"If all the rain drops were lemon drops..."

Good morning everyone!

So, I had the most interesting thing happen to me the other day. I received 64 cards via snail mail. That's right, 64 cards. I'm pretty sure the price of stamps may eventually drop because of all those cards. =P Thank you to everyone who sent them to cheer me up and to let me know I am in their thoughts and prayers. They really made my day. I even received three cards that sung at me. I didn't know they made singing cards, so I was a bit surprised when I opened one of them and it started playing "Kung-Fu Fighting." =D

A picture of what 64 cards look like in a pyramid-type formation.

My week has been filled with various activities. I've already reported about Monday in my previous post, except for the fact that I ended-up with a persistent migraine that evening and felt like a freight train was running over my head most the night. Fortunately three migraine pills and a good night's sleep (that did not include the neighbor's puppy constantly barking) later, I was back to normal.

Tuesday through Thursday I continued helping at the day-camp for elementary band kids. They had their instruments put together the right way (for the most part) on Tuesday and were starting to get some decent sounding notes out. Throughout the rest of the week they kept improving little by little. There's still lots of squeaking and funny sounding notes, but they're learning. It was a fun experience to help out and watch the kids as they begin diving into the musical aspect of their lives.

Let's see...

Tuesday evening I hung-out with cousins Beth and Brianne. We watched a movie, ate Chinese food, gossiped, and made future plans for a team of goats. =P It was a good time.

Wednesday I was at Ben's house once he was done with football practice and I with band camp in order to figure out what we were doing for the evening. The end result was the decision to go see the movie "Step Up" with Robert and Laura.

I must say I thought "Step Up" was a really good movie. I thought it might be a rip-off of "Save the Last Dance," but it wasn't. Instead of the typical bad boy influencing a good girl, the movie was more about a good guy who has made a couple mistakes teaming up with a good girl who just needs to learn to think outside the box a bit more. The plot's a bit predictable, but I thought it was still a good movie. I recommend y'all see it. Even guys. It's not just a chick-flick. There are many scenes that had the guys in the theatre laughing too. So ha. =P

Thursday I was at band camp again. A representative from Eckroth Music was there and he brought me some new mouthpieces to try on my saxophone. I've tried both mouthpieces and I like how one of them plays, but there must be something wrong with my horn since it still won't play its low D very well no matter what mouthpiece I use.

After camp I was home by myself. I started looking on the internet for some statistics about younger people with colorectal carcinoma. It took me a while to find something and I wasn't too happy with what I found. According to this article, there is only one young person in a million with colorectal carcinoma. That would mean that in the United States there are only about two kids with this cancer. Needless to say that dashed all my hopes of finding a nation wide support group with kids my age going through exactly what I'm going through. I know I could always meet with other kids who have different cancers since they are undergoing similar treatments and life-alterations, but it would have been nice to have someone my age to talk to who has all the same symptoms, quirks, and treatments as myself. It's hard to explain what I mean and the whole thing is a bit selfish, but that's what I was dealing with Thursday.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Thursday evening I got a live plant in the mail. An orchid, to be specific. However, the stalk with the flowers was broken off and a couple of the leaves were snapped in half. So we called the flower company and told them about the damage and they said they'll send me another orchid that's in better condition. I even get to keep the hurt plant, so I'll have two new orchids. Happiness!

The rest of Thursday evening was spent going to Walmart to pick-up orchid food (the flower company also failed to give enough orchid potting soil) and some cotton cord and paint then coming home and discussing what online courses I'll be taking with Iowa State.

It looks like Iowa State is not going to consider me an honors student until I join them in the spring, so I won't be able to participate in freshman honors courses or activities. My online courses will be the following: health, astronomy, sociology, environmental biology, and math. Nothing overly exciting since most of these classes I've pretty much taken in high school, except for the astronomy class. Oh well. I'll be earning 13 college credits and keeping my brain active, so I guess that's a good thing.

Yesterday morning Mom, Dad, and I met with a geneticist. It was a long meeting that included going through the past three generations and remembering who has what and repeating the question of if they’ve had colonoscopies. We also discussed what’ll come next. It looks like I’ll be having blood drawn in order to have it studied for certain genes to see if I have the gene alterations that represent FAP (info on FAP here) or MYH (info on MYH here). It also seems that I have doomed everyone in my immediate family to colonoscopies. =S

The rest of Friday was pretty laid back. Ben came over and we played Stratego and watched “V for Vendetta.” I thought it was a pretty good movie if you overlooked some of the political correctness.

Well, that’s about it. I have some gatherings with friends planned for this weekend and a saxophone lesson on Monday. Then chemo starts again and we’ll just have to see how that goes.

Oh, I owe a thank you to my seventh grade cross country team for the gorgeous bouquet of gladiolus and to the GHD & AB4 staff for the orchid (its flowers are beautiful- even though they broke off). I also need to thank Lisa for the French silk pie; it's delicious.

And one last thing. We are planning to form a team on the World Community Grid, but the team is in need of a name. So post your ideas for a team name under the comments section of the “Message from Steve & Kathy” post and anyone who wants to join the team can give their two cents worth for what suggestions they think would make the best team name.

Thanks again to everyone.

~Cheryl Tri