A handprint on my heart

Check out this beautiful song from the muscial Wicked. This was a play we were hoping to take Kelly to this fall for the trip to New York. I started listening to this song right before I went to Seattle last February to see Kelly. There are times when it still moves me to tears.

I always felt like like Kelly was teaching me. I learned so much from her and I will always cherish her handprint on my heart.

"It well may be, that we will never meet again in this lifetime,
so let me say before we part so much of me is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart...
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine by being my friend... "

Please check out the video. The harmony is simply amazing.

Enjoy :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0r41O7b6sU&feature=related

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Super Thursday for Adam & Laura

Today was a big day in the lives of my children. Laura turned 21 today and is now officially an adult. Adam graduated from high school at 9:00 this morning.

As a parent this is a day of mixed emotions, excitement twinged with sadness as my time with Laura and Adam has passed too quickly and the clock is running.

Sue told me I should give them so advice so here goes.

• Pursue your dreams


• Love what you do


• Serve others


• Never give up


• Pay your bills first


• Never accept limitations, from others or yourself


• Believe in yourself


• Work and play hard


• Never stop learning, being curious


• Take risks, A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are made for.

I am very proud of both of you. You are both very talented with unique special gifts to offer to the world. I believe in you.

I told this to Laura during sobfest 05 as she calls it and I wanted to share that tonight with both of you.

You have everything you need to be successful. I want to be a part of your life for all of your life and I want us to be friends.

Love,

Daddy

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Livestrong Day at Denver University

I took the afternoon off from work yesterday to attend one of the many Livestrong events that were occurring across the country.

Lance Armstrong was coming to Denver University to speak during part of a whirlwind tour. Denver was the 3rd of 4 stop, he started the day in New York city, flew somewhere in Ohio, on to Denver and was then heading to Las Vegas for the final stop.

I have always been a big fan of Lance's not so much for being a seven time champion of the Tour De France. That is an amazing story that stands on it's own. It is really what he had done off the bike that inspires me.

Lance told us of the conversation he had with his Oncology doctor as he was being discharged after treatment. He had two choices, he could walk out of the hospital as a private citizen, and never share his story of his diagnosis or his treatment. That was his right. His other choice was the obligation of the cured. Walk out of the hospital and make it his mission for the rest of his life to tell everyone that he is a cancer survivor. He embraced the obligation of the cured, started the Lance Armstrong foundation, travels across the country raising awareness, uses his position in the bully pulpit to task Congress and the President of the United States to increase funding for cancer. He could have walked away from his responsibility. He is 35 years old, never needs to work another day in his life yet he continues to be relentless in his efforts to provide hope and inspiration. Now, I just need to figure out how to recruit him to run a marathon for TNT. That would be something.

The other part of his message yesterday was stressing the importance of this year's election, encouraged all of the young people on campus to register to vote. If you want change, you have to demand change and that change starts in rooms like this across the country. I think that is a great message for young people. Both of my children will be voting in their first presidential election this fall.

The other cool part of the day, is I almost bumped into Michelle Kwan who is a graduate student at Denver University. She is so tiny, instantly recognizable. I got to see two famous people in one day.

Kelly also embraced her obligation of the cured when she was in remission after her second stem cell transplant. Kelly volunteered for additional testing, blood draws. She wanted to help her doctors understand why the protocol was effective as she wanted to help other cancer patients. She could have easily said, no more. That was not in her nature. Kelly was so strong, but she was also such a kind and gentle person and exemplified the motto of the Lance Armstrong foundation to Live strong. She wanted to give others the chance to Live Strong.

One last thought-Do you live strong like Kelly and Lance?

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Colorado Rockies run for the Homeless

For Mother's day, Adam and I let Sue sleep in and we went and did a 5K run that the Colorado Rockies put on as a benefit to end homelessness in Denver. Adam tried to convince Laura to come with us, but he couldn't talk her into it. Every race participant gets a voucher for two free tickets to a baseball game so it is a good deal.

Adam goes to two 5K's a year, this one and Fans on the Field where you start at Invesco field run into Coors field, inside the Pepsi center where the Avs and Nuggets play and then run on the sideline at Invesco Field where the Broncos play.

That is one of the cool things about the running community. Almost ever race raises money for a charitable organization.

We almost had to change our last name to Mckinney as Miss Colorado, Maggie Ireland was the volunteer assisting with registration for people with last names beginning with M.

The gal that sang the national anthem before the race was awesome. I still get goosebumps now when I hear our national anthem sung. It has always had a much deeper feeling for me after 9-11.

This run has an interesting twist as you get to enter Coors field and run along the warning track from Left field towards home plate and then back up the first base line to right field and back out of the stadium.

A young guy that was running near me pretended to leap up near the left field wall and snag rob someone of an imaginary home run. He got quite the ovation for his athletic feat.

After the race, you get to come back in the stadium and get free hot dogs (very gross at 8:00 in the morning) and lemonade squishes. Adam ate two hot dogs, guess you can do that when you are 17. The thought of eating hot dogs right after running was repulsive to me.

Huge turnout at the event this year. The concourse was quite crowded, almost felt like you were at a game minus the baseball players.

Perfect running weather yesterday, nice and cool at the start. The sun felt great afterwards.

This was my first race in 8 weeks and amazingly I did fairly good and best of all was this was a rather hilly course and I had no problems with my knee!

Adam and I had a great time and bonded together on Mother's day while the girls slept in :-)

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A call to arms, and legs for Kelly

Today was the kickoff meeting for the upcoming Team in Training fall season. I gave the welcome on behalf of the chapter board and also took the opportunity to explain my connection to the program. There were about 200 participants at the meeting. Approximately 30 in the Triathlon group, 15 cyclists and the rest being marathoner's and 1/2 marathoners.

The Team in Training program is vital to the fundraising efforts of the society. The Rocky Mountain chapter will raise 3.2 millions dollars this year with half of that coming from the TNT program.

I can't remember everything I talked about, it is kind of a blur. I had mentally rehearsed for days what I wanted to say, had even tried to write more of a formal speech. I never end up liking when I write about my feelings for Kelly. I never feel like I can do justice to her story in just a few minutes. I decided this morning to leave what I had prepared at home and speak spontaneously and let that take me wherever it led.

Here is my attempt at a recap of my talk from this morning.

Welcome to Team in Training. You are about to embark on a life changing experience. I wanted to share a little bit about why this is important to me, the connection that I have.

I never quite know where my emotions might take me as I am up here talking. This is the first time I have spoken at a kickoff meeting since my patient hero passed away on March 17 after almost a 12 year battle against cancer. It feels different now, no less important, but it does feel different.

I came to Team in Training 9 years ago. I had no connection to the society, didn't know anyone with a blood cancer. I was so incredibly lucky to have a wonderful young girl, Kelly Grubb assigned to my group as our patient hero. Kelly was 10 years old when I first began running in her honor. I always felt so close to Kelly and was so attached to her. Over the years we shared family vacations together in Disneyland and Calgary, there is even a picture of us dancing together at her sister Marcy's wedding, one of two known pictures in existence of me dancing. My son Adam and Kelly went to prom together during her junior year. It has been such an incredibly rich experience for me and my family.

I would encourage everyone to make a connection to the mission of the society whether that be with your patient hero, a teammate, maybe a coach or your mentor. The more personal connection you build the more meaningful your experience will be.

Lets all remember that this is the day, we officially put blood cancer on notice. We intend to call in your loan and put you out on the street. We need to do this to honor Kelly's life and for anyone that is battling a blood cancer. All of us on the board and the staff for the Leukemia Society are totally committed to this. We will continue to be relentless for a cure and in our efforts to provide support and hope to those that we love and honor.

Kelly has been my hero and inspiration for the last nine years and always will be. Her courage changed my life. Knowing her has changed me forever. I love her so very much.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming here today, to join the fight against blood cancers. What you are doing is so important. It matters so much to me. You are all heroes to me.

Go Team!

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Totally random event or is Kelly keeping my heart open?

Okay, here is the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say and it is a long story.

I ran out of gas in my "mystery car" on the way home from a board meeting a couple of weeks ago. The idiot light never came on, in fact the gauge said I still had almost half a tank.

Since I have a habit of running out of gas, I had a one gallon gas can in the trunk of my car. I put a gallon in my car and now I can't get the car started. The car acts like it is flooded. The mystery continues. At that point I decide I will go for a run and come back and see if I can get it started. This gas station doesn't have a public restroom and I am already feeling uncomfortable, but a lot of times I can ignore that when I run. It is a rather chilly night in April and it now begins to snow and the wind begins to blow. I am freezing for the first 10 minutes of the run, this is really fun. I get back to my car about 45 minutes later, put another gallon of gas in the car and finally the "Mystery car" starts.

I stop at a gas station close to home and decide to completely fill up the tank and see if I was really that low or did I have another issue with the car(Since gas has started it's upward spiral, I hate filling the car up).

I decide to go inside at this point and use the bathroom as my condition is becoming quite painful. There is a sign that says for customers only, but since I am filling up the car I can use the bathroom. Phew.

When I come out, the attendant asks me how my day is going. For some reason, I actually told him about all of my trouble getting home, running out of gas, how the car wouldn't start.

He then asked me if I was a runner which was a weird question out of the blue, but this is a strange night. I told him I indeed was a runner and in fact I had gone running earlier during this adventure in getting home. He then proceeded to ask my why I ran, what do I get out of it? This is getting weirder.

Anyway, I told him I just enjoyed running, particularly enjoy running outside. Running outside was in some ways a spiritual quest for me. He kept probing for more information, what made me start, what was I really seeking? Was I finding it?

I told him a little bit about how I had started running marathons for the Leukemia Society back in 1999 and had developed a special bond with Kelly. So you started running to help people was his next question to me. He kept asking me more questions and for some reason I kept trying to answer him. He never quite seemed to like my answers. Why did I continue this conversation? This is too strange.

He returned again to the question, what was I looking for, was I finding it, is your life working?

I told him, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I hadn't really found it, I was searching, trying to make a connection to a higher power. I was still looking, that was the most honest answer I could give this gas station attendant.

Finally he told me, that the only way to the truth I was looking for was through Christ. That was the only way to make my life work, to find peace, to make that connection.

I was totally blown away at this point. I kind of stammered and thanked him and tried to back out of the door. He asked me what my name was, introduced himself to me and told me once more the only way to make my life work was through accepting Christ as my savior.

I have thought about this a lot for the last couple of weeks wondering about all of the things that transpired that day to bring me to that gas station where I had to venture inside to use the bathroom. If I hadn't run out of gas in the first place, if the car hadn't flooded, if the first gas station had a bathroom, if I just put 10 dollars in the car instead of filling it up, if I wasn't feeling so vulnerable from the board meeting, if I hadn't answered the first question about how my day was going? Why did I do that? Totally out of character.

Is Kelly keeping my heart open to God? I have always felt that God wanted Kelly to be in my life and I never looked beyond that incredible gift. Now I have to ask did Kelly and her family come to my life because God wanted to be in my life?

Don, Patty, Travis and Marcy-I would love to hear from you about this. You can leave a comment on my blog or just send me an email.

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Health fair adventure

I had an interesting adventure during a heart screening during a health fair at work today.

I had signed up for a cholesterol screening where you get the results back in 4 minutes. This was a test that you didn't have to fast for, just got a simple prick of the finger.

Sue gives blood all of the time at Bonfils, not sure how much she has given(some ridiculous amount, she even has a 5 gallon pin or something like that). They always give her a finger poke to make sure she isn't anemic so I thought this shouldn't be a big deal.

The technician started pricking my middle finger and then started complaining it was going to take too long to extract the blood and asked if she could poke my other finger. She poked my ring finger and for some reason I began to feel very hot and lightheaded. I put my head between my knees, I felt like I was going to faint. They wheeled me in a chair over to a couch that was in the room so I could lay down. My skin was clammy and my shirt was soaking wet at that point and this is a person that almost doesn't ever sweat even when I am running.

They hooked me up to a blood pressure monitor to check my pulse and blood pressure. My heart rate was down to 30 and my blood pressure was very low. They kept me on the couch for 30 minutes, got a cool washcloth to put on my forehead. She kept telling me to take deep breaths, breath in through your nose, exhale out through the mouth. Okay, this is just like being at Yoga, I can do that. I closed my eyes and practiced the Savasana pose which is always the final pose at every Yoga class I have ever been at. This time I was among my coworkers so it was a bit hard to achieve a state of deep relaxation.

Eventually my blood pressure returned to normal and my heart rate also normalized. I have no idea what caused this to happen.

After all that, I found that my cholesterol was better than it has been in years. They suggested I exercise at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes. That will help your numbers! I thought that was quite funny at that point.

I think I will skip the health fair next year.

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