2009 Breast Cancer 3 Day

Sorry this post is so late. I have been caught up in the State Fair excitement and busyness that I just haven't taken the time. So here it is. The night before the walk, Lizzi put up all these signs around the house. It was so cool. It got me really excited for the walk.

The morning of the walk. It was really rainy out. Luckily I had bought this water and wind-resistant jacket. It was great!

Wet and ready to walk. This was during the opening ceremony.

The survivor circle

The whole team at the beginning of the walk.

At one of the pit stops on the first day.

Heidi Sue's mom, Michelle is a survivor. Her husband, Rob carried around this flag for part of the day.

Amy's baby bump, being supported by her buff from last year's walk.

Beautiful scenery

The famous red couch.

I carried around the "My Daughter" flag for a while. It was in honor of my future daughter (fingers crossed), and in honor of Amy's daughter in her belly.

Maddox visited us along with our awesome cheering team, Steve, Mindy, and Miley.

Camp at the end of Day one

Wrapping up my monster blisters from Day 1 before heading out for our longest day, 23 miles!

Getting ready to head out on Day 2.

Pit Stop on Day 2

Blister care and stretching

More amazing scenery

Some of the team members from last year set up our own personal cheering station. It was so fun to see people we knew out there cheering for us.

Lunch Day 2

I think the whole team was shocked at my blisters at lunch that day. Michelle helped me bandage them up real nice so they wouldn't hurt as much and so they didn't get any worse. Thank goodness for amazing team members. I don't know what I would have done without them.

Cooling off

"Blisters don't need chemo" So true. I just kept telling myself I had tiny little pillows on my heels. Mind over matter.

One of the many "sweep vans." They came around to pick up people who needed to get a ride to lunch or who couldn't keep walking.

Corey brought us an Ipod docking thing on the second day. Christina Aguilera really got us through a rough stretch on Day 2.

Cooling off while we enjoyed a beer, compliments of Steve. Thank you Steve!!

We were walking along and these wonderful ladies had a nice little chant for us. I can't remember all of it, but it consisted of such chants as:

"Hey Twin Cities, we're walking for our titties!

The men and the boys, we're walking for their toys!

All you walkers, we're walking for our knockers!"

There was a lot more, and it was so much fun, but I just can't remember them all.

The joker rode on his bike the entire walk and kept us going. He loves boobs. Haha

And this guy was giving out "free mammograms"

This is our favorite sign. It is there every year. And guess what, my blisters are already gone.

Arriving back at camp on Day 2. This was an amazing day. I can't believe we walked 23 miles!! I felt so accomplished, and we got back to camp kind of early so we got to hang out around camp and just relax. I got my shower done early and just layed around.

There are the monsters at the end of Day 2. We decided I should get them checked out the next morning before heading out for Day 3.

Day 3 started out very rough. I went to Medical and got my blisters lanced and wrapped. Those people in the Medical tent were great. She got me all set up. The only problem was my sore knees and ankle. The first 3.2 miles were very hard. When we got to the first pit stop, I wrapped my ankle with an ace bandage and put some pre-wrap around my knees (thank you Caitlin for introducing me to pre-wrap, or I wouldn't have even had it with me). After that and rubbing down my entire legs with bengay, I felt wonderful and the rest of the day went much better.

Team photo at one of the cheering stations. All those people that were out there cheering for us the entire way, thank you all so much!!! You are the ones who kept me going. When I felt like my knees were too sore to keep going, your music got me jumping and dancing around.

Cutie pie, Miley. Our best cheerleader!

Oh no! When Amy felt two contractions, we came to the rescue and got her right on that sweep van. She got to cool off and join us again later to walk into the end with her team.

Some of the people who were driving around, cheering us on.

Just getting ready to leave lunch on Day 3, with only like 7 miles to go!

Angie wore this on the back of her shirt on Day 3. It says...

"We complain about them endlessly

When we're young, they're too small

When we have PMS, they're too sore

When we have babies, they're too leaky!

When we age, they're too saggy.

But as my mother can attest...

When they're gone

you can never get them back

Love the body you have today!

Ah, the bikers! I absolutely love these guys! They rode around the entire time cheering us on. When I heard these guys coming, I just got excited. They gave out free hugs, which I needed sometimes. They're wonderful.

Our first glimpse of the State Capitol!!

This was supposedly a rough patch. I didn't mind it too much, but there was a lot of uphill, downhill. That was rough on the blisters and sore knees.

Sisters

Go Michelle!

1 Mile to go!!!!

We made it!! It was a wonderful feeling to see my husband and brother (and his girlfriend) waiting for me at the finish line.

The lovely sign that Amanda made for me (and Chris drew the little ribbon guy)

After party in the parking lot.

The last walkers

This guy is walking in all 15 Breast Cancer 3-Days. Thats 900 miles, and over $34,000!

And the volunteers!

Walking in to the closing ceremony

We all held up a shoe while the survivors walked in.

The closing ceremony was amazing and had everybody in tears.

Saying goodbye to my pseudo-family.

Flowers from my mama. My parents were very sad they couldn't be at the closing ceremony. But there's always next year. And who knows, maybe someday they will be walking with me.

I want to say a special thank you to my team, The DuBar Dolls. I couldn't have done it without you all! I had such an amazing time and I am really looking forward to next year! 2010, here we come!

Updates on the family

So, I realized I haven't updated on how my dad is doing and I'm sure people are curious. So he has been home since Friday August 7th. The trach was taken out on Thursday before he went home. They left the feeding tube in because he wasn't able to eat yet. It has been rough for both my mom and dad since he came home. For the first week, my mom was doing everything: tube feedings, giving meds in the NG tube, changing the dressing on his arm, changing the dressing on the stoma. She got everything down and is managing it very well. On Thursday August 13th, he had a follow-up appointment and they went ahead and took out the feeding tube. I was pretty upset about this, because they didn't even try to have him swallow anything before taking it out. They just said, "Well, it has to come out sometime." So since they took out the tube, he hasn't been able to eat very well. His tongue is very swollen and the stoma isn't closed all the way so he's not able to swallow very well and isn't getting much down each day. He's trying, but it just takes a lot of energy to get those instant breakfasts down. Hopefully it will get better soon, or he's going to lose a lot of weight. The stoma is almost closed now, which might help.

The other stuff that has been going on is that my grandma has been in and out of the hospital numerous times lately. She has been having really bad pain in her back and leg. On Thursday August 13th she had back surgery. They put some screws in her back to try and fix some stuff. When she woke up and they tried to get her up, her other leg was hurting. On Tuesday August 18th, they went back in and tried to fix some other stuff and moved one of the screws around because they thought maybe it was touching a nerve or something. Well, now her leg is still hurting and they have decided that she has an infection. They are treating her with very strong antibiotics and if that doesn't work, they'll have to go back in. I really hope they don't have to do that, because 3 surgeries in such a short amount of time would be rough on anybody, but she's kinda old and I don't think she can take much more.

I would appreciate everyone's continued prayers for my family during this tough and stressful time. Thank you so much!

One Year Anniversary

On August 16th, Cory and I celebrated one year of marriage. The whole anniversary thing didn't feel like a huge deal. It was just like, "Oh, one year ago today, we were getting married." But I do really want to say that, despite having to deal with a lot (family stuff, etc.), I really feel that this has been the best year of our entire 8 years together. I don't think we have ever loved each other more or been as happy in our relationship. I feel lucky to say that the first year of our marriage has been the best!

So, over the weekend, Cory and I stayed at the Fantasuites Hotel to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. When we drove up to the place, it looked totally ghetto and we thought we were gonna be in trouble. I was expecting something super cheesy, but it was actually pretty nice. We stayed in Caesar's Palace! We had a big king-sized bed with fancy pillars and a mirror on the ceiling! It was crazy.

Nice mural on the wall.

And the best part, the whirpool tub in the room. We put that thing to good use.

My mom was so sweet. She made us an anniversary cake and chocolate-covered strawberries. We checked into the room on Saturday and just kind of lazed around for a while. Then we headed out to get dinner. We ate at Hooters, and it was delicious. We stopped at Target for some snackies and stuff and headed back. That night, we pretty much just enjoyed the room and the whirlpool. We watched some TV and stuff, and just hung out. On Sunday morning we got up and ate a questionable continental breakfast. Let's just say, we didn't plan on eating there again Monday morning. After breakfast we took showers and got ready. The plan was to go to Valleyfair since we were in Burnsville. The blowdryer in the room didn't work, so we headed over to Dan and Mel's place so I could dry my hair. We actually ended up just going to the lake to play some volleyball instead of going to Valleyfair. The weather was kind of funny on Sunday. We went back to the hotel and then decided to go over to Grand Slam for a while (it was like across the street from the hotel). We played some arcade games and gave like 360 tickets to a couple little kids. We went back, showered and then met up with Dan, Mel, and Pat at Doolittles for dinner. We had some wine and some delicious food and then got DQ ice cream for dessert. Dan and Mel came back to the hotel with us to watch "I Love You, Man." We had fun with the mirror above the bed...

Dented mirror=crazy distorted body parts (i.e big head)

After Dan and Mel left, we popped open our champagne and had some chocolate-covered strawberries to officially celebrate our anniversary. Oh, and relaxed in the whirlpool again. That thing is awesome!

This one is even worse than the other one. There was one point where I looked up into the mirror and noticed I had two different sized boobs. One was regular but the other one looked like a fricken watermelon! Haha

The weekend was fun and relaxing and we came back and ran a bunch of errands on Monday trying to get me all ready for the big walk this weekend. I'm making a fleece blanket for me and I just have to finish packing. I'm super excited to walk the 3-Day this year. I'm sure I'll make lots of good memories and it should be fun walking with the DuBar Dolls. If anyone still wants to donate, you can. Just visit the link to my page on here and go ahead and make a donation. I will post after the walk about my experience.

Volleyball weekend

Over the weekend of August 1st, Adam was visiting Lizzi from Colorado. We went out Downtown one night and played in the DuBar Dolls Sand Volleyball tournament.

Getting ready to play some sand volleyball.

So all considering, I think our team, the Sand Virgins, did pretty well. We won one game and scored at least 10 points in every other game. We only had 4 players and all the other teams had 6. And most of those teams play regularly on league teams. I had a lot of fun. I don't think the rest of my team did, but it is what it is. We ended up having to forfeit our last game because Lizzi's toe was hurting her. All in all, the day was fun though.

Recovery

On Saturday, they transferred dad from ICU out to the floor. This is a great thing! It was quick. Just one day in ICU. Now he's just resting, and trying to increase his activity. They started the tube feedings today and will slowly increase that over the next day or so. The skin graft sites are starting to heal, and should take 7-10 days to be fully healed. He has gotten out of bed a couple times and has done pretty well. It's obviously hard not to be able to talk, but he is making do with his white board and word chart. Please continue praying for his recovery. We appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers. I'll update with any changes.