truck after over two years, and I will hopefully finish that this weekend.

About my job thing…I’m too tired to talk about it now.  Maybe tomorrow I can get into that, but for now, life is good, cancer is at bay, and I think I’m going to pass out on the couch.

Aloha – Mike.

Okay, so here's a quick update on life...2006 sucked.

Sure, it had a few good points, some good times, a trip here and there, but on the whole it sucked.  Why you ask?  Cancer and tenants.

Sure, cancer is far worse than the tenants, but both caused massive amounts of worry, stress, frustration, anxiety, and fear.  Let me cover the cancer first.

The year started with us finding out that our basset hound, Barkley, had lymphoma cancer - that was in February.  Seven months later after chemotherapy and one remission, cancer finally won and we had to have him put down.

Two or three months later - the year kind of blends together so forgive me on the dates - we found out that Kristen's father's cancer that he'd been successfully battling for years had spread.  That was discovered because he was in a car accident as a result of blacking out which lead to doctors finding a brain tumor.

How are we doing so far?

A couple of months after that, and believe it or not all within six days of each other, we found out that my grandfather has cancer that seems to be spreading quicker than docs can remove it...that was on a Friday.  On the next Tuesday, we found out that my mom had renal cancer.  Then on Thursday, we found out that a mole/growth Kristen had removed a couple weeks prior was Melanoma - the most serious form of skin cancer.  

I'm fairly certain that was one of the worst weeks of my life.

Currently Kristen's father is doing well - he and his long-time girlfriend are flying in tonight for a visit.  Grandpa is undergoing radiation treatment, and I hope it's not horrible or painful and that it proves to be effective.  Mom had her kidney removed (which I think has a 98% success rate of never having problems again) the day after Xmas and is recovering well.  Kristen got the rest of the Melanoma removed along with some lymph nodes and we found out that the cancer did not spread - which, incidentally, was the single greatest piece of news I've ever received.

Sprinkled throughout the year mixed in with all that was our lovely rental house with a tenant who couldn't seem to remember to pay the rent.  He's finally gone - evicted - and the house goes on the market next week.  We're hoping that it goes fast to get rid of the stress and financial burden of paying for a second home that just sits there.  The last pieces of work are being done in the next week which involves painting and a bunch of cleaning.

So 2007 has to be better than 2006 - right?  Granted, the first three months will suck for me.  I'm at the end of my master's program with just 11 weeks left of classes, but 6 of those weeks will be a double-class commitment...screw it, I just want to be done with it.  That along with 24 tests I have to take and pass by the end of March for military reasons combined with eight weeks of major events at work - four of those weeks being night shifts - make for almost no free time and even less fun.

However, there's a huge light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm happily racing towards it - excited at the prospect of having free time again and having actual time to spend with the woman I love and the house full of insane animals we call our kids.  Normal workout routines, walking the dogs, salsa dancing, playing pool, hanging out on the gazebo I spent months building, doing more home improvement, becoming a gourmet cook, writing, enjoying lazy nights on the couch - these are the things that await me, and I can't express how much I look forward to them.

Eleven more weeks...and the suck should be over.

It's amazing how a year like 2006 puts things in perspective.  The tenant’s thing was an annoyance - a terrible inconvenience that caused some arguments and was a pain to deal with.  But the cancer - wow.  With Mom's cancer, we found out pretty quick that the surgery was needed, and that it was a high rate of success.  With grandpa, time will tell.  With Kristen's melanoma - we knew it had the potential to be bad.  Everything was dependent on one question - did the cancer spread?  If it did...really, really bad.  

I can't quite remember how long it was from the initial diagnosis to when we found out that it hadn't spread, but it seemed like forever.  I can't explain what it's like to go that long without knowing - everyday being a prisoner to your own imagination and playing out the "what if" scenarios in your head...what if it spreads?  What if she has to go through chemo?  What if I lose her?  It was horrible, and the whole experience certainly put a lot of things into perspective.

So don't sweat the small stuff - three months of suck is no big deal, just a bit exhausting.

Know anyone that wants to buy a house?