Health Update

I got a call from my doctor today that I have mild to moderate dysplasia. So I have to get a LEEP next Friday afternoon where they'll numb my cervix completely and take off all the spots and then that should be the end of it. Obviously, or at least I'm assuming, there is no cancer there, I'm sure he would have found it by doing the biopsies.

I'm so proud of my sister!

Yesterday my awesome sister, Michelle, jumped out of a plane to raise money for Cancer. Here's an article all about it. I wish I could have been there in person to see her.

Free Fallin'

By Jennifer Amy Myers, jmyers@lowellsun.com

Lowell Sun Article Last Updated: PEPPERELL --

She finished her cigarette and took a deep breath. While her instructor tightened the navy blue harness around her hips, Chelmsford's Tracy Cole insisted that she was not nervous, just "wicked excited." Minutes from jumping out of an airplane 13,000 feet above the haze of the sultry afternoon, she could not remember where she works. Yup, she may have been just a little bit nervous.

Cole was one of 700 skydivers, novices and veterans, expected to make the plunge at Skydive Pepperell this weekend as part of Operation Swan Dive, a two-day music and skydiving festival benefiting Lyrics for Life, a nonprofit foundation started by Sister Hazel frontman Ken Block.

Block's younger brother, Jeff, fought Cancer for four years before losing his life. The goal of Lyrics for Life is to raise awareness of serious illnesses, such as cancer, and fund research.

Cole knew that her butterflies were nothing compared to what two of her best friends are facing. She, Michelle Solberg, of Nashua and Amber Lowrey, of Bangor, Maine, were the "Angels for Angel," making the dive in honor of two friends facing serious illnesses. The trio raised $5,000 for the foundation.

Chrissy "Angel" Green, 36, of Nashua, was diagnosed three months ago with Crohn's Disease, a chronic disease that causes an inflammation of the digestive tract and has left her in pain and suffering from debilitating fatigue. She worked hard to raise money for the event and was crushed when her doctor put the kibosh on jumping out of a plane due to a kidney problem. "It was just one disappointment after another," she said. "But, I'm too strong to get down. The obstacles just make me stronger."

Gwen Bettencourt, 32, of Nashua, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in March. Last Monday, the mother of two had surgery to remove half of her cervix. She shuffled out to the airfield to cheer on her friends.

"Hopefully next week I'll find out the cancer is all gone," she smiled. "I cannot describe what my friends have meant to me. I can't believe they are jumping out of a plane."

Tracy, Amber and Michelle, put the final touches on their flight suits and strutted out to the field. They turned to the group of 20 supporters cheering them on and waved in unison, Miss America-style, before marching into the belly of the massive hollow airplane.

The aircraft, its propellers whirling, looked like an old Army transport ready to drop soldiers for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, with the exception of the safari-theme painted on its side. Lions, zebras, monkeys and elephants greeted the jumpers.

The "Angels for Angel," strapped to instructors, would be the first three divers out of the plane.

Angel videotaped the moment through a stream of tears. "It has been very emotional," she said. "I have been crying all day."

Ten minutes later, three tiny dots were barely visible in the sky, seemingly galaxies away.

"There's Amber!" yelled Angel.

The crowd erupted into a chorus of "Woo!"

As quickly as they had gone up, they came back to the ground, at a free-fall speed of 120 mph, before settling into the 30 mph glide.

Tracy's blue and yellow parachute came into view first. She landed on her feet, like a cat.

Angel couldn't contain herself. Ignoring the barrier tape, she rushed the landing field, tackling Tracy as she struggled to get her land legs and breath back.

"I loved it, it was awesome," she said. "Everyone has to try it at least once. ... It was crazy."

"I will be in that plane next year," Angel said. "I know I will."

Operation Swan Dive continues today beginning at noon. There will be a special acoustic performance by Sister Hazel at 2 p.m. to wrap up the festivities.

There will be a little pinch

It all began the day I got to Colorado. I got my yearly woman check up in CA before I left for CO and the office called me with my results. They said I had the highest level of abnormal cells (dysplasia) in my cervix which led me to start freaking out about getting cervical cancer after I already had an ovarian tumor a few years ago. After I freaked out and cried, by the way I was driving to CO still during this news, I talked to my sister who said she had that too and I shouldn't worry. It's apparently more common than I thought and people always came out cancer free. So I had to wait a week and half before I could get an appointment to get a colposcopy which is just a fancy word for scraping my abnormal cervical cells for a biopsy. So today was the day I had the procedure. I was nervous all week because I heard it hurt and you would hurt all that day so, needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to it. Luckily, I had Robert to take me to the doctor's office because I didn't really know what to expect. If you're a girl you'll understand the following... the procedure was like a papsmere but for 5 minutes or so! So imagine all the "joys" of a really long pap plus they scrape pieces of your cervix off to do a biopsy. The painful part is the "little pinch" you feel which felt more like getting a shot in your cervix; they had to do that twice. Since my body never does anything normal, I didn't have just a few spots, I had several spots with abnormalities. I only hurt for an hour or so than I felt fine. So now I have to wait a week for results and to see what the next step is. He said that the dysplasia was moderate which means I'm right in the middle between having normal cells and cancer cells. Let's look at the glass as being half full shall we?

My first full week in Colorado

It was a very eventful week here in sweaty Colorado. I got a job that I started on Monday. I like it a lot, the people are really nice and the kids are awesome! They actually want to be there and are not just made to be there by their parents. The curriculum is great and it actually helps them improve. I used to work at Sylvan which was the total opposite so I'm glad I found this place to renew my faith in centers like this. And last night my boss asked me to take a test to tutor kids on the ACT since I enjoy reading and writing and grammar so much. If I do well I will get more money for those tutoring hours. For my first weekend here we went to Ft. Collins which is where Colorado State University is, so it's a big college town. They were having a festival there so we toured the booths they had on the street, saw a salsa band play and went to this bar called the Drunken Monkey. Instead of bar stools they have swings! Just rope and a piece of wood to sit on. It was inevitable that we would start swinging sideways to hit the person next to us and everyone was so cool there and just went with it. luckily we were inside because it started pouring outside, complete with Thunder and lightning. This is almost a regular occurrence here, you can be sweating up a storm then it will start randomly raining. On Sunday we went to our roommates' church called Christ Church of the Rockies. It's a 4 square church, my first one, but it was pretty cool. Plus they had a lunch to raise funds for the high schoolers to go to a convention. It's a really small church, maybe 30-40 in regular attendance, it made me miss Revolution Downey a lot. So that's what's been going on with me so far. I will have another update on Friday after I have a disturbing doctor's appt. You will have to wait until then for more info.

Update

Well, I had my job interview today, which was more like those formalities you have to go through but you knew you had the job before you went in. So it's at Huntington Learning Center in Longmont, CO and I start at $13 an hour and will work about 30 hours a week. I start Monday with my paid training, then shadowing a teacher then I start tutoring students. I worked at Sylvan before and this is nothing like it, it's way better and much more efficient. Kimberly was the one who hired me and her dad owns the center, her fiance does the teacher scheduling and her sister does the finances. I'm looking forward to starting on Monday, most of their teachers work the regular school year in Longmont School District so I will have some connections to jobs. Plus the center works very closely with the district as well so I will have many networking opportunities. Another plus is the beautiful drive to and from work that I will have going down Highway 287. This state is great! Next is to get Robert a job.

Acclimation and adjustment

Well, I'm beginning my second full day here in beautiful Colorado. Yesterday I was very accomplished. I set up an interview for today at 1:00 for a tutoring center which I feel pretty confident about. It's called Discovery Learning and it's a job to have until the Colorado Bureau of Investigation gets to processing my fingerprints. The lady I will interview with is super nice so I don't think there will be any problems. I also drove around a little looking for two of my favorite stores... Walmart and Target. In Loveland everything seems to be on either Highway 287 or 34. So even I can't get lost! The weird thing is that there will be a bunch of nothing, just grasslands and then POOF! there's a Kohl's and a little flower shop and then more.... nothing. Much different from So Cal where it's all just buildings and buildings everywhere. But I found my new love there where the Target is. It's just a shopping center but they have everything I could ever need including Quizno's. I was very excited about that. Anyway, I also switched my State Farm insurance to Colorado and ended up saving $24 a month, so that also made my day. While I was gone on my first Loveland adventure Robert was at the house moving all our furniture by himself! He's completely insane! Don't let the lankiness fool you, that boy is strong! We spent the rest of the day in the heat, did I mention there's no A/C at the house? So we moved all our stuff in, hung up our clothes (that took me longer than it did him) and finally got to relax at about 6:00. I still can't find all the stuff I wanted in the room like picture frames and what not but oh well, I'll live. Aside from my interview today, we decided to take a day to relax. Tomorrow will consist of moving all the stuff we don't need right now into storage, and then returning the rental truck.

1,122 miles later...

Well, it took us 2 days, 1,122 miles and $400 of gas but we finally arrived in Loveland, CO. I didn't think we'd ever get here especially going through the never ending state of Utah and the equally never ending Rocky Mountains. At least we had pretty scenery to look at as we were driving and driving and driving. We learned not to trust any mapping "help" on the internet, i.e. mapquest or google maps because when they tell you it will take you 14 hours to get somewhere they really mean 22. At least we took a break after we drove 16 hours into the beginning of CO. But we made it relatively unscathed, minus the burning breaks on the rent a truck going down the mountain, partly in rain (good times!) and my check engine light going on as we arrived in CO last night. We still don't know why it went on but I prayed that God would get us there without breaking down and he totally delivered. He took care of us the whole way with saving me money on gas and letting us get there in one piece. Now we are chillin' with Vanessa, our new roommate, her boyfriend Aaron is out of town for work. We are tired but so relieved that we are finally here and are looking forward to learning our way around town (a.k.a. me getting lost multiple times. I'd share pictures but my lame camera died going into Utah and of course I packed my charger in a box somewhere in the truck. Oh well, you'll just have to trust me that most of our drive was beautiful! Well, I hope you all have a great night. I love you all!

One more full day in Cali

Today Robert and I picked up our 16ft. Penske truck to haul our lives in. It's weird how much stuff you accumulate over your lifetime and then wonder why you had it for so long. I had a large trash can full of stuff I kept for no reason, oh yes, I know the reason... I'm a pack rat. Anyways, we are one step closer and one day closer to leaving our Cali lives and starting a new Colorado life. I also realized today that people are jerks when it comes to driving on the street with big trucks. Robert got cut off a few times because he wasn't going fast enough, apparently, and when I was following him and keeping a cushion between us in case he needed to stop suddenly people would cut me off. Then they would realize why I was driving so far behind him, he's way bigger than me and needs more time to stop, duh!!! I hate people sometimes. I hope for better drivers in CO, am I being naive?

Saying Goodbye

I started saying my goodbyes this last Sunday and I hate them. I began with my friends at Revolution Church. I made some new friends but I didn't want to leave the friends who I've known for at least 5 or 6 years. Lori, Rachel, Chris, Leanne, Angelo, Timmy, I've known you guys for quite awhile and you have been good friends to me, each in your own way, and I just pray I can find people half as good to me as you guys have been.

After Revolution Robert and I said goodbye to my Grandma Gerry. I love her soooooo much, you will not find a cooler grandma than her. She had a mini stroke 3 weeks ago but she's slowly getting better. I get so scared about losing her, she's in her late eighties and I know she won't be around forever but I hate thinking that last Sunday was the last time I'll see her. I'm going to make sure to call her once a week to see how she is.

On Tuesday I said goodbye to my dear friend Jessica who was there for me during Robert's deployment and is still such a good friend to me. She never judged me for any decisions I made and she loves to watch movies as much as I do.

Tuesday night I saw some of the Burn kids, Paddy, Jen, Tommy, Ben, and Liam. I watched M.A.S.H. with Paddy and Jen and we ate Pizza Rolls, a tradition we started last year during our week of viewing Band Of Brothers. The bonus was seeing Tommy, Ben and Liam. I have such fond memories from when I was a leader in the Burn and I will miss you guys terribly. You made it ok for me to act a bit younger than I should.

Today was one of the hardest goodbyes. I drove to Oceanside to see my best friend Tiffany for the last time before I moved. She was there and understood me and my crazy emotions while Robert was deployed because she's been there. Words cannot express how much I love this girl. I know I won't meet another Tiffany ever! I would never want to. I love my "ghetto nuccka."

I have a few more people to say goodbye to in the next few days before I move. You may think I'm being melodramatic because I know I'll be back but I know it won't be the same when I come to visit. It's hard when you know one place, because you've never really been anywhere else for longer than a vacation and then you move to a totally new place where you don't know anyone, you don't know how to get anywhere, everything's different! I'm excited, don't get me wrong. I am up to the challenge of starting a new chapter in my life but it's very scary.
If you've read this much than... wow, you must really like me or you must have a lot of free time on your hands. At any rate, thanks for reading the first of many long-winded blogs to come. Goodnight!

I gave in...

So I was told that I should get a real blog, not just use my Myspace one to post about my upcoming move to Colorado. So here's my blog that hopefully will be read occasionally by my friends.