2014 Tee It Up Tournament

It's that time of year again, this year we've actually managed to get ahead of schedule and already have sign-ups available for golfers, sponsors and those that just want to attend the dinner & silent auction portion of the evening.

This year rather than having two sections for golfer sign-ups we've decided to make it easier on ourselves and just have one. You can still sign-up for a team (or multiple teams as some have done in the past) simply by selecting a quantity of 4.

Please also remember that as a golfer you get two entry tickets into the dinner and silent auction portion of the evening so no need to purchase those in addition! We try to make the event fun for the whole family and kids under 5 eat free so bring them along as well.

One question we've had come up was whether or not you had to "be a golfer" to play. We've had golfers who have played their first 18 rounds of golf at the tournament all the way up to pros so skill level is not a qualification for this tournament!

Times for all of the events can be found in the image above and additional details can be found by clicking on the little black circle with the "i" in it next to each ticket option. Once you register individual tickets will be emailed to each participant, all you have to do is print them out and show up for a good time!

We're working on some really incredible experiences for this year and are slowly but surely getting those uploaded here: https://squareup.com/market/brightlife. We're also working to have items for every budget.

Hoping to see you all out there, let us know if you have any questions!

Register Now!

The Fourth Anniversary

Today (Saturday) is the fourth anniversary of Tim's diagnosis. It's actually kind of strange as usually it's on my mind from the first of the year but this year it has kind of snuck up on me in the craziness of life and I likely would've forgotten had the prednisone I'm taking for a sinus infection not been keeping me awake. 

Four years ago today changed the course of our lives for better and for worse. We've learned an incredible amount about ourselves and matured in ways that likely wouldn't have happened without this diagnosis. It showed me just how much of the "gross stuff" I really can handle and is the catalyst for me going to nursing school. Our love for each other is stronger and deeper than some ever get to experience as we have truly learned what it means to live for each other. We eat healthier than we ever have before and other than chocolate for me and red meat for Tim we no longer crave the "bad stuff".

In many ways we're still just the same though. We have some knock-down drag out arguments over the stupidest things (typically it involves Tim snoring and his refusal to roll over or me cover stealing by wrapping myself in a burrito fashion). We still take experiences and each other for granted. We also still get overdramatic about things that are inconsequential in the grand scheme. 

This week nothing went right for me; our garage door broke, I got to work before realizing I left my laptop at home, I got a migraine that just wouldn't quit and found out I have a wicked sinus infection, things I've worked on for school for months fell apart, crazy doesn't even begin to describe what work has been like and I'm already behind on my schoolwork two weeks into the semester. It's been a doozy. As I got out of my car last night after leaving work at 7 and not taking a lunch for the second time this week and our dog started sprinting away, I had a thought about how this was the worst week ever. It took a few seconds for reality to kick in that we've dealt with far worse but it is funny that it happened the night before the anniversary of what was truly one of my two worst weeks ever.

We're pretty positive on here the majority of the time as we try to be every day in real life as well. We both have some incredibly low days and we have fears we deal with on a daily basis that we both struggle to put into words for each other much less within a blog post or to friends and family. We also have a tendency to gloss over some of our darkest moments and experiences, some memories from that first year are still incredibly raw and painful. Overall though we are incredibly lucky as those are all few and far between. 

With how "normal" this part of our lives is to is now (we don't know married life without it) I forget just how unusual our situation is at times. It's still always surprising to me to see the looks of concern people give when they find out that Tim has stage 4 colon cancer followed by their shock that he works full-time and is actually thriving. 

Life has been able to be "normal" for us due to the love and support from all of you. Sometimes helping us to forget what is going on is the best gift we can receive. And you all make that possible for us. We will never be able to thank all of you for everything that you do to help, even when you don't realize you're doing it.

Anniversaries are good things to celebrate even when it is one of heartbreak as it helps to reflect on who helped to mend it. Thank you to all of you who have helped us put those pieces back together time and time again. 

Long Overdue Updates

The last blog that I wrote was back in early December and I was just about to start my round of chemo while taking Z-pack as well.  I thought going into it that it was going to be the roughest round that I have been through in a while but it turned out not to be the case.  While I'm not ready to say that it was the easiest round that I have even been through but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be although Jenny ended up getting a stomach virus that week so we were quarantined to our respective parents' homes.

Christmas for us was fun.  We always hang out with Jenny's family on Christmas Eve.  We have dinner, look at lights, and then stop by my parents house.  On Christmas Day Jenny and I do our own thing at our house in the morning and then head to Jenny's parents to open gifts and then off to her grandmas for just a short while.  We then meet up with my family for lunch and spend the rest of the day over there.  It was a good Christmas this year.  We both got everything that we want and had a great time with all both of our families.

Steven and I made a trip in early January up to Chicago for a Bears game.  Unfortunately, Jay was still hurt and we didn't get to see him play.  We still had a great time up there despite the wild chill at the time of the game was -10.  I can honestly say that it was the coldest that I have ever been in my life.  We went up to the game with 6 other guys from Greenville and had a blast getting to know them and hanging out with them.

For New Years this year we went to Nantucket for dinner and then a champagne toast at midnight.  Jenny and I went with Steven, Haley, Fran, Ryan, and Natalie.  We had reservations at 9:15 but didn't get seated until close to 10:20.  Despite the delay in our reservation we still had a really good time.

My last visit with Dr. Edenfield was in mid December and we talked about the near future and my upcoming schedule around the holidays.  I was supposed to have a round of chemo that started on New Years Eve but Dr. E was nice enough to let me have an extra week off this time.  The extra time was great and made me feel normal again.  This was only the 2nd time that I have had over the one week break that I normally get in the past year.  The other time was when I decided that I hadn't been to the ER in a while and wanted to go back and check on everyone after I sliced my finger open.  One week extra is like a lifetime for me so I took full advantage of it, even though it flew by.  The round of chemo that I just had that ended last Wed was actually one of the easier treatments that I have had.  I think that the extra week helped me have a bit more energy this time.

Jenny and I both got flu shots back in Nov. hoping to avoid that in our house, but shocker we didn't.  Jenny was pretty sick last week due to the flu and finally started to feel better by the weekend although today was pretty rough for her.  We had a quiet weekend to help make sure that she got over it easily.

Back to the chemo side of things.  I am scheduled to stay on the same regime for the near future.  With my CEA counts not being 100% reliable anymore I will probably have another CT Scan sometime in Feb. to make sure that everything is still stable.  If anything should change then we have already discussed the next step which would be a drug in pill form.  Of the drugs that I have had over the past 4 years the pill based have their side effects but none that relay to nausea.

Jenny is back in school and "only" taking two classes while working full time this semester. It should be interesting though considering that she is taking Microbiology and will be working with staph and strep and other viruses in her lab section. She seems to really like her class though so hopefully everything will be smooth. We also have the house on the market and are looking around for our next possibility, hopefully something will happen sooner than later because keeping our house picked up and clean constantly is not an easy task, you don't realize how messy you are until your house is for sale.

Before I end this post, which is one of the longer posts that I have written in a while, I wanted to tell everyone that it is getting close to that time again.  The annual Tee It Up For Cancer / Brightlife golf tournament is just around the corner.  With Jenny starting school again, a couple of folks have been really great and offered to help me put it together for this year.  So, I wanted to thank Ali, Erin, Berkley, Megan, Alan, Steven, and Joe for all of their help so far this year.  We are off to a great start and will have some amazing things at the silent auction this year.  So please put Monday April 21 on your calendar so you can come.

I hope that everyone has a great rest of the week.
Tim

Post Thanksgiving Craziness

Thanksgiving was supposed to be the date that we had everything done for the house so we could get it listed before sitting back to enjoy the weeks leading up to Christmas (other than my four tests and two papers this week as well as my three cumulative finals next week). The house is almost done but poor Tim is now really sick and out of commission for awhile (going to the game was likely not the most intelligent decision). It started early last week as a cold and has recently developed into something further. He got a Z-pack and some fluids today and the plan is that he will have chemo tomorrow but we've been warned that this will likely be the worst round of chemo he's experienced over the past 4 years. We're working to keep perspective that he just needs to make it though the next few days and he should start to feel much better but both dreading what is to come. Please keep Tim in your prayers over the next few days as he powers through this round, he likely has only 5 more until his next scan!

Scan Results

Our goal for this year was that I would make it through December without changing chemo. It looks like we might actually do that although I'm just writing a blog which goes back to this thing that Jenny says I have called procrastination. I finally got my scan results last Thursday and although I have some new spots and some spots that have grown, I also have some spots that are gone and others that are shrinking. The results for this reinforce that for now I'm on the best regimen I can be on although my CEA (tumor marker) may no longer be reliable which means I have more scans coming my way. We already have another planned for February to check in. This also means that I'm back in chemo today getting treatment where I just found out that my CEA has dropped slightly, I'll take anything I can get though.

This past weekend we went down to the USC/FL game, it was the first game of the season that Jenny has been too, more on that later. Our good friends Josh & John went down with us along with Jenny's cousin Emma. Jenny has ADHD really badly and can't sit through a game without getting too antsy so she stayed with some of her sorority sisters and tailgated while we went in. We're hoping that if Emma doesn't go to Furman next year that she will go to USC, hopefully the win helped convince her, it put me in a good mood for the rest of the night.

This week will be pretty boring, just work, getting the house ready to be put on the market and treatment before heading back to work on Thurs and Fri to finish off the week and the wedding of Jenny's good friend Andrea this weekend.

We were trying to keep the news fairly low-key until everything was more set in stone but the reason why we are selling the house along with Jenny not being able to help as much with the tournament this year and why she hasn't been to any games is that she is heading back to school to be a nurse. There is still a lot up in the air about when the transition will happen and she is slowly knocking out her pre-requisites but we are starting to prepare for the changes to come with her going back to school. She won't find out if she got into nursing school until May so we still have awhile to go. I hope that everyone has a great week.

Tim

Up and Down

I am trying to get back into the habit of posting more frequently, so here we go.  I just finished with yet another round of chemo this past Thursday and it was not close to being the easiest round ever.  For some reason I just didn't have any energy on Wednesday and felt kind of groggy.  This was a complete opposite from the treatment before.  I don't know what I did differently from the round before to this one but it was definitely tougher.  While I was getting treatment on Tuesday we got the results back from my blood work the day before.  My CEA (or tumor marker) one month prior had risen slightly and not high enough for any concerns, and this time it rose again a little bit more than expected.  Dr. E came into the infusion room to see me and calm down any concerns that I might have.  He didn't seem to worried about the new number and said that I would get my treatment this past time and I would do my next round and then we will do a CT Scan the following Monday to see if there have been any significant changes from the last.  Knock on wood the number increase doesn't relate to the results of the scan.  We also talked about the chance of me switching treatments after the next round just in case the cancer cells are starting to figure out how to combat the chemo.  The next drugs that I would go on would possibly be some sort of pill based regime, just not sure which drug it would be. Jenny & I really wanted to at least make it through the end of the year on this same regimen so we didn't have to go through the uncertainty and craziness that comes with these kinds of changes but I guess life didn't agree with our plans. The uncertainty and nervousness that goes along with this kind of thing really takes a toll on you without you even realizing how much sometimes, we'll make it through though.

On the non cancer side of my life it was a pretty good weekend for me.  On Friday I got to go to my parents house for dinner and hang out with Haley and my niece and nephew for a bit.  It always seems to brighten the week when I get to hang around them or my other niece Brynn.  They are so carefree and absolutely hilarious to sit and listen to.  Some of the things that they say and do are just so funny you have to just sit back and laugh.

On Saturday Jenny and I ran a couple of errands and then got ready for our Halloween party at some friend's house.  We dressed up as Jack and Jill after they fell down the hill.

We had a great time and the costumes Jenny picked out were pretty funny even though some of our friends and I kept calling her a "rough looking french maid" all night.  I missed all but the last 2 plays of the USC game but did get to see the win.  As my father-in-law who saw my reaction to the win described me as a "giddy school girl".  Yes I do tend to get a bit excited when we win.

Life is also pretty crazy for us because we've decided to put our house up for sale as well. We love our neighbors and our house has been great but we've decided to make a change so we're keeping even busier with getting the house ready to be listed. If anyone wants to move to a great house in a great and growing neighborhood over by Furman just let us know!

The last thing before I end this post I want to mention one of my cousins.  He just turned 22 yesterday (Happy Late Birthday) and about 3 weeks ago went under the knife to remove a tumor on his brain (which we found out was not cancerous).  I got the chance to talk to him on Facebook while I was a chemo on Tuesday and the way that he has handled this situation is remarkable.  He has faced the adversity straight in the face and come out the other side just fine.  So I ask that everyone prays he continues to recover and gets back to the life that he was intended to live.

I hope that everyone has a great week.

Tim

Save the Date!

 

Tim will be a guest bartender on Thursday, October 3rd from 5PM-8PM at Soby's. Some of you may remember a similar BrightLife event that was held back in 2011, this is the same concept but with the proceeds going to GHS's Cancer Institute. 20% of all proceeds from the bar that evening will be donated so if you have some free time be sure to pop in for happy hour and watch Tim & friends entertain you!