I got another email from the daughter of our very special friend. We pray for her also everyday. I thought you could get something from her good news. Also at the end of her letter is a wonderful reading. Please check it out.
Love, Uncle Dick and Aunt Linda
Oh Happy Day!…Oh Happy Day…my, oh, my, Oh Happy Day!

I am home resting nicely after logging in my 32nd Chemo treatment on Tuesday, 11/28/06. I was in and out of the cancer center in four hours with lovely lab work (I actually had platelets and a white & red count that were normal-ish) and my mobile infusion pump hooked up to keep me hydrated and happy. I drug the pump around at until Friday afternoon, the extra fluids and meds are truly a life saver if not a lifestyle saver. It seems after downing a necular cocktail, tap water is not that effective, it actually makes you more nauseated because it’s sloshing around and not getting absorbed real fast. But IV fluids go straight to the veins and arteries and swoosh through you like a crazy water ride. All the while watering your insides like a intergalactic garden of sorts. Toting around the 3 pound bag and the 4 feet of tubing is not what one would call terribly convenient, but it keeps me from dehydrating or getting horrific bowl obstructions or kidney failure that all would land me in the hospital for days and days at the tune of $10,000 a day. So for $60 and trip to the cancer center everyday to get a new full bag, I choose to be a bag lady and forgo the unnecessary alternative drama.

My Friday trip to the center allowed me to peek at my lab reports. OK… I wouldn’t give them back to the nurse until I looked at them first 🙂 But what did my wandering eyes happen to find…a CA-125 score the same as before. Yes, I was 17, again! That’s three months in a row. Could we have done it, found my place in the universe that is cancer free. Dam I sure hope so. I am still getting a hearty dose of Cytonix but with only one more treatment to go (Tuesday, 12/28/06) I’ve got to keep hope that they are truly precautionary only. And after my last chemo, I will go on my once a day Super Pill and enjoy forever with mild gastrointestinal discomfort but not cancer!!!!

So one more chemo to go in December. If my CA-125 stays below 20 in Dec & Jan, towards the end of January we run new CT-Scans, blood work and possibly a PET Scan and if all is clear, or in my case, if all of the previous scars and damage looks the same and nothing is waving a cancer flag at the radiologists or oncologists….I’m cut loose to take my new chemo pill, watch my VAP for a few months, try not to through any more blood clots, get my vap out , publish my work in progress, make a gazillion dollars and buy my husband a hotel to manage in Clayton so we can all keep doing what we like to do, without having to travel all over the countryside to do it.

I seem to be getting very pushy in my old age. But then again, I wasn’t supposed to have an old age so this is really a treat for me!

Oh, thank you to all that sent in checks and raffle donations for the NOCC – National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, “Time to Celebrate Life” event in November. It was a lovely success despite our later in the year date, darkness and rain. Despite all of mother natures wile ways we managed to have dozens & dozens for folks drop by. Wendy is a little hesitant to say just how much we made because funds are still coming in, but that last number I heard was $4,000.00 after expenses! Not to shabby for a bunch for ridden hard cancer fighters and survivors. Thank you all for your generosity and concern. I would also like you all to visit our newly updated NOCC website at http://www.ovarian.org . It has a great new look and wonderful information, please take a moment and check it out.

Otherwise Team Olson is doing well. We popped down to Disneyland for a few days before Thanksgiving with my parents, sister and niece. A little medicinal Disney is wonderful for both the body and soul. I will try to attach a few pictures of our adventure. Chad successfully closed down the Commodore Hotel to rave reviews and is currently babysitting the Harvest Inn in Healdsburg until they can higher a new General Manager. His company is taking really good care of him and us in the wake of his hotel being sold to the Academy of Arts College for dormitories. Not a standard career change by far, but his company JDV is confident that they will find a great new fit for Chad hopefully within the first quarter of next year. Keep your fingers crossed that a great opportunity not only presents it’s self, but maybe even on our side of the bay!!!! San Francisco is beautiful and all but the commute is brutal.

Our house is beginning to look a lot like Christmas and we will be heading up to the Santa Cruz Mountains next weekend to hunt for a “real” tree. The presents are wrapped and I’m plowing through the Christmas card list now. I must say that this is the first Christmas in at least three years that I am truly enjoying every little aspect of the holiday. I feel good more often than not and being a stay at home Mom/Executive Home Management Engineer allows me to help out with Kevin’s school, make crafts with him, make a real dinner every now and again, bake cookies and design a darn sturdy gingerbread house. It’s amazing how cancer induced fatigue,misery and drama can deplete your life force. When your in the throws of feeling crappy, really truly crappy, you can only live in the moment. How to get through the next 60 seconds with out throwing up, cramping up or passing out. Now I find myself planning and caring out day trips, play dates, running more than one errand at a time…I’m almost up to functional speed a week after treatment. I’m hoping by January to be On Fire!

So with that happy note I must be off. The Chargers are whopping Buffalo and I must cheer them on, we’ve got a birthday party to attend then dinner at our friends house. How’s that for a normal Sunday afternoon. I’m getting the hang of this healthy thing again and am lovin’ it!

Take great care & I’ll check in with you all before Christmas!

Love & Hugs,

Julie, Jules Werner Olson
The Peach Conqueror
Concord, CA, USA

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Does God Exist?

This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen. It’s an explanation I think most people can relate to……..

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: “I don’t believe that God exists.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the customer.

“Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn’t exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can’t imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.”

The customer thought for a moment, but didn’t respond because he didn’t want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. However, just after he left the barber shop he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked very dirty and unkempt.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: “You know what? Barbers do not exist”.

“How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber. “! am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!”

“No!” the customer exclaimed. “Barbers don’t exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside.”

“Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people don’t come to me.”

“Exactly!” affirmed the customer. “That’s the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don’t go to Him and do not look for Him. That’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.”