Thank you to all of the family and friends who donated money to the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure. Our small team raised over $300.00 and had 16 participants…(that includes the wee little ones).

We had excellent weather for the big day.

 Special props go out to our race day participants:

CW, DW, and the boss - CJW. As you can see Chelsea did all the work in this race!

Team Cham-bridge  - Dave, Therese (survivor) & Zach, & Ava Chambers with Jen & Jason Cambridge.

The house of Mac - Doug, Claudine, Lil Mac and A-man.

Team Carl-inda Shaw (in celebration of Judy).

Team Franco - Carol (Survivor), Marland, Ava, & Max…missed ya at the race be we KNOW you were there!

And last but not least, Team Dawson - KJ…master of ceremonies.

On June 21st Team Dougie will be hitting the Streets of Seattle for the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure.

Last June my dad was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. He is doing well and is a true fighter…making it through a full mastectomy, months of chemo and radiation and is now in remission back to doing all the things he loves to do. He won’t be able to be there with us as he and mom will be vacationing in Montana but he’ll be there in spirit!

We’ll be walking, with KJ in tow to honor him.

Breast cancer in men is possible and the numbers continue to increase as we become more aware. If you’re interested in supporting us either by participating in the race, or by donating, visit our team web page.

Keanon is a hulkster! It is unbelievable how chubby he’s gotten since his surgery. In a matter of 6 weeks, he’s gained over 3 lbs! I think 2.5

of that is in his cheeks.

This week we’ll be able to lift him under the arms and not have to be so delicate with him. It’s amazing that everything is behind us now.

My girlfriend has a website full of many beauty, relationship, and general life type articles that she’s written - www.lifelovebeauty.com. She received an offer from SanDisk to run a contest on her site, giving away a free MP3 player and 2GB microSD memory pack, for writing the best essay about Mother’s, Parenting or anything having to do with mom.

I have entered a quick essay about my Journey to my first Mother’s day. Take a read and if you love it, vote for me!

A new post with some great pics of KJ is forthcoming.

~T.

Last Friday morning, I happened to have the tele on in the background and this segmant on a VSD surgery was aired on the Today Show. It is a wonderful story of a Cambodian girl who lived to be 9 years old with a large VSD, a lifespan that is very rare. She was brought to the U.S. to have the same surgery that Keanon did. It really touched me and put shivers down my spine - because the reality is, the surgery is “life saving” and I don’t ever want to forget that!

Keanon had his follow up appointment with his cardiologist on Friday. We went with positive thoughts that the fluid on his heart would be gone and that the steriod treaments had done the trick - and they did!Hurray! Keanon is on the home stretch. And boy does he know it - every 3 weeks of his life he’s had to see the Dr. and spend hours being monitored. He is ‘usually’ such an angel, sitting still for the techs having to do his Echo’s and EKG’s, flirting with the nurses and being so cooperative for the doc. This time though, he decided he was soooooooooo over sitting around in his diaper all day while people inspected him. He screamed his head off for a good part of the Echo and wouldn’t calm down until just before Dr., gave his positive report. I don’t blame him! We’ve all have enough of this business, so thank goodness Keanon has a clean bill of health! And ultimately, what that behavior shows is that he’s now got all the energy in the world to get really fired up - that’s a good sign.

He gets to take a break for 4 whole weeks before he has to go back to the cardiologist. In the mean time, he will be weened off of his last drugs and should be able to be without any symptoms of his defect. He still has leakage around where the patch is, which is totally normal and not expected to close up for 6 months. With that, he was eligible for one last Synagis shot, this time in both legs since he’s gained weight and needs two doses. The shot will continue to protect him on the tail end of the cold and flu season from RSV.

KJ is just doing so well and is still an angel baby. Playing a lot, trying to crawl (mostly scootching backwards), sleeping and eating. Did I mention eating! Holy Moly - he is eating like a champ and has gained a lot of weight. Granted, he’s still not even on the charts for his age, but to us - he looks like a huge, chubby, healthy baby! We are so happy with his progress.