Resilient !

Yesterday marked the six months of Marco being cancer free!
As we were driving in to Cerritos, I asked out load "Who knows what today marks?" Marco, DLP, and Machini just looked at me like I was crazy. So, I asked again...."Who knows what to marks?" So they yelled "Veterans Day!" Nope, I replied. "Lazy T's birthday!" Nope.

Then there came a pause and Matthew said "It's November 11th today!"....yeah and what marks today I asked again.
DLP says I know "It's been six months that my dad has been cancer free".

It has been six months that Marco has been cancer free. Yes, we get excited because that means that he hasn't been in the hospital of 180 days, no pain, no needles, etc..etc..

We ended up going to meet One Day at a Time and Lazy T, Leezy120, and Momma M at BJ"S to celebrate Lazy T's Birthday which is tomorrow. Great company and terrific food...I swear I was full from eating all that good food.

Marco has been doing well...with the exception that his shoulder has been sore but other than that he is doing good. November 23rd he has an appointment to see Dr. Chow for the Phase III trail and we will ask to have his shoulder checked. I will let you know what happens on that appointment.

Look at that face.....who knew that just 5 months ago all hell was breaking loose. My handsome husband is looking good. We had a spectacular 4 day Nascar weekend. We started on Thursday and it ended on Sunday with Jimmie Johnson winning the race, my driver of course. We even had a visit from Moshura's sister who came in from D.C, which was nice.

Phase III trail seems to be working, no side affects thus far. He now has to go every 8 weeks to have lab work and CT Scan to keep an eye on anything that may want to pop-up so they can catch it quick.

Looking forward to the holidays, they are coming up fast.

Happy Tears!

The drive down to City of Hope was quiet and the weather was a little gloomy. My stomach was all over the place.

I turned to Marco and asked how he was feeling and he said good.
All I could think of was yeah right...if I am feeling like this I could only imagine what was going through your stomach.

These appointments are the ones I dislike the most, I think.
It's the "unknown" that fear of what could be said that haunts and keeps me awake, as well as Marco.
That's what gets my stomach in a knot.

We started the day with a CT Scan, followed by lab work. We were pretty much ahead of schedule so we decided to wait for the doctor to see us for the results.

Doctor Chow came in with his cheery self and asked Marco how he was doing and then gave us the news that all test are CLEAR! He didn't see anything on the x-ray and all labs are great. He even brought down his cholesterol level by 50 points.

So either the chemotherapy worked or the combination of chemotherapy and Phase III trail together are working. just damn good will to survive, but something is kicking this cancer's ass. Crossing my fingers that it stays like this for a long while.

I swear sometimes I just feel like jumping and giving the doc a great big hug.....so I just say thank you a million times while he is finishing up his exam. ButI think he may have to call security to pry me off of him, just because I am so grateful.

My phone went off before texting a great news message to everyone before getting to the car and it was DLP texting from school wanting to know what was going on with the results. When I texted her the great news she was quick to respond " I am so happy! Sushi on me! to celebrate."

I couldn't contain myself by the time I got to the car my eyes were filling up with happy tears and by the time I reached the freeway... Marco looked over and said why the hell you crying .. I said they are happy tears and that was all it took to take me over the edge...... I was full blown crying. Good thing I wasn't wearing make-up cause you won't want to get a visual on that.
It's just a sigh of relief to know that this disease is not in control in his body "right now".

I texted everyone with the good news and within seconds everyone was replying with excitement. It feels good to know that everyone is there and feeling the same feeling that we are.

We finally went to Yoshi Sushi last night and celebrated. While we were there, I turned to Matthew because I realized in all the excitement I forgot to mention it to him about our day at City of Hope. Didn't mention the results and that there was no cancer.
So, I turned to him and asked, while he is tearing up some green tea ice- cream with whip cream and chocolate all over, if his pappa had told him the good news, he replied with " no what good news!" so I leaned in and told him that we had gone to City of Hope and asked him and guess what!

He had a smile on his face and said they didn't find anything on his lungs..(as he touched his chest).they didn't find a tumor anywhere in his body .....it's gone!? We all said yes ..... Good" said Machini, so now we can go to Lego Land since it's gone." We all laughed and started to get teary eyed right then and there, as we all continued to laugh through it .......while Marco adds ....."Just for that I am going to have beer!" and he did.

I would like to thank you all for replying to the text ...we appreciate everyone's love and support

A Sense of Calmness

Here we are at the Auto Club Speedway for the Nascar Foundation Blood Drive. I had the opportunity to donate. They asked if we wanted a tour of the speedway and you know we didn't turn down this offer. It was a terrific tour, we even had the chance to get out on to Victory Lane and yes rang the "MOBELL VICTORY" bell . That was a treat all on its own.
Before you know if we were driving up on the track all the way around. It was awesome!

We are glad that we have had some great opportunities come our way, the opportunity to be together as a family in our home without mentioning cancer or appointments that we had to be at City of Hope at 6 am in the morning. To feel a sense of calmness come over the house hold these couple of weeks.

Not having to go to City of Hope and not having your heart in your throat all the time, the sense of piece of mind "right now", and I say " right now" because its the" right now" that we live in. I have said before we never turn our backs on this sarcoma even if its gone for "right now".
Later, when CT Scan and labs are needed that uneasy feeling comes crawling up from the pit of your stomach to the top of your throat. That uneasy feeling is why I say "right now'.

We have had more time to spend with family, volunteering for Think Cure at Dodgers Stadium (a first), going to the beach before summer was over to celebrate Machini's 6th birthday and go to our first Oceans of Hope 2009 that we have been trying to attend since seeing Marco swim in the ocean just months after his surgery. (it brought tears to my eyes.) It's amazing the things he can do when he sets his mind to it.

We attended birthday parties, BBQ's, just hangin' out and eating all day at Momma M, or playing poker with Salt-n-Pepper and Medicated Man, or spending some time with Bee, Nate, and Jeronimo. All of these thing may not be BIG things to some, but it is a great deal to us.

It's been a long time coming for these moments in life. We had forgotten, I think, for some time what it was like to live outside of City of Hope.

Summer will soon be over, but I am glad that we got to do things with the kids outside of City of Hope.


UPDATE: I am very happy to report that Marco has been doing very well thus far.


The Phase III trail has been going good. No side affects, but his cholesterol has been significantly high so they have been monitoring him for that. He was not happy to hear he had to cut down on shrimp, carne asada, and menudo, etc...etc...etc...

His hair has been growing about normal now. It had been taking its time growing, its now dark brown and really curly. It makes him look more handsome now.

CT Scan and labs done on Sept. 28 and I will let you know what is going on then.

Update on Marco: Marco's appointment turned out great all labs came out good.
He will be having his CT Scan on his next visit at the end of this month.
Trial medication is going good. He is starting to do more things outside of the house so that is a plus.

Sunday, August 30,2009 at Manhattan Beach, California the weather was perfect for the paddle boarders. They endured a 36 mile paddle with only their arms......hours in the water all thinking of their families waiting for them on land. Each paddle board represented a person who had or has Sarcoma Cancer.

It didn't take much for all the volunteers to set up and get ready to cheer on all the paddle boarders. Looking out into the ocean seeing all the boats that were in company with the paddlers was amazing, but the most amazing was seeing the paddlers only using their arms to cross that finish line toward shore. I could only imagine what they could be going through out there. Especially with their upper body... to swim for 5-7 hours non-stop to shore must have been the most challenging thing to do. All will tell you that they did it for a friend or family member and that they know that cancer patients go through so much, the paddling is nothing in comparison.
Everyone's stories were amazing and the caring volunteers greeting everyone were great!
I hope we have the chance to get together and do it again next year.

HP came to represent in Manhattan the Cousins, ODAT, Leezy120, Lazy T, S3U5 and family. Thank you for coming with us to experience our first annual Ocean of Hope 2009.
Everyone enjoyed cheering in the paddlers and oh yeah the water was great.
The boys had a blast boogie boarding too.
We had a great time, thanks again to all who were there .

Think Cure Volunteer Experience

Volunteering for the Think Cure at the Dodgers Stadium was great!
We all arrived ready to go and ready to start helping in anything we could.
As we arrived we were greeted by Ingrid and Jason who then gave us a Think Cure
volunteer t-shirts. Then we were given jobs and we started to get busy.

Jobs were either inputting data into the computer, collecting online donations, holding off the crowds that were forming to have a picture taken with the one and only Fernando Valenzuela.
Tommy Lasorda was also there taking pictures with fans. Marco, Victor, Joe,Jen were invited to go see the radio-a-thon in one of the suites were they were taking donations by phone and online.
The atmosphere was so exciting that you were just excited for being there helping a good cause that was close to all of our hearts.
There were 10 of us in total who volunteered. We all agreed that it would be something we would do next year and maybe we can get more family members to volunteer. DLP was so excited to be there it didn't matter what they needed help in she was ready for the challenge. DLP and Turd gave 2hours more than asked and it was appreciate it by many.
Thank you both for that.
The kids had a ball watching the game and eating all that the Dodgers had to offer like Dodger Dogs, Soda, Pretzels, etc, etc.. they were all on their best behavior. They didn't have a job at the time for Marco when we arrived so they told him to go enjoy the game and he did, you didn't have to ask him twice.
Good Job to All : Leezy, Lazy T, One Day At A Time, S3U5, Victor,Joe,Jen,DLP,Marco .
Can't wait till next year.
Happy to report that the THINK CURE raised 107% of their goal over $214,000.00

Marco Update: Marco has been doing really good. All his hair has grown out and he is looking really good. He will be going next Monday for a CT Scan and blood work. Our fingers are crossed and with hopes that all will continue to look good for Marco. I will post the results to the test next week.

Again THANK YOU to all for volunteering....GREAT JOB!
Enjoy the video from our experience at Think Cure 2009!

Dodgers Stadium THINK CURE!

Dodgers Stadium THINK CURE! http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/la/community/think_cure.jsp this weekend starting today and the family has all volunteered their time for this awesome charity to help the community.
The call came out that they needed volunteers to help at the Dodgers Stadium and we didn't hesitate. This will be our first charity event as a family and hell, we are very excited to join in on the fun.
I would like to invite everyone if you can to donate even $5.00 to the cause . The proceeds go to Childrens' Hospital in Los Angeles and City of Hope. Now we all know we owe a great deal to City of Hope for saving Marco's leg (twice) and taking the cancer away till now. So we need to come together with the Dodgers to help them in their efforts to the help the community.

Tonight the game will start at 7:10pm and the donations have been taken since early this morning so get a move on. We will take pictures to post later.........DONATE NOW!


Thank you to Surviving 3under5 for getting all the information we all needed and organizing this family event for tonight and Surviving 3under5 baby's daddy for volunteering to stay with all 3 + Machini makes 4 kids.
To Marco for saying yes on the first try.... DLP , we are hoping she can make it, if she is feeling better (cold) One Day At A Time, Leezy120,Lazy T, Mookie, Jen and Turd to all of you stepping up to the plate even if it was last minute. Thank you to all! Let's go have some fun!

Let's Go Dodgers! Let's Go!