comments

Okay I can't post a comment on my own darn blog. No wonder so many are frustrated.
Frida, Please email me at michelle.t.merimee@gmail.com. We would love to swap stories and be an encouragement in anyway that we can. There are VERY few that can say they are walking in your shoes and we can!! I can't read your blog so I can't get your email off there.

Purplestride Walk pictures and Prayer request

Tuesday 7/5 Craig is having a tumor marker pulled. Please pray for a low number (below 47) so we can continue with our summer plans. We have two mini trips and a big one planned for July. Any number above 47, we would have to consider some form of chemo.

Craig also had some blood taken to do a heredity test to possible be accepted for a clinical trial at some point in Chicago. Dr. Hir. continued to work on the insurance company after the test was denied the first time. It is an answered prayer to have a doc on our side doing some of the leg-work to get extra steps taken to prepare for the next steps whenever those might occur. I do worry about the results from that test. If it comes back that it is genetic then the gene could have been passed on to the girls. At first I wasn't sure that I even wanted to know the results especially since there is not a test that can catch this cancer sooner than later. Once we hear those results we will pass them along. If it is genetic then he could be considered for the trial in Chicago.

Prayers for God's will be done and that we get to continue our summer of fun.

Thanks for all the support.

Hope you are enjoying God's gift of sunshine this summer.

Here are some pictures from the walk. There are more coming from Sara Davis but these are the ones the Breits took. We were blessed with two team photographers with fancy cameras. :)

Hannah was working hard on the stroller before the walk.

Cooper!

Brent works out.

Ethan showing his support for the Cats at the walk.

Christy, Henry, Lucy and Jacob Breit (Jason is taking the picture)

Hannah was thinking about taking a nap towards the end of the walk but was too excited to fall asleep. Those who went to lunch know that a nap would have been the better choice.

Everybody

Lucy had just had her nails painted purple. That was so cute. The girls (and Aidan) loved it.

LXA friends: Jason, Craig, Josh, and Brent

real men wear purple

Josh and Aidan

Abby, Morgan, and Emily

Morgan and Emily

Hope in Louisville - 1st Place

PurpleStride Indianapolis was a great success and a great day.  It went as great as planned.  As I explained before, there are PurpleStrides all across the country and unfortunately we do not have one in Louisville.  Indianapolis was the closest one other than Cincinnati's in October.  I don't plan on walking in that one but I may volunteer.  I was very passionate about this walk as I know funds are needed to research more about pancreatic cancer and there's the need to improve the outlook of those diagnosed.  It was surreal to see the number of people wearing purple at the event.  During the opening ceremony, they said there were about 800 registered walkers (not including kids) which was a good amount of supporters.  It was the only PurpleStride in Indiana for the year.  "Survivors" wore light purple t-shirts and all the caregivers, friends, family etc. wore royal purple.  This was the one thing that again brought reality to the event.  Out of the 800+ walkers, I estimate I saw about 10 different people wearing the light purple.  With where the stats are for this cancer, 7.5 out of us 10 won't be back to walk it next year.  Anyhow, I'm generally more of the quiet type so I didn't get to spend any quality time with the other "survivors."  I do wish I would have reached out more than I did.  I'll have to work on that.  The good news is I had great support at the event.  We brought, to my count, 32 of my closest friends and family to the event.  I know there were a lot more folks who wanted to make it but couldn't and I appreciate all of you.  The AWESOME news comes from the big reason the event was held which was the fundraising.  The event as a whole announced a total amount of $79,000 raised to go towards research and patient care.  The goal for this walk was $60,000 so that was surpassed impressively.  I am very humbled to announce our success in fundraising.  My team, Hope in Louisville, was the TOP fundraising team for the whole event.  As a team, we raised over $6,200!!!!!!!!!!  We finished the campaigning extremely strong and ended up beating 2nd place by about $700.  At the event, we saw a bunch of folks from the Nicolet family who finished 2nd and we got to do some friendly bragging with them all in fun during the walk.  They also recognized the top individual fundraiser which ended up being yours truly.  The total amount I raised personally was a little over $3,900.  That does mean my team kicked in an additional $2,300.  Special thanks to Lavin Graviss and Sara Davis for both raising over $500 individually.  Big thanks to Tim and Carol Neichter for giving at the "You really didn't need to donate that much" level.  I look forward to thanking you in person in Hilton Head in a few weeks.  I got to go up on stage and be recognized twice.  I was first recognized for being the individual winner and I went up on stage with my 1 year old Hannah on my hip.  When as the team captain I was recognized for being the top team, I went up on stage and took Emily and Morgan with me (after they were bribed for getting a cookie for dessert at lunch).  Obviously the only reason I was rewarded at the event was because of the many folks who supported me and my team.  I am so very grateful for the amount of support that my family has received.  This event was something I'll always cherish.  There's so much I'd like to say for how appreciative I am.  All I know to say is "Thank You" from the bottom of my heart.  I'll post some pictures this week from the event once I get them downloaded and I receive them from the event photographer.

The weekend as a whole was great as well.  We, along with the Ives and Bohannon families, went to the Children's Museum on Friday during the day.  It was an awesome trip as there is enough to do for the kids to last an entire day.  The favorite exhibit, as voted on by family, was the Barbie exhibit.  They had probably every Barbie ever created on display.  They also had a dress up room and a modeling walkway for the girls to walk out on.  The girls, including Hannah, had a very good time.  Hannah's favorite part of the museum was Dora and Diego's room of fun.  We were there for about 5 hours but had to cut the day short due to the little one getting  a little tired.  After the museum, we went back to the hotel to swim and the Breit family caught up with us there.  We had to man 10 little ones in the pool but it was a lot of fun.  We enjoyed an easy Italian dinner at the hotel as a group and got to hang out.  Saturday morning was the walk and afterwards was lunch for 19.

I've said it a few times here lately but I'm in such a good place right now that I have the energy to do the things that I have been doing.  I truly feel right now that there is nothing I can't do that I previously couldn't do.  Today was your normal day, I went to church, worked out at the gym, cut the grass, grilled out for dinner and played with the kids.  I want this to last as long as I can, that is my prayer.  I still have a bunch planned the rest of the summer.

I feel so blessed for all I am experiencing right now.  God has been so good to me and I'm glad to have him as my guide.  I give all the praise to him!

Praying for a Beautiful Weekend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgFxH7iFpBY&feature=fvwrel

Gearing up for the weekend in Indy.

Prayers for good weather and a fun weekend.

Hannah 1st Birthday by Michelle

If you would have asked me a year ago about Hannah's 1st birthday I would have teared up. We knew that she was going to be our last baby and I was savoring every little baby moment. As the days and months went on this year I was ready to have a 1-year old. I wasn't weepy or anything like that. She is learning so many new things and so expressive that I am excited for to be able to participate in more family activities.

This year has been full of ups and downs but her smile and giggles were always there to pick us up when we needed them. She is very affectionate and loves to cuddly. Instead of waving Bye- bye she blows kisses that will melt your heart.

For her birthday we had a pasta dinner on Tuesday with cupcakes for dessert.  She received a bitty baby from American Girl store. Hers looks like Morgan's but I think she was excited to have her own.

This weekend we had a small party with friends and family. We rented a bounce house for the backyard and had a great lunch. One of my dear friends from UK makes cakes and she made Hannah's cakes for the party. It turned out so cute. Loved it.

 

We really enjoyed celebrating our baby girl's first birthday. She is so sweet. Emily and Morgan loved celebrating too. Hope everyone had a great weekend.


Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

What is a tornado made up of?

Emmy and I were in the car on the way to Michael's to get some art and crafts project for the summertime on Saturday.
Heading down Chamberlain Lane and Emily ask what is a tornado made out of?
Me: wind, you know when you make lemonade and you stir it up, it swirls around (talking with my hands while driving - not a good idea) that is like a tornado but it is lemonade. When it is a tornado then the wind swirls around.
Em: But where does it comes from?
(side note: why don't they ask these question when we are home and I can google the answers. I was thinking she wanted to know about the weather facts)
Me: I don't know.
Em: I think it is God since He makes everything.
Me: I am not sure. God does create everything but He doesn't like when we are hurting and tornadoes can hurt a lot of people and destroy a lot. BUT I do know that when bad things happen like tornadoes people pull together and God does like that.
Em: Like when all our friends helped us out when Daddy was going through chemo?
Me: Yes!

She gets it!!

2 more weeks to PurpleStride in Indy

I'm making my last push to PurpleStride in Indy which is in less than 2 weeks on June 25th.  We've done an awesome job of fundraising so far.  Currently, our fundraising team, Hope in Louisville, has raised a total of $3,920.  The website keeps track of the top individuals and the top teams and here's the current standings:
Teams:
1. Team Nicolet $4,295
2. Peregrine's Posse $4,100
3. Hope in Louisville $3,920

Individuals:
1. M. Clements $3,005
2. Craig Merimee $2,785

I am being a little competitive but I'd love for us to get recognized at the event as the top fundraisers.  If you haven't donated yet, all I ask is please consider donating or joining our team.  We are so close to winning this thing.  Obviously, the more important reason is we need funds to help with research for pancreatic cancer.  Here's the link to a past post in case you missed it that tells what we are up against with pancreatic cancer:
http://merimeejourney.blogspot.com/2011/05/purple-stride-indianapolis.html

The link to my donation page is:
http://pancan.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=463226&supid=325728367

Thanks everyone for their support and your support over the next 2 weeks.

On the homefront, work is going good and I'm physically doing good.  I've thankfully gained a little weight and I can tell big time looking at some past pictures from around Christmas time.  I think going back to work and keeping busy has actually given me more energy.  I'm not stuggling to make it through the day.  I have enjoyed feeling like an adult again and I like to make adult decisions.  Keeping busy also helps me not to think about cancer.  I'll occassionally go an hour these days without remembering I'm sick.  Those hour time frames are great, I'm not worried about anything.  Reality soon comes back but I'll take the good hours.  It used to be 5 minute intervals I could go without reality.  I am so happy to be enjoying my summer.  We have got tons going on and I simply did not have time to do chemo.  We've got Hannah's 1st birthday this week.  We've got Indy next weekend which includes a trip to the Children's Museum up there and a hotel with a pool for the kids to swim together.  We've got 4th of July and my nephew's birthday party.  We've got a weekend trip to Holiday World coming up.  All of this is before our annual trip to Hilton Head.  I feel so blessed and lucky to have this summer.  I prayed hard for this when I was I was trying to stay above water during treatments.  Looking back, those 6-7 months were a very dark time for me that I'd just prefer to forget.  I've got to give praise to God for being there for me.  He always has.  I trust He knows what he is doing.  Take care and God bless!

stable scan & 18.8

We got the scan results back from the CT scan taken yesterday and Craig's disease is stable. There has been no growth or reduction on the pancreatic tumor or the spots on the liver.
That is great news. We are still waiting for the results on the CA-19 tumor marker but the scan was good.
We have a scan scheduled for August 2nd which is 8 weeks away. They will pull a tumor marker at four weeks to make sure we are still on track.

I will update later tonight when we get the results from the tumor marker from today. If that comes back below 45 then we will continue to wait and see.

Praise God for healing.

Update: CA-19 18.8!!!! Yeah! no treatment until August at least! Yeah for summertime!

Thankful Thursday

It has been a while since I have posted a Thankful Thursday post. It is not b/c I am not thankful it just the day passes me by and all the sudden it is Friday.

Thankful things today:
-healing
-Craig being able to go back to work
-Craig feeling great
-sunshine and summertime
-pools and chubby babies in bikinis
-girlfriends and good lunch buddies
-frozen yogurt from 32 degrees at the summit - yum!
-good health
-Emily
-Morgan
-Hannah

We are so blessed in so many ways, beautiful ways.
We are so thankful for an prayer army.