Ricardo's blog

Four years ago

2012-01-24T23:01:00.000-08:00

Four years ago today Claudia died, in peace, after two years battling cancer. I was sitting by her side, unable to help, waiting, keeping company.
I now take a deep breath, slow down in the busy day, and look back, to remember and reflect.

I remember her life and her smile, her love and her courage, her gifts to me, and to Tomas, Mateo and Camila.

I reflect on the path that life gas put in front of me, since meeting her in 1993 and moving in together within three months... the family we built together, living in three countries; the friends we cultivated, all around the world... this picture in Nepal, before we moved to Seattle, before everything fell apart after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer... the days by her side, knowing they would end... her death, four years ago today.

And then, the path that continues, life, that goes on after grief (or through grief). Meeting Mary, falling in love, and finding my own (non fatal) cancer... moving in together, blending families, getting married... living each day as a gift, not taking anything for granted...

And here I stand, January 24, about to start a new year of the dragon... I will be 48 this year, twice 24, four dozen years. How many more ahead? I'm past the middle of the road, and who knows how far is the other side. The certainty of death is a hard and beautiful thing.

How did it feel for Claudia, knowing the end was within reach (and too soon)? Where is she now, other than in our hearts that remember her, and how does she look upon this, the life we keep on living without her?

So many things have changed, in four years.
I still miss her, but my life is other.

Snow Cabin

2012-01-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hawaii in January

2012-01-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

Ski at Mt Bachelor

2011-12-28T17:21:00.000-08:00

End of 2011

2011-12-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

I've been writing these letters with a photo collage for 20 years now. I like to see them and imagine an animation of two decades...

Dear Friends

The end of the year is near, and our family of seven is brought together again to celebrate it with much joy.

Camila came home from Colombia, where she finished 5^th semester of college, studying law. She is incredibly dedicated and hardworking, and her arrival is always a feast. Tomas is interested in black and white photography and darkroom, he is getting ready to drive, and he bought his own car: a 1990 Volvo that sits in the garage counting the days till his 16^th birthday. Mateo started high school this year, where he is taking a video production course that makes him think he wants to study that in college; it is his first expression of a college interest. Reed is in his last year of middle school, playing the sax in the senior jazz band and happy to be learning some Spanish in school. Isabel discovers biology and science in 3^rd grade, and wants to be a scientist when she grows up: she dreams of saving endangered species. The boys are now less interested in soccer and far more into snow sports: this winter all three of them are instructors or instructor assistants. Skiing and snowboarding bring them together in ways nothing else does.

Mary’s work at Getty Images grows in complexity and scope, and she grows into it with great success; several big launches during the year, starting with CIR and ending with auto-suggest, things that make pictures more findable for buyers, in multiple languages and around the world. Ricardo’s work at the University of Washington continues to be exciting, with research work on libraries and cybercafés in different countries, and teaching graduate students about research methods and about information policies.

The blending of our families is moving well, despite the many challenges. Ricardo’s health is good, despite a scare of cancer returning in the summer (false alarm) and back problems that ended in surgery in the fall (good recovery). Summer highlights included a camping trip to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, where we met Camila, Tomas and Mateo, on a road trip from Ottawa. Ricardo’s parents moved back to Colombia in the fall, and they are building a house in Villa de Leyva. Grandpa Hinka turned 80! One of Mary’s old cats, Eddy, had to be put down in December, after 17 years with her.

We wish you the best for the year 2012. This is photo collage #20 for Ricardo’s collection. We look forward to 20 more to share with you.

Archaic technologies

2011-12-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

I had put the blog to rest for a while, and I've been thinking of things I want to write. So I open it again.

Tomas has been excited about black and white photography, so we ended up setting up my darkroom again. The same enlarger I've had for about 30 years, and all the details of an old-fashioned darkroom in the bathroom, like the first one I had when I was his age. Here is the first print (and contact sheet) he made, and a portrait I made of him.

Mateo, on the other hand, has been excited about another archaic technology: record players. He wants a turntable to be able to listen to records, the old fashioned way. So I found him a turntable with USB connection (sort of like scanning the black and white prints) and, after a visit to a used book store, a few vinyl. records that I remember I liked when I was about his age. They are wrapped as a Christmas present (if you have old records you want to share, he will be happy to get them).

I went with Isabel to the opening night of Cinderella. We had tickets purchased at an auction months ago. The musical was well done, with the classic story of abuse by step-mom, hopes for change, magic, and true love found with prince charming, all beautifully sung and danced. Our ticket even included entrance to a cast party after the show, so we hung out there for a bit, rubbing elbows with all the cast and who's-who, just Isabel and me, proving that step-parents are not necessarily evil.

September Vehicles

2011-09-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

Numerous vehicle issues in September:

I got a new back. I am now walking and swimming, not yet running, but maybe soon.
I sold my parents' camper, which Camila had driven with Tomas and Mateo all the way from Ottawa in the summer. On to new owners and new adventures.
Tomas bought himself a car, an old Volvo that is now parked in the garage waiting for him to be able to drive on his own, next April. Ready for new adventures.
In September I also changed my Toyota for a Subaru, another symbol of the passage of time and transitions in life. We had purchased that Toyota the day after we got here in 2005, as I started a job with Microsoft and they boys started school in Bellevue. Changing the car may be another closure on the past, opening up onto the future.
Finally, Mary got kayaks for her birthday, also in September. She had wanted a kayak for years, since way before my time, and now she got them. Not one, but two, thinking she may not actually go out alone but with someone. It is not my favorite position, sitting in a kayak (I much prefer the canoe) but I may go out on short outings with her.

September is now ending and things are back into their flow, with kids in school and parents at work, juggling the schedules for soccer for everybody, and enjoying the daily details of life.

Piggy bank back

2011-09-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

I saw my scar in my back, first on a photo after the dressing came out, then in the mirror. It is right next to the other back surgery scar from 7 years ago. Another cycle of karma that opens and closes.

Looking at it made me feel like a piggy bank, with a slot to drop coins in. Then I dreamt of lifting my legs in amazing stretches, but I could only lift them a few inches when I woke up. The dream is a start.

new car for a new back

2011-09-09T21:11:00.001-07:00

Now that I'm out of surgery and with a new back, I went out and got a new car, to take us many places. Check out the color. Made for me.

Out of surgery

2011-09-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

I'm now out of surgery and famished! I ate all they brought for lunch and capped it with a blackberry cake.

Special blackberries picked (painfully) at the park yesterday, and baked into a cake this morning by Mary between dropping me off at the hospital and seeing all four kids off to their first day of school.

All is good, I should be back home tomorrow.

Full cycle: back surgery

2011-09-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

This summer I've been going through something I have not mentioned in the blog. Enough with all the cancer recurrence scares, I thought. It started a Tuesday morning in late June, I told Mary I had a new pain in my hip. After a few days I went to see the doctor about it, concerned in might be related to cancer, so they did an MRI and no, it was no cancer, but a standard form o sciatica, a pinched nerve in my back causing pain in my hip and down the leg.

Well, it continued, week after week, including the weeks we went to Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, where I could no no hiking at all. In fact, some days I could barely walk from the car to a nearby bench, while the others went on longer walks. It continued when we went camping to Kalaloch, on the Pacific ocean, and continued while we stayed home the rest of the time. In the meantime I saw a physical therapist, a massage therapist, a doctor a few other rimes, a chiropractic doctor, and i took analgesics, pain killers, anti-inflammatories, etc. In the end I went to a back doctor who injected a shot of cortisone in the spine, which sometimes makes this kind of pain go away. But in my case it made it worse. That is when I started taking narcotics for the pain. And then they repeated the MRI.

Without being a back doctor, I could see there is something definitely wrong with this image, the disc exploded and jammed into the nerve... No wonder it hurts so much. The end result is I'm scheduled for back surgery on wednesday, first day of classes for the kids, end of summer.

It has been the summer of not walking, in addition to all the cancer tests that turned out to show nothing. That is a good thing. Another good thing is that the back pain is unrelated to cancer; just bad luck, I guess. And yet another good thing is that with the surgery I will most likely be cured and start walking normally once again, within a couple of days.

It is funny to think all this has been happening, and I was not writing anything about it on the blog. As if I was having an affair with another health condition and not telling about it.

But then, who said I was writing about everything? It would be so boring, if I was writing about everything! Neither did I write about my book, that was finally published last month: Libraries, Telecenters and Cybercafes: international comparisons (http://www.amazon.com/Libraries-Telecentres-Cybercafes-Public-Access/dp/1609607716/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315076590&sr=1-4) I'll write about it another day, maybe after surgery.

Indolent and Unremarkable

2011-08-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

We came back from Dr's appointment quite relieved today.
The small spot of activity behind the trachea is too small and not visible on CT scan, so not to worry. The low level of activity around the lungs is likely due to inflammation, and the level is too low to worry about. Furthermore, there is nothing visible in the lungs on CT scan.
The concern remains the high levels of antibodies to thyroglobulin, which mask the thyroglobulin levels, so we will just keep an eye on those through blood tests every three or four months. Nothing else.
Thyroid cancer may still remain in my body, but it is clearly not at a level that is visible in all the imaging tests that were done (fancy, expensive imaging, as we know well, now that I'm receiving the bills). It may well be an indolent cancer, living with me for decades. The results are otherwise unremarkable.

Unremarkable: Not particularly interesting or surprising
Indolent: Wanting to avoid activity or exertion; lazy

Good that my test results are unremarkable, and that my cancer may be indolent.
Mary says the report is wrong, because I am not unremarkable. And I am not indolent.

We are thrilled, and will celebrate with a recipe of Spanish Paella taken from an old issue of People Magazine, one of the treasures you can uncover in the doctor's waiting room.

Still unsure about results

2011-08-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

The blog is a strange animal, at times with a life of its own. I write, and then it is out there, and we don't know what comes next until I write the next entry.
I've been getting messages from friends and family wondering what happened after last tests, and the answer is I don't know much detail, yet. Or better, I know too much detail, but I don't know the implications yet. The PET Scan report says:

Neck:
There is a small focus of increased tracer uptake posterior to the trachea on the left with SUV max of 2.9 on lm 10/9 without corresponding CT finding.
Chest:
There is minimally increased metabolic activity with SUV of 1.6 on the right and 2.1 on the left, likely inflammatory.

What does this really mean? I believe it means there is nothing remarkable in the lungs, and there may be a small amount of cancer tissue behind the trachea, which may be easy to extract or otherwise get rid of. I will see my doctor on Thursday (there was some confusion about which Thursday, last or next) to see what he thinks this all means.

For now, we've been busy with summer activities, with the kids at home and lots of things to do around the house and around town. Summer is slipping by, not as warm as we would like it to be, but always enjoyable.

Is cancer back?

2011-07-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

Last week I finally got the results of blood tests done earlier, as part of the Thyrogen tests. While the images do not show anything abnormal, the blood markers are troubling. Thyroglobulin antibodies, which mask the readings of thyroglobulin and could indicate the presence of cancer returning, are almost as high as when the cancer was first diagnosed, and four times higher than they were at the beginning of the year. It was measured twice, so there is little chance of error in measurement.

On Monday I went in to see my doctor with these results on hand. Troubling, so he asked me to go back on Tuesday to do a neck ultrasound. There was nothing on the ultrasound, so now I'm scheduled to do a PET Scan and CT Scan next week. Reading about PET Scans (aka Positron Emission Tomography) I am amazed by the technology we have at hand today to help find abnormal cells in different parts of the body. Check it out:

Operation
To conduct the scan, a short-lived radioactive tracer isotope is injected into the living subject (usually into blood circulation). The tracer is chemically incorporated into a biologically active molecule. There is a waiting period while the active molecule becomes concentrated in tissues of interest; then the subject is placed in the imaging scanner. The molecule most commonly used for this purpose is fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a sugar, for which the waiting period is typically an hour. During the scan a record of tissue concentration is made as the tracer decays.

As the radioisotope undergoes positron emission decay (also known as positive beta decay), it emits a positron, an antiparticle of the electron with opposite charge. The emitted positron travels in tissue for a short distance (typically less than 1 mm, but dependent on the isotope^[10]), during which time it loses kinetic energy, until it decelerates to a point where it can interact with an electron.^[11] The encounter annihilates both electron and positron, producing a pair of annihilation (gamma) photons moving in approximately opposite directions. These are detected when they reach a scintillator in the scanning device, creating a burst of light which is detected by photomultiplier tubes or silicon avalanche photodiodes (Si APD). The technique depends on simultaneous or coincident detection of the pair of photons moving in approximately opposite direction (it would be exactly opposite in their center of mass frame, but the scanner has no way to know this, and so has a built-in slight direction-error tolerance). Photons that do not arrive in temporal "pairs" (i.e. within a timing-window of a few nanoseconds) are ignored.

So a scan of photons that move in opposite directions and arrive in temporal pairs to a scintillator will indicate whether there is metastasis of my thyroid cancer anywhere else in the body. Especially worrisome if it is outside the neck lymph nodes area, where I've already had four surgeries and had more than 30 cancerous tumors removed... Outside the lymph nodes, metastatic thyroid cancer can go to the lungs or bones, if it is gentle, or anywhere in the body, if it is more aggressive. Who knows.

The wait and see of cancer patients. We know it well. In February 2007, about a year before her death, Claudia had a PET Scan that found her ovarian cancer continued to spread to other parts of the abdomen. At the time, we joked with the kids that it was a type of test for which she had to take the dog with her.

Shortly after that we bought a VW camper for my parents, and we used it in San Juan Islands where she made the decision to start experimental treatment with Avastin, which had an average survival rate of 45-54 weeks. I collected pebbles from the beach in the islands, and added one each week to a jar on the kitchen mantle. She died 47 pebbles after that.

We now have the camper back with us in Seattle, driven by Camila across the country, camping with Tomas and Mateo. It is listed for sale on Craig's List, and we will use it to go camping in the beach at Kalaloch, in the Olympic Peninsula National Park this weekend, before selling it next week.

Funny how time goes in circles.

I will have the PET Scan done when I return. This time I am not collecting any pebbles, though. Not everything is repeated in the circles of life.

Yellowstone and Glacier

2011-07-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

We went camping in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, in Wyoming and Montana. I did not know places that beautiful existed on this planet.

We had fantastic weather and saw lots of wildlife and other natural wonders; but we had an especially beautiful time all together, after meeting Camila, Tomas and Mateo who drove from Ottawa in my parents' camper.

At Glacier we went to a lodge where Mary worked in the reservations desk 25 years ago... not much has changed in the place, she feels, but a lot has changed in her life since she was 19. That summer of 1985 I left Montreal for Nicaragua, just before turning 20. Camila is now 20. Strange how things come together.

Simplifying

2011-07-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

Fourth of July weekend. We celebrated Hinka's 80th birthday and our first wedding anniversary, all at Fort Worden, WA. A year ago we were taking off for our family honeymoon. Two years ago we had recently moved in together, and we were dealing with the new stresses of the blended family. Three years ago we had started going out together. Time is bliss.

A year from today we will be celebrating my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Big party in their new house in Villa de Leyva. 50 years together. Time is bliss.

Camila, Tomas and Mateo are driving across the continent, from Ottawa to Seattle. Having a fantastic time, together.

I've been simplifying, uncluttering, cleaning up. After cleaning up inside, as part of my Nature Quest, I'm cleaning up outside, too. Our house deal fell through, so we won't be moving after all. Cleaning up the garage is always satisfactory, getting rid of stuff. And also cleaning up the digital space. I canceled my account on academia.edu (an academic social networking site), and my twitter account. I found no use for their noise. I was tempted to cancel the Facebook account, but I occasionally go in to see what the kids are up to, so I left it, inactive as it is. I deleted the old blog, Share Claudia's Health, since all the past entries had been migrated into this one. I deleted my old mail.com email address, no longer in use. Digital cleanup, feels so good.

Retreat or mountain hike

2011-06-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

I return from 10 days in the mountains, an extended hike with a small group of people, a wilderness quest organized by an organization called Rites of Passage Journeys, in Bothell, WA. I had wanted to do this since last year, when Tomas had his rite of passage journey that included a brief stop there, but in a process that was much inspired by their work: go in as a group, separate to have solo time, come back together as a group, and return home.

It was most beautiful and powerful experience, intense and difficult. It may take me a few years to completely digest what went on there, but I had 9 days of sleeping under the stars in the mountains of Eastern Washington, while Tomas and Mateo went to Ottawa to visit their grandparents and meet Camila, and while Mary had some quiet time to herself and then some time alone with Reed and Isabel.

Nicolas came from Colombia to do this with me, he returns tomorrow. What a gift this has been!

Seabeck Talent Show

2011-05-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Tomas and Reed perform at Seabeck Talent show... this is the first time I hear them performing with guitars.

Houses and Moves

2011-05-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

It seems my family moves a lot. This is a picture of Tomas and Mateo about ten years ago, when my parents were building a new house in Ottawa. That house is now for sale, as they are building a house in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, and looking for a smaller condo to call home when they are in Ottawa.

We have been watching the building process of a house we have offered to buy in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle, so our house is now for sale as well (the housing market is not good, so if it does not sell we cannot buy the Ravenna house). Reed and Isabel's dad is also selling his house, the house that also used to be Mary's before their divorce. So Reed and Isabel are having to maintain a clean room in both their homes. Not a bad habit to have, but can be stressful.

In the middle of all this, we are going this weekend, Memorial Day weekend, to Seabeck retreat center, on the Hood Canal. The Unitarian churches of Seattle and Bellevue organize a family retreat there on Memorial Day weekend. Claudia and I started going the first year we were here, in 2005, and she went there both in good health and in bad health. Mary and I met there in 2007, through the boys playing soccer and baseball together, and then met again after Claudia died. This year we are going back as a married couple, a blended family. Lots of history in that single place. I will bring my large camera to take some photos again, as I've done the last three years.

Memorial Day weekend is frequently over my birthday, and it is so again this year. Both my birthdays: the family one on 28, the legal one on 29, and I decided I did not care which is the "real" one, I celebrate it on both.

Roof and windows

2011-05-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

First-degree atrioventricular block

2011-05-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

I went to the doctor this week to check on my hurting feet: plantar fascitis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_fasciitis). But on examination there was concern for my past episodes of light-headedness and dizziness, and my blood pressure was low. After a few more tests including an EKG, my doctor suspects I may have an AV block in my heart
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-degree_atrioventricular_block), maybe related with scarring after radiation, or compounded by meds I'm taking for an enlarged prostate... It all comes around at about 4 am when I need to get up and pee, but my feet hurt. At least I have not had a new episode of extreme fatigue since February.

With this possible diagnosis I dropped the prostate meds and went for an extended EKG, recorded over 24 hrs into a pocket-sized recorder connected to cables on my chest. All is out now, in time for a weekend of birthday celebration for Reed, who is now officially a teenager, and mother's day celebration: I gave Mary a pedicure. It is not very pretty, but with much love.

I wonder what goes on in Tomas and Mateo's minds, as we celebrate mother's day. They don't say much. I don't either.

Roof trusses

2011-05-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

Going up

2011-05-05T15:40:00.001-07:00

25 years of Harmony Hill

2011-05-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

I was asked to talk at the dinner celebration for 25 years of Harmony Hill:

Ricardo’s Talk at Harmony Hill Auction

Apr 30, 2011

I have a love affair going on with Harmony Hill. It is almost a fairy tale, with royal wedding and all.

Six years ago we moved here from Canada, with my wife Claudia and three kids. Shortly after, Claudia was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer and given six months to live. She battled bravely until she died two years later, in peace, with me by her side. I was her caregiver and companion during the last two years of her life, while she faced treatment and, ultimately, death.

As a cancer patient she went to a retreat at Harmony Hill, and it changed her life. We then went to another retreat together, with me as a caregiver, and it transformed us both, deeply. Harmony Hill does that: with loving care, with supportive listening, with nutritious, healing food, with magic.

Less than a year after her death, as I was rebuilding my life, my girlfriend Mary found a lump in my neck that turned out to be thyroid cancer, spread to the lymph nodes. I had two surgeries and radiation, but cancer came back a year later, leading to more surgeries and more radiation. Who would have known that I would end up at a Harmony Hill retreat, this time as a cancer patient, and with Mary as a caregiver?

The people at Harmony Hill did their thing again, their magic: they helped us recharge, rebalance, renew. In shared words and silence, one breath at a time, one meal at a time, one step at a time.

By then Mary and I were engaged, and we decided to get married at Harmony Hill. Last July 4, with the gardens in full bloom, we were married at the center of the labyrinth, with all of our five kids combined, in a more beautiful celebration than yesterday’s royal wedding: with our friends and family, in full awareness of the gifts of life and the presence of love.

Throughout this entire journey I was writing about my experience. Last year I published it all as a book, Breathe and Celebrate, with words and pictures of my journey through cancer, and beyond. I give all royalties of the sale of the book to Harmony Hill. It has not quite hit the best seller lists, so there isn’t much to offer, yet.

Harmony Hill’s work touches the people it serves very deeply, at a time of great fragility, both emotional and physical. Other service organizations try to reach large numbers of people, tens of thousands each year, millions over time. But the value of Harmony Hill is in the depth of its mission, not the breadth of its reach.

Harmony Hill has deeply transformed my experience of life and death with cancer. Let’s make sure Harmony Hill has the financial resources to continue doing what it does best: deep magic.

First floor walls

2011-04-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

Tomas is driving

2011-04-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

Materials for frame

2011-04-27T08:45:00.002-07:00

Floors

2011-04-27T08:45:00.001-07:00

Picking colors

2011-04-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Tomas turns 15 today

2011-04-07T18:09:00.001-07:00

Laying down the floorplan

2011-04-04T08:51:00.001-07:00

Building a new house

2011-03-30T08:51:00.001-07:00

It is the beginning of a new life, and the beginning of a new house. Started breaking ground this week, we plan to move in in August. I may post some more pix as the process moves forward.

My parents are building, too. After building several houses in the course of their lives, they are now building their last house in Villa de Leyva, Colombia. My mom is blogging about it at http://lacueva-villadeleyva.blogspot.com/.

There is also this picture of my brief visit there a couple of weeks ago, laying the corner stone of their new house:

Clear of Cancer

2011-03-08T20:17:00.000-08:00

I must confess I was worried about today's appointment. It was scheduled six months ago, with ultrasound to take a peek inside the neck one year after the end of radiation. Last time around this same check found more stuff and I ended up in surgery again. This time, they found nothing.

Nothing in the images. Nothing in the blood. Not even in the symptoms, since my extreme fatigue ended about 10 days ago and I've been feeling great.

Nothing.

That is what you really want to hear when you go to the doctor. There is nothing. You have the rest of your life ahead of you.

All is good, life is good. There is nothing.

What a journey, this is. The journey goes on, but now different again, from now on. I look back and I can't really believe what the last six years have been like. It is as if all that had happened to someone else, not to me. It makes me wonder what my life looks like, when seen from afar, if seeing it from within it feels so strange. Stranger even. Words can't describe enough.

Enough.

Ski days

2011-03-01T08:20:00.000-08:00

We spent a few days in Whistler, something I never thought I would do. I don't ski any more, I decided I'm a retired skier, but the boys had a fantastic time, as did Mary and Isabel. Three days of extreme cold and great skiing, all day long. I read a lot and wrote a lot, in the meantime. They were all so happy it was hard to believe, and impossible to take a picture of their happiness. Here is an approximation.

Deaths in the Family

2011-02-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

This morning Claudia's mom died. She was about 75, but felt like 95, with advanced rheumatoid arthritis, and mostly bedridden for the last few months. This is her last picture with Tomas and Mateo, a year ago, when she shared a box of cookies and her last words with them.

Ever since Claudia died, a bit over three years ago, Ines had been waiting to die, too. She found it unfair that Claudia, who was young and had young kids, would be the one to die and not her, who was old and had already lived her share. She was in a lot of pain, so it is a relief and a blessing that she died. There is a memorial service tomorrow at 11 am, Iglesia Espiritu Santo, 39 and 17, Bogota.

I sent flowers in our name.

As I was trying to communicate with Camila about this, I learned that Camila's uncle died, too, of a heart attack last night in Santa Marta. He was the oldest of her uncles, with a wife and four kids, still too young to die of a heart attack. Camila is there, heartbroken, and also wishing she could be with Claudias's family in Bogota as well. There is a memorial service tomorrow at 11 am, Jardines de Paz, Santa Marta.

I sent flowers in our name, too.

I had never sent flowers to two different funerals in the same day.

Low Energy

2011-02-15T16:10:00.000-08:00

I'm jealous of those who have energy. Energy to get up and do things, energy to think of things. My energy levels have been going up and down, mostly down, and despite several tests, doctors don't quite know what is going on. We thought it was thyroid level, but it wasn't. Then we thought it was other things, and it wasn't.

I tell myself this too shall pass, I will have energy again. For now, all I have is no energy.

The joys of a University Hospital

2011-01-29T12:46:00.001-08:00

I get a call from University of Washington, and it takes me a while to figure out it is not about my teaching, but about a medical appointment.
I can walk to the appointment from my office, and be back in time to finish preparing my lunchtime presentation. I go to a prostate checkup, and I get it checked twice, not once, to give the resident fellow a chance to feel the oversize gland by sticking a finger in as well.
The good news is I don't seem to have prostate cancer, just a very large prostate, that we can try to shrink with more medications.

Then I go to my other appointment, after making a presentation over lunch about my work in Colombia.
I see my former surgeon, worried about the swollen jaw and neck. He is also with a resident fellow, but this time they only need to peek into my mouth.
As a result of iodine radiation, my salivary glands are weakened, or scarred, or prone to obstruction, which is what is happening.
They prescribe lemon drops, jaw massage, hot pad, plenty of water. No surgery needed, it is not cancer coming back.

Life goes on with these minor nuisances, but no indications of cancer. Life is good.

I did not die today

2011-01-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

I did not die today in the bathtub, as I thought might happen. I'm alone in the house. Well, not alone: with the dog and the two cats. But all the others are gone. Mary and Reed in New York, Camila in Colombia, Isabel at her dad's, and Tomas and Mateo gone for a weekend of skiing. Strange silence around me.

Craving for a bath I started having visions of fainting in the bathtub, my cold body to be found on Sunday evening when the ones I have to pick up make their way home wondering why I don't answer my phone. I got in nonetheless, and tried to live the experience of my death. What would it be like?

As we had talked with Claudia before she died, she was not too scared about what was coming, just sorry she would miss the rest of this story. I think I felt the same way, there, in the bathtub. I write wet, dripping. Raw.

We had a commemoration of three years of her death. The date is next week but Camila left yesterday for college, again. Fourth semester. We wanted to do it before she left. We opened the box with "Claudia Stuff", and went through boxes, pins, bags, photos, papers, clothes. I told them the story of the single sock, the one she left me, she took the other one with her. We then watched some pictures, and went over to East Shore where we had planted a little bush with her ashes. It is about three times as big, ready to bud in the spring. We told her we love her and that she would be happy to see how we are doing, growing, moving on, doing stuff.

I've been to the doctor twice this week, once for me, once with Mateo. Mateo did not have strep throat, just a virus. I have something we don't quite know what it is, a big lump of swelling on my left jaw, too close to the area where surgery pulled out all these cancer lymph nodes one and two years ago. It hurts in a strange way, because the area is numb after surgery. They did a CT scan and found nothing, but on second look found something that I did not quite understand what it was, maybe something causing a blockage of the parotid gland. For most people that would be nothing of concern, and the standard cure is wait and suck on lemon drops. I hope that is all it is for me, but I have many reasons to be concerned, least of which is that my face looks all swollen.

I've been having another bout of fatigue. I think I get them about every month, a few days of no energy especially in the evening. At six I want t go to bed. I cannot function after seven. After a few days it goes away, as it is now.

And I've been noticing I'm slow. Walking slow, thinking slow, writing slow. I've been fast all my life, and I wonder if it is a symptom of crossing the summit and starting to be closer to the other side of the river. I look at Camila's pictures, she is asking me to help select some, and I cannot keep up with the speed she clicks through them. I read, and the words stay stuck to the page and I have to peel them off one by one. I write, and I have to compose each line as if I was also pulling a truck with my bare hands, at the same time. I think, and the thoughts slip away before I can grab them. I see them there, behind an opaque glass, and I know they were mine a moment ago, but they are beyond reach by now. Slow had never been a part of my experience.

I'm happy I did not die in the bathtub today. It would have been most disturbing. I think I will take a nap and get back to the multiple things I am writing, reading, thinking and doing. In silence, alone, for the next three days.

End of 2010

2010-12-14T17:27:00.000-08:00

Seattle, December 2010

This year we got married on July 4. Hooray!

A few other memorable things also happened. This letter could be broadcast as a series of twitter events, 160 characters at a time (and no abbreviations).

We went to Cozumel (Mexico) after Christmas. Sun and beach, Mayan ruins and a great New Year’s party.
All seven of us went to Paris for a family honeymoon. In a week we lived 2000 years of art history in 3 museums, and watched the World Cup final on a big screen by the Eiffel Tower.
Ricardo took Tomas and Mateo to Peru for a conference, and they hiked the Inca trail four days to Machu Picchu.
Mary was in London, New York and Ireland for work. She spoke brilliantly at conferences and became an elite frequent flyer. She is now Director of Search at Getty Images.
Camila was in Machu Picchu as well, but in February. After a year of college she decided to go to law school at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota.
Ricardo published a book from his blog: “Breathe and Celebrate: a journey through cancer and beyond” (available on Amazon.com). Good to turn the page on cancer and move on.
Tomas started (9^th grade) high school at Nathan Hale while Reed and Mateo blaze through middle school: Mateo does 8^th grade at Jane Addams and Reed 7^th grade at Eckstein.
Isabel does 2^nd grade at Bryant, where she is a prolific reader and writer of stories, as well as a creator of artifacts with recycled materials.

2010 has been good with us. We hope with all of you as well.

We wish you all a fantastic year 2011. May it have more than twitter for conversation, and more than facebook for friends.

#happynewyear2011 @gomez-forster

Ricardo, Mary
Isabel, Reed, Mateo, Tomas, Camila

Turn off your cell phones

2010-12-04T20:03:00.000-08:00

In thanksgiving

2010-11-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

It has been almost a month since I wrote about journeys. I was about to fly to South Africa. I have since been there and back, there was snow in Seattle, and we hosted Thanksgiving at home for 30 of Mary's family. It has been busy, and I think of the blog every now and then. But I don't get myself to write.

I've been thinking about how I wrote about things I was thankful for in other thanksgiving celebrations, even in the middle of turmoil of Claudia's treatment, or in between my own surgeries. I guess cancer makes everything more intense, more raw. Right now everything seems more mellow. And still, it is good to be thankful for the gifts life gives us.

It is now the end of November. Claudia was diagnosed in November (05), and spent the whole month of November in the hospital (07), while I started work at UW that same November. I had my first cancer surgery in November (08), and then again in November (09)... Looking back, November has been a bearer of change. Mary's dad spent a few days in the hospital this November, inconclusive tests to see whether his cancer has come back or not. Maybe not.

We approach December, with the intensity of preparations for Christmas, school vacations, the kids want to go skiing... I want to write my annual letter, make a photo collage. the rituals of family, the passage of time. We started going to a gym this November, something near home that has spinning bikes and a pool, the things Mary and I like, and also some racket courts and fitness machines. I had never used spinning bikes or fitness machines in my life. She had never swam a lap in her life. We exchanged and kept each other company for a while. There is always a first time.

This November I am thankful for having an unremarkable life going on. No crisis, no life and death on the edge, a bit dull from the outside... but filled with the daily pleasure of daily life, the everyday existence unfolding, one breath at a time.

In the picture, I gather herbs from the garden for the Thanksgiving turkey. Nothing more mundane. Nothing more special.

Big plane for a different journey

2010-10-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

I flew to South Africa from Frankfurt in the biggest and newest plane I've ever been on, an A-380 that has a full second level of passengers, with 100 business seats and 8 first class ones, plus over 400 in coach in the lower level. Makes you feel very small, in such a huge crowd of people zooming halfway around the world at high speed.

It was an interesting contrast to my reading on Soulcraft during the flight, preparing my journey to the underworld of soul. It is a journey alone, a slow walk into the depths of my core: values, powers, abilities, knowledge. Unlike cultivating spirit, which is an ascent to what is shared, luminous, universal and transcendent, cultivating soul is a descent into what is unique, profound, in the shadows of psyche. No superplane can take me there.

Starting a New Journey

2010-10-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

I am on my way to Frankfurt to a conference, and I start reading “Soulcraft”, a book to help me start preparing for a retreat next June. I left my registration packet and check in the mail before leaving, the first step in the journey. Reading the first few chapters of the book on the plane gave me a strange sense of purpose, of understanding better why I want to do that retreat in the first place, and how to prepare for it.

“The book itself is a trail guide for the mystical descent into the underworld of soul: what the descent is, why it is necessary, how to recognize the call to descend, how to prepare for the descent, what the process looks and feels like…”

The retreat is a practice that seeks ways of recognizing and celebrating important life transitions from a deeper perspective that nurtures the spirit, much in the same way of Tomas’ coming of age process earlier this year. It has preparations and ritual of departure (from old self), some time alone in nature, and celebrations of return and welcome (of the new self). What I will do at the end of June will involve three days of preparation with a small group and a guide, three days alone in the forest without food, and three days of return and celebration with the group, before going back home.

The logistics for this are interestingly complex, because it is the end of the school year for the kids. We are planning how to deal with their time as well as mine, while Mary will still be at work. Maybe it will involve them going to Ottawa to spend time with grandparents and cousins, and maybe even driving back with Camila in my parents’ camper. The three are excited about the possibility of this roadtrip, we will see if it can happen. I am excited about the retreat. I sent my registration.

I’ve been thinking of what comes next, now that I begin the rest of my life. Yes, every day is the beginning of the rest of my life, but after the storm and changes of the past five or six years, I am ready to mark a new beginning. Six years ago I was with Claudia in Nepal and was offered to come to Seattle to work for Microsoft. Who would have known, then, the road that lay ahead. I published a book based on the blog, starting with Claudia’s cancer diagnosis and ending with my wedding to Mary, in an “and they lived happily everafter” story that would be hard to believe if it was not my own.

What comes next? I will work the next eight months to prepare and do a nine-day retreat, in order to find out. This is the next step in my journey.

Mateo is a Teenager

2010-10-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

Mateo turns 13, he is now officially a teenager.
Camila just turned 20, she is no longer a teenager.

What is the behavior of teenagers? When Tomas started having the strange behaviors of a teenager, about a year and a half ago (turning 13), I was kind of relieved to realize it was not the behavior of grief or of blending families, but the normal teenage behavior. With Camila it was different. Each child is different. Reed will come next, and then Isabel, when all the others are gone.

Mateo is smart and his mind works fast. He is verbal and witty, I don't want to be in a debate with him. He is having fun with school,with friends, with music, and with soccer, of course. I look at him and wonder what the world would be like if it was run by people like him.

I try to figure out how to plan a birthday party. I no longer organize it and invite friends for him, but he does not do it either. I ask him what he wants, and he knows he does not want what I suggest, but he doesn't know what he does want. This is life in between. No longer a child, not yet a youth, far from an adult.

At 13 I had a dirt bike that expanded my horizon to the next valley. He has an iPhone and a bus pass, and the world at his fingertips. I wonder what he will think when he reads the book I just published based on this blog. What will this tell him, seven years from now, when he exits teenage-hood like Camila is now doing.

Maybe that is the next blog book. Living with teenage boys. Hurry up and wait.

Blog Book is out: 5 years of stories

2010-09-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Today I approved the final proof of the book "Breathe and Celebrate" and it is now available for purchase. I made a little postcard that says:

This is an intimate journal of life through cancer, and beyond. When my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer i started writing, first to tell others, then to find meaning. A few months after her death, I, too, was diagnosed with cancer, and I kept on writing...
How to live with someone with cancer?
How to keep on living after she dies?
How to live with your own cancer?
Life with cancer has given me unique ways to appreciate the gift of every moment, every breath and every celebration.

This is my journey. It is sometimes joyful, sometimes painful, and most of the time it is just a raw snapshot of my thoughts and feelings as life unfolded during those intense four years.

The proceeds of the sale of this book will be donated to Harmony Hill, a wellness center in Union, WA, that offers free retreats and support to cancer patients and their caregivers. (www.harmonyhill.org)

The book is available for purchase at Amazon.com, and also here:

https://www.createspace.com/3482442 photos in full color, $35

https://www.createspace.com/3486231 photos in black and white, $15

The full color version is of course more expensive to print. I decided to price it in a way that it will give me between $3 and $5 per copy, depending on whether it is sold directly on the site or through Amazon.com (with Amazon I get less, but it might reach more people), and anything I get in the quarterly reports I will send as a donation to Harmony Hill. So that might be an incentive for you to check it out, or to offer it to someone you think might want to read it.

Strange thing, to release this chronicle of my last five years, starting when Claudia was diagnosed with cancer, and ending with an epilogue of my wedding to Mary, all in less than five years. I read through the pages and see the pictures and it feels like it is someone else's life, someone else's stories. But the learning that came through it is all mine. And I am happy to share it, not knowing who might be interested in reading it. It is out there, the rest is not in my control.

I remember the first time someone suggested I publish the blog… I thought it was such a crazy idea! And now here it is. Another rite of passage. A closure. A new beginning. I'm kind of relieved, crossing this milestone. I'm not sure what I will be writing about from now on. I will think of something.

It is also strange to release the book just weeks before I release another book to an academic publisher, one about the research I've been leading the last few years: "Libraries, Telecentres, Cybercafes and Public Access to ICT: International Comparisons." That one also saw transitions and turning points, and will be available to the public in a few months. I'm not sure who will be interested in reading that one either.

Soccer again

2010-09-11T18:29:00.000-07:00

It is the beginning of a new soccer season, and today all 4 kids played a game. Fortunately, we have moved out of the Premiere League into the neighborhood Recreational League, which means practices are local, games are local, stakes are low, and things are a lot more manageable and fun for all.

As I was rereading the blog, preparing the book for publication, I realized what a central role soccer has played in our lives the past few years. During Isabel's game, first one this morning, I told Tomas that is the way he used to play way back when he was her age and we lived in Ottawa. He does remember playing, but he thought the games were a lot better! Well, playing evolves over time, and each one plays at their level, today.

Now, as I write, all four are playing soccer in the back yard. I'm the one hooked to the computer on a Saturday afternoon. We are in last preparations for a much anticipated trip to California this week, to celebrate Mary's birthday in San Francisco. It is good to celebrate. Always.

Breathe and Celebrate

2010-09-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

It is September, time to breathe and celebrate.
Breathe: my checkup today showed my tumor markers keep on going down, and the doctor is quite confident I may be rid of cancer.

Celebrate: I finished production of a book based on the blog. So now all this is available in a regular book, with minor edits and corrections (and removing any images that are not mine). I am now ready to move on.

The book "Breathe and Celebrate" chronicles almost five years of dealing with cancer, life and death, loss and love, pain and joy. Any money I make (about $3 per copy) will go as a donation to Harmony Hill. It is available for purchase on Amazon.com and at https://www.createspace.com/3482442.

I encourage you to check it out, maybe offer the book to a friend that you think may want it. This is what I wrote as an introduction, back in May when I edited the text:

Four and a half years ago my wife Claudia was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer and given six months to live. She battled bravely until she died two years later, in peace, with me by her side. I was her caregiver and companion during those last two years of her life, while she faced treatment and death. I started a blog when she was diagnosed, initially as a way to communicate easily with friends and family about what was going on without having to answer the phone or send out a lot of emails. During that time I learned to live in the present, to celebrate any opportunity available, and to give thanks for all the love and support of a caring community around us.

As I was rebuilding my life after grieving Claudia’s death, my girlfriend Mary found a lump in my neck that turned out to be thyroid cancer, spread to the lymph nodes. Unlike with Claudia’s cancer, my life was not in danger since thyroid cancer is generally very curable. Nonetheless, dealing with cancer treatment and uncertainty is never easy. I had two surgeries and a radiation treatment, and cancer came back a year later, leading me into more surgery and radiation. Maybe I had to learn the lessons of breathing in the present, celebrating life, and being thankful for all of life’s gifts, all over again.

Throughout this time, I continued to write on the blog, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less. The blog turned out to be much more than a tool to inform people about Claudia’s progress, or later, about my own progress. Writing on the blog became my therapy and my window of conversation with friends, real or imagined. Some people around the world found in it something I never intended: inspiration.

I am probably on the other side of cancer at this point, but I cannot guarantee that these words will be of interest to anyone other than my friends and family. Nonetheless, I am turning a corner: life is smiling upon us as Mary and I prepare to be married in two months. After living together for a year, the stress of blending families is subsiding, and test results show that my cancer may be gone, or at least, it may be under control. As our wedding date approaches, I feel the need for closure on the past. I have explored the idea of publishing the blog, as several friends have suggested. Talking with an editor, I realize I am not really ready to rewrite and transform the blog into a book; all I can do is organize and clean it up a bit, insert one or two retrospective comments in italics, and put it out there, like a paper boat on a stream, like a message in a bottle.

Thanking all the friends who have walked with me in this journey, this book is my wedding gift. My celebration of the present.

Room with a view in Cusco

2010-08-25T06:08:00.000-07:00

We are back in Cusco after the four-day hike of the Inca trail. I am with Tomas and Mateo (Reed's dad did not allow him to come with us). Watching the sunrise over Machu Picchu after hiking 42 km in the mountains was a spectacular experience. It was hard, too, going up to 4,200 m (13,776 ft) above sea level, where oxygen was scarce and the views fantastic.

It has been a long trip, apart from Mary less than two months after our wedding. But I feel a unique sense of accomplishment, doing this with the boys just now, doing something I don't think I would be able to do again. The experience brought us together, on a "level playing field": We were each carrying the same backpack, eating the same food and climbing the same steps (I was generally slower than then, climbing up and climbing down).

After a spectacular sunrise over the ruins of the city, we walked around as more tourists started to arrive from all corners of the earth. You could tell the ones who had walked to the place for several days, all dirty and stinky, from the ones who took the train, all clean and mostly wearing bad shoes (even flip-flops!). There was a silent pride in the stink. We then took the train back, then the bus, then walked to our hotel, one with a view of the city of Cusco out the window. A view and a feeling, this morning, that I would not trade for any other.

Conference in Lima, Hike to Machu Picchu

2010-08-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

When I saw the next AMCIS conference would be in Peru I knew I wanted to come. Conferences are a great way to travel places and meet great people, especially when you can take the family along and do something else on the side.

Americas Conference on Information Systems is no exception. Held for the first time in South America, it brought together over 800 people from 47 countries to talk about a variety of topics related with, well, information systems. Numerous parallel tracks make it difficult to choose where to go at any particular time, and all you have is a title and author(s) to go by, so it is either strategic choice or lottery. I presented two papers, one comparing Brazil and South Africa's experiences with public access to Internet, the other one talking about how people's information needs are being met (or not) by public access to computers and the Internet around the world. I also hosted a panel in which we were presenting Latin American experiences on public access to the Internet. Presentations went well, with some good conversation following each one.

But conferences tend to be fairly inefficient ways of actually sharing any knowledge. you bump into people and have short conversations here and there in the halls, at best over meals, and there is never really enough time to get into anything in depth. Work conversations remain at a superficial level, with thoughts and ideas triggered here and there and notes to self to follow up in the future. But future follow up rarely happens, because life goes on. The river goes on, and the present trigger gets lost in the flow of events, like a status update on facebook, gone forever after a few minutes if nobody was watching.

Being in Lima with the boys, though, is quite an experience. They have been mostly on their own at the hotel during the conference, but outside of the conference we have walked around together and visited a few sites. I've been able to spend time and talk with friends, and I've been wondering a lot what they will one day remember of this trip. I was in Peru for the first time when I was about 14, and I have many vague memories, and some pretty intense ones of Cuzco and Machu Picchu. So maybe their best memories will not be of the hotel and the conference, of course, but of what starts later this week.

After a couple more days of work here, analyzing data from another study (working at a local Starbucks, how odd is that!) we take off to Cusco and take on the Inca Trail, a four day hike on the mountains to end in Machu Picchu, one of the most fantastic sites of the Incas in Peru. We've been preparing for that for several weeks (the photos of other hikes in the mountains are part of the preparation), and I hope I will live long enough to see what they will remember of that experience, once the conference and the hotel stay in Lima are long forgotten.

Ghosts at Pike Market

2010-08-12T13:17:00.001-07:00

Last week Mary and I went for a walk in Pike Place Market, the oldest farmer's market in North America. It has a famous fish market that throws fish around when tourists buy them, and lots of little shops and restaurants, each one with its own history and long tradition in the market. We rarely go to Pike Place Market, but on Saturday we felt like going out and seeing people. It was a beautiful afternoon and we strolled through the flower sellers and the fruit shops and handicraft stalls. We shared memories evoked by some of the places, looking for the place where we went to toast when she finally got her divorce. I have a few memories in the Market, like buying cinnamon rolls and the best pears ever with Camila and Anamita a few weeks ago. Mary has many memories. She grew up here so they go back a long time, like taking the bus all the way from Edmonds and spending the afternoon in the market with her friend Janet, when they were in middle school.

When we were walking along the lower levels of the market, browsing through Indian imports near the Magic store (it sells accessories for magic tricks and has been there forever), I felt a ghost. Or Mary thought it could be a ghost. It was like someone driving a screw into my right temple, and threading it down through my shoulder to my right hand, where it exited near my knuckles. I sometimes feel things like that, things I cannot explain. Like when I see auras, or feel the presence of other beings, or just know things I have no way of knowing. This was just the pain. Dull, blue pain from my head to my hand. There was nothing visible that could be causing it, but I could feel it, nonetheless. We walked away from the Indian imports and the pain diminished, but it only went away completely when we were outside again, and we walked some more in the other direction, looking for something to eat.

I had been feeling very tired, exhausted really, and Mary asked me if it was similar to what I had felt before, when I thought I was having a heart attack. It turned out to be the result of hyperventilation, a few months ago
when I was stressed out about my upcoming radiation treatment. I was feeling exhausted and dizzy and short of breath, and when I started to feel pain shooting down my left arm I ended up in the emergency room. It appears it was all anxiety related, that and the other episodes of those weeks after surgery and before radiation for my recurring thyroid cancer. It could well have been more of that, anxiety again in anticipation for my next checkup in a month, but Mary suggested it could also be a ghost. There might be ghosts at Pike Place Market. Who knows?

When we got home she looked it up in the thing that knows it all, the iPad, and we relished in the numerous stories online about ghosts at Pike Market. There is even a ghost tour, twice daily, meeting by the gum wall and walking around the places where ghosts are said to be frequently found.

So we went back the following day, the boys preferred to stay home (too boring or too scared?), looking for a ghost. The gum wall is literal, a wall where people stick their gum. It has the air of a Jackson Pollock painting, although with a different smell. Our tour departed promptly at 7, and the tour guide shared stories of ghosts in the old brothels (prostitute ghosts), the stables (orphans ghosts), the single-men only hotel (gold fever ghosts), the Greek restaurant (hungry ghosts), and of course, the mortuary. There used to be a mortuary, you can still see the old painting on the brick wall: "undertakers"). At the time of the flu, when there were more dead bodies than what people knew what to do with, many were cremated right there at the mortuary. The embalming room is now an Irish pub. But the main entrance to the mortuary is still vacant, no business prospers there, as there are too many ghosts (bring your business here to die, said the tour guide).

When we went near the Indian imports place I felt a faint pain on my hand, but I guess there were too many ghost-hunting tourists and my ghost preferred to go somewhere else. So we finished the tour and went to the place where we had toasted the day Mary's divorce. We had a glass of wine on the terrace, overlooking the Puget Sound. I was not hyperventilating, and there was no ghost of marriages from the past. That is how we celebrated the first month anniversary of our wedding.

Cedar Butte

2010-08-06T10:34:00.001-07:00

Hike in Mt Rainier

2010-08-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

Rattlesnake ledge

2010-07-29T15:03:00.001-07:00

Family Honeymoon in Paris

2010-07-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

Blended family wedding

2010-07-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

Wedding with fireworks

2010-07-05T23:30:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic wedding celebration with friends and family on July 4, ending with fireworks by the water at Harmony Hill. The place was a beautiful choice, both for it's beauty and the kindness if it's people, and also to give a new meaning to it: celebrating life and love.

We had a simple ceremony by KT, unitarian minister, in which we exchanged vows and lit sparklers to symbolize the unity of the new blended family.

I stand before you because you have won my heart through your graciousness.
You are my life partner, the one I pledge my life and love to.
From this day forward, I promise to love, respect, and honor you.
I will listen to you, and be open and honest with you.
I will be your trusted partner and stand by you through good times and bad.
I promise this now and for all the days of my life.

We then partied all afternoon, with good argentinean wine, varied music, and lots of smiles and hugs. See photos.

All this had been preceded by weekend with both extended families, staying at Harmony Hill, and a few days with the Gomez extended family and friends from abroad, at a house in Harstene Pointe on the Hood canal.

The wedding was an amazing celebration. Thank you all for being with us.

Words at the Relay For Life, Issaquah, Luminaria Ceremony

2010-06-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

These are some words I said last night at the Luminaria Ceremony at the Relay for Life in Issaquah, where Jann organized a birthday party for me (again!):

Thank you for coming to my birthday party!

One of the things I’ve learned dealing with cancer is that we do not lose the capacity to celebrate. Cancer does not ask if it can come in, it forces itself upon us with all its ugly faces. But life does ask us if we want to celebrate its gifts, and sometimes we are silly enough to say no, to pass on opportunities to celebrate. So one of the things I have learned it to say yes to celebrations.

I love the luminaria ceremony because it lights up our memories of loved ones we have lost to cancer, and it honors the battles of those of us who are living with cancer. I love the silent walk around the track, thinking about the stories of each one of the names and faces on each fragile paper bag with the light of life inside it.

I want to share with you some of my own stories with cancer, but especially, some of the things I have learned about life and death with cancer.

Four and a half years ago, just a few months after we had moved here from Ottawa, Canada, with my wife Claudia and three kids, Claudia was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer and given six months to live. She battled bravely until she died two years later, in peace, with me by her side. I was her caregiver and companion during the last two years of her life, while she faced treatment and, ultimately, death.

I started a blog when she was diagnosed, initially as a way to communicate easily with friends and family about what was going on without having to answer the phone or send out a lot of emails repeating the news of what had happened that day or what were the test results. During that time I learned to live in the present, to celebrate any opportunity available, and to give thanks for all the love and support of a caring community around us.

Caring for Claudia as she battled and died of cancer was probably the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. But although her life ended, my life, and the lives of my kids, did not end with her death. We carry her in our hearts and in our memories, but our lives go on. We even talked about this with Claudia before she died. She designed her own memorial service, a beautiful service at the Eastshore Unitarian Church that had so warmly received and supported us here in our new home.

Less than a year later, as I was rebuilding my life after grieving Claudia’s death, my girlfriend Mary found a lump in my neck that turned out to be thyroid cancer, which had spread to the lymph nodes. Unlike with Claudia’s cancer, my life was not in danger since thyroid cancer is very curable. But as we all know, dealing with cancer treatment and uncertainty is never easy. I had two surgeries and a radiation treatment, but cancer came back a year later, leading me into more surgery and radiation. Maybe I had to learn the lessons of breathing in the present, celebrating life, and being thankful for all of life’s gifts, all over again.

Throughout this time, I continued to write on the blog, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less. The blog turned out to be much more than a tool to inform people about Claudia’s progress, or later, about my own progress. Writing on the blog became my therapy and my window of conversation with friends, real or imaginary. Some people around the world found in it something I never intended: inspiration. I am now publishing a book based on the blog of my journey through cancer.

And I am now on the other side of cancer, after a new round of radiation that ended three months ago. I will have another test in about two months, and we all know how we dread the results of those tests.

But I am turning a corner: life is smiling upon us as Mary and I prepare to be married in two months. After living together for a year the stress of blending families is subsiding and my last test results show that my cancer may be gone, or at least under control. As our wedding date approaches, I come to celebrate my birthday with all of you. Mary even stayed from a business trip in order to be here tonight, and celebrate as well.

So as we walk around the track in the dark, I invite you to hold in your hearts the memories of all those who have died to cancer, to honor the lives of all those who are living with cancer, and to celebrate that life goes on. One breath at a time, one step at a time, life goes on.

One celebration at a time.

For More Birthdays

2010-05-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday. And tomorrow too.
Maybe I turn 23 each day, for my current total of 46.

My mom always said I was born on May 28, but my documents said May 29. After battling for several years about which one to celebrate, when I turned 17 I came to the brilliant conclusion I should just celebrate them both.That is why I have two birthdays.

This weekend we go to Seabeck, where Mary and I met for the first time three years ago after our kids played soccer together, and then saw each other again two years ago... we are getting married on July 4, thanks to Seabeck. So we go there to celebrate my birthday.

Next weekend, Relay for Life this year also has a birthday theme: For More Birthdays. Relay for Life celebrates cancer survivors, remembers those who have died of cancer, and raises funds for cancer research and support. Jan is again organizing a team this year... actually three teams, as the first ones are full. We will celebrate my birthday (again, why not?) at the Relay for Life in Issaquah. Come join us and celebrate!

Here are the details Jan prepared, check out her team site:

Survivors and their Caregivers always open the event with the initial lap, as they are cheered for by the Relay participants lining the track. If you can be there at noon for this part of the event, it’d be great!
Please invite any cancer survivors you know to come to the event and let’s cheer them on!! If they go to the Relay website (www.issaquahrelayforlife.org) and register as a SURVIVOR, they should get a tshirt and a medal. There is a survivor social after this initial lap.

Since the theme of this year’s event is MORE BIRTHDAYS, we will be having a bigger than usual celebration for the birthday of our teammate, Ricardo Gomez at 1:30 at our tent site. Ricardo’s birthday means more than ever this year as he continues a successful battle with thyroid cancer. This celebration will be open to anyone that we invite…so spread the word! And bring your favorite birthday hat, if you have one!!

The luminary ceremony at 10:00 will honor people who are cancer survivors and those who are currently battling cancer. It’s also a time to remember those who have lost the battle. The luminary that line the track have the names of all of these people and are decorated ahead of time, often by school children, or you can decorate your own the day of the event. If you have names of people that you want to be sure are honored with a luminaria, please send them to me and I will submit them for our team. (I have already submitted the names listed on our team Relay websites) There is also a slide show planned for some time around the luminary ceremony. If you have pictures you’d like to submit to include in the slideshow, you can email them directly to issaquahrflphotos@live.com. In the body of the email, please include any personal information or message you would like displayed with the photo and also if it is in Memory of or in Honor of the person in the photo.

and may there be many more birtdhays to come, on both May 28 and May 29.

Mother's day 2010

2010-05-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Mateo baked chocolate chip cookies for Mary on mother's day. Tomas gave her a drawing he made in school.
I think we will be OK.

Coming of Age: life transitions

2010-04-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Tomas came back today from a Coming of Age celebration that marks his initiation into being a youth. No longer a child, not yet an adult. The coming of age process took several months with a group and a mentor: they talked about what this all means, and they prepared symbols to mark the transition. Rituals included a lunch in which he prepared my food and fed me (I had to remain the whole time sitting on my hands), and decorating a face mask made in paper from his own face, then filled with plaster. The paper face, representing his childhood self, was burnt as part of the final celebration this weekend. This burning had been preceded by a sweat lodge with the group to cleanse body and spirit, and was followed by a day alone in the woods. In the woods he decorated the plaster mask, representing his new youth self. He then came back home a new person, and we negotiated new privileges and new responsibilities as part of the family.

This has been a beautiful process of acknowledging life transitions, helping him mark the beginning of a new time in life, helping him give it meaning. I'm not sure how much he will acknowledge of this right now, but I hope he does remember it and finds meaning in it some day in the future.

I stand by the window in our living room and watch our neighbors across the street. Their son is 22, and has had cancer since he was 7. He has lived bravely, but is now at the end of the rope, in hospice care to help manage the pain, and to help his life transition. I came by earlier to bring him some chocolates and a visit with Kali, the dog, but he has not been doing well. His dad takes the chocolates with teary eyes that show deep sorrow. I may not see the boy alive again. I look out the window and watch their drawn curtains, and wonder what is going on in their minds and hearts just now, as they go through the death of their son.

I spoke to my doctor this week. My tumor markers are going down, after surgery and radiation. This is fantastic news, and we celebrate with a bottle of champagne at home. Even the boys get to drink a bit, in celebration of my own rite of passage, my own life transition.

I will get well, I will live.

I've been thinking of the whole circle of life transitions that I've been writing about in this blog, and I decided to look into the possibility of publishing it as a book, an idea several friends and readers have suggested. We will see where this leads to. Maybe it will be a celebration of life and its transitions, one that others can participate in.

And the, there is peace.

Teasing the Dragon: a normal life?

2010-04-15T22:14:00.000-07:00

Is there anything like normal life after cancer?

I wondered many times over the past few years how I could maintain a semblance of normal for the kids, in the middle of the turmoil of cancer, first Claudia's, then my own. This past week has been a gift of those days, a semblance of normal that I have deeply enjoyed: coming home to find the house filled with the smell of fresh baked cookies by Mateo, who is trying to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Or coming home to work with the background music of Tomas practicing his guitar, or Mateo practicing the piano, or both of them with Reed playing and singing Hey Jude. Or coming home to cook empanadas, waiting for Mary and the kids to come home, looking forward to an evening together, stories of the day, silence in the night.

Gifts like these give me a pleasure that is hard to describe. Coupled with my feeling of renewed strength and energy after radiation and the side effects of stress (dizziness, nausea), I'm living as if on a cloud, a surreal sense of normal, daily life that I had forgotten how it felt.

And I fear writing about it, fearing to awaken the dragons. But I go ahead and write. Again, I write. I share and rejoice with you, as I have shared and cried with you. Life is a precious gift.

Birthdays: Tomas turns 14

2010-04-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Tomas turns 14. He has grown, he has matured, he is flourishing. His friends from Bellevue are coming over by surprise. We have a new guitar for him. He is playing well, enjoying the connection. He is awkward in his big body. He has a beautiful smile. He wrote on his Facebook page: "Helmets save lives. Its true. Some people say its not cool, but I like living not dieing..." He knows.

I have a hard time believing he is 14. At 14 I had my first girlfriend, though we never kissed; I had a dirt bike, till I broke my hand; I moved from the Cajica to Bogota, and it changed my life.

14 years ago we had just moved from Ithaca, NY, to Montreal, Canada. Claudia had been diagnosed with a rare lymphoma and needed treatment after delivering the baby. I had finished my doctoral courses and was doing my general exam. There was a full moon eclipse. Camila was five, starting to read and write.

One year ago we moved from Bellevue to Seattle. While settling in with a new blended family with Mary and her kids, I was driving the boys back and forth to school in Bellevue every day, and I had no energy to do anything else. I later learned I had mono.

One year. Fourteen years. Time is relative.
Cajica, Bogota. Ithaca, Montreal. Bellevue, Seattle. I've lived in fourteen cities. Place is relative.

Life is one, and many. What is that deep connection that keeps it all together? What is the profound source of energy for all things, beyond time, beyond place? beyond death?

The mystery, contained in each birthday. In each breath. In each move. In each death.

Good Friday

2010-04-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was April Fool's day, and today is Good Friday. Easter has a combination of traditions that make it very unique. In the Catholic tradition nothing moves on Friday (why is it called "good" friday?) and in many places they don't even cook or do dishes, that is also considered work. But today I'm teaching, and today is the end of Spring break for Seattle schools.

This quarter I'm teaching a new class on a topic I've been working on for many years now, the use of information and communication technologies in international development, now known as ICTD. I have a great group of graduate students from different schools and departments, different backgrounds and interests, and I'm offering a "guided tour" that starts asking questions about what type of communication and what type of development are we talking about. With such a broad and loaded field, everybody is not on the same boat.

This week of spring break, which this year coincides with Easter week, has been unusually intense. Especially because I'm just recovering my energy after the radiation treatment the last couple of weeks, looking for ways to undo the stress of uncertainty of cancer, and still trying to be productive. While the kids have been off school this week (again!) and Mary took her kids for a couple of days on the San Juan islands, I initiated the process to put together a book to be published next year, I completed and submitted a paper and two abstracts for conferences toward the end of this year, and received feedback for two other papers I had submitted for journal publication last year. All this on top of starting a new course this quarter, and working on other papers that are ongoing. What a unique process of multitasking, academic life. I'm glad not all weeks are as intense as this "break" week. Not all days as loaded as this "dead" good Friday.

I think of other friends in Latin America, where everything shuts down for vacation this week. At least there no were pranks on April Fool's day at home. We all forgot about it.

Breathing under a magnolia tree

2010-03-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

I saw the doctors, both of them. Then I stood under the magnolia tree to smile.

Nuclear medicine reports that there is nothing visible in my scans after radiation. The black spots are the salivary glands, normal stuff, and the dark shadow on the liver is also normal, it is the one processing the stuff. Not to worry.

This can mean that:

1. no cancer is visible because there is no cancer left.
2. no cancer is visible because whatever is left is too small to see.
3. no cancer is visible because it is resistant to radiation.

In any case, the result is that I don't need anything else done just now, but a close follow up in the next few months, which can turn to years. If things do return, or do become visible again, we will deal with them at that time.

On the other visit, I saw my family doctor yesterday, to try to figure out what is causing all these other symptoms, most notably the dizziness and nausea. After some conversation, and looking at all the tests that have been done which rule out many things, the most plausible explanation is a common form of anxiety that manifests itself in hyperventilation: a small change in the breathing pattern, which ends up changing the Ph of the blood, which ends up causing all these symptoms. The cause: anxiety and stress. I wonder where these would come from. The strange thing is to think your body is doing all that and you don't even notice it, but you do notice the effects.

In the end, I figured that the black spots in the other picture were actually a picture of stress. Why not? Maybe I just need to remember the simple thing, breathe in, breathe out, repeat. One step at a time. One day at a time.

I went out for lunch with Mary, and then went and bought a couple of fruit trees, to plant in celebration of life, and a rhododendron, with pink flowers in bloom. Maybe you should all do the same. We will have more fruit, and more flowers to share for years to come.

Instant Images

2010-03-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

These are images taken this morning, one week after I-131 radiation. I wonder what the specialists have to say about them.

It is pretty amazing to have this kind of view of myself, from the inside out. I would rather not have those dark shadows there.

What if counselors and psychotherapists could get this kind of visual of the stuff they are looking for in people's minds?

Retreat

2010-03-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

We're back from the wellness retreat at Harmony Hill, an intense and beautiful couple of days of re-energizing and healing. Harmony Hill is an amazing place, and it was strangely intense to be there in a retreat, this time as a patient with cancer, this time with Mary as a caregiver companion, and this time planning in anticipation of our wedding in July. All three layers converging there at the same time, and the Hill did fantastically well with all three.

I continue to be cold and dizzy, especially after mid morning and into the evening; this did not prevent me from participating in the intense conversations and sessions of the retreat. I will have final scans after radiation tomorrow and talk to the doctor about results on friday; I will also start looking at what can be causing all this with my general doctor. I also took Tomas to the doctor this morning, and he was cleared to go back to sports: last chance of snowboarding and last couple of games of soccer the next two weekends.

I notice that the two previous postings, sent from my phone, lost the bit of text I had written with the pictures for each. I guess it was not as important.

Out

2010-03-20T15:27:00.001-07:00

In a lead-lined room, with a view

2010-03-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

Time to plant flowering trees

2010-03-15T18:17:00.000-07:00

Magnolias are in bloom all around town, and today we planted our very own. When things get tough it is good to plant a flowering tree.

This weekend I could not stay away from the hospital: ended up in the emergency room with chest pain and shortness of breath that the doctor thought might be a heart attack. It was not, they confirmed after numerous tests that made me miss Mateo and Reed's soccer game.

Last Friday was way better, nonetheless. It was the last day of classes in the quarter, and my students had a big bag with all sorts of trinkets and passtimes (a puzzle, a notebook, pencils and sharpener, silly putty, sudokus, juggling balls, bouncy ball, etc) for my hospital stay this week. We had a beautiful celebration with potluck and all, which they suggested, and then I even stayed for happy hour with beer on the Av, something I had not done in a long time. It felt good to be out and to see them outside the classroom, after the stresses and joys of the quarter were over.

My dizziness and nausea continues, so does the chest pain, but at least we know it is not a heart attack, or a stroke, or a brain tumor... who knows what is causing this, it might just be anxiety. Where does all this stress go? Downstream. Turned into flowers in the garden. Magnolia in bloom.

A couple of rough weeks

2010-03-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

The last couple of weeks have been rough, and the next two will be rough as well, but differently.

Last two weeks I had bad dizziness and nausea, torn between wanting to throw up or faint. No relation with food, sleep, sugar, activity or other, I ended up going to the doctor who ordered a brain MRI, just in case. Nothing. At least there is nothing there (not even a brain?). It is starting to get better now.

Mary was away on business travel, which made it especially difficult. To add some spice, Tomas went snowboarding with friends on Wednesday, fell, and had a concussion. He was probably doing another jump like the one on the picture (that is him), which I took last weekend wondering whether I would faint or throw up. He does not remember anything about the fall. After my MRI I took him to see the doctor too. He did not have an MRI, but he is barred from exercise or sports. It is the week of State Cup for his soccer team, who is now looking for a substitute goalkeeper. He is also barred from snowboarding for a while, and there are only a few weeks of snow left in the mountains this year. Thanks to Lois for getting the boys such cool helmets last Xmas. It may have saved his life.

Next two weeks will be tough, too. I started the process for radiation, see if we get rid of any remnants of this cancer, small things that might have been left behind from surgery. I had a first thyrogen shot yesterday, and will have a second one today... Tomorrow I get a small dose of radioactive iodine followed by many pictures (CT scans) to see how the body takes it in, processes it and then lets it out again. Based on this they will determine what is the best dose of radioactive iodine for my body. Next week I will again have thyrogen shots on Monday and Tuesday, followed by the right dose of radioactive iodine on Wednesday. I have to stay three days in the hospital, radioactive, glowing in the dark. Same as I had last year. But different. It is likely to be a far higher dose. Maybe the picture won't need the halo effect added.

I'm standing right in between the two weeks that went by, and the two weeks to come. Time is like that. You are always in the present. Cancer makes you more aware of that, though. The present is all we have.

Minutos a 200

2010-02-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

A visit to Colombia

2010-02-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

This time the trip was mostly focused on work, but we did manage to see friends, and especially, Camila, who is doing great in school. Here are some of my field notes, that will slowly evolve into other papers...

Libraries in Medellin and Bogota are leading the pack, by far, and at the forefront of national law for public libraries, just passed by congress 1 month ago. Implementation includes strengthening all public libraries in the country, not just the showcase ones in Bogota and Medellin, and plans for a National digital library. Libraries in Medellin have been very successful in reaching out to underserved populations with top of the line facilities including free internet access and training ("the best facilities for the poorest people", in the words of the director of the Pilot Public Library in Medellin), establishing fantastic branches of libraries in neighborhoods that not even the police would venture into, with observable changes in the communities (reduction of crime, businesses starting, pride and sense of ownership of the library, there are now even banks in those neighborhoods, plus numerous cybercafés around the library). Outside the showcase of Medellin and Bogota, public libraries are quite dismal, and very small player in the public access ICT scene: two slow computers here, closed for lack of funds there, but pride in offering free access and safe place for kids.

Telecentres are mostly represented by government-sponsored Compartel, which offers training and reduced rates for access in few sites. For example, roughly two telecentres, one library, and about 35 cybercafes in a small town.... Public access internet is relatively cheap in cybercafes, under US$1 per hour, and many use it in shorter increments. They are scattered all around town, mostly close to main square. Telecentres tend to be in schools or community organizations, and focus more on training than on public access. In fact, one of the telecentres participating in the workshops does not even offer public access, only training, and only to people affiliated with a community organization. They can then go use their acquired skills in one of many cybercafés. The two slow computers in the public library are virtually ignored by all except very poor kids after school.

Use of public access computers is mostly focused on facebook and chat. Quite unanimous. Email and internet browsing in general, for entertainment and personal communication go second. A far third is doing government paperwork (licensing, certificates, etc) or applying for jobs. Porn is, nonetheless, pervasive and a topic of much conversation.

The explosion of the past few years, nonetheless, has been mobile phones. Hundreds of them offered as public access, pay per use service. Dirt cheap. Mobile phones are everywhere, boosted by a logic that favors public access to place calls (pay per call) combined with private ownership of phone to receive calls (incoming calls are free). Most people do not have minutes of their own to place calls, or run out of them quickly, so they go to public access cell phone stall, person, candy shop, drug store, shoe polisher, cybercafé etc to buy calls by the minute, or to refill minutes in their phone (starting at US$0.25 refill, roughly 5 min outgoing call). I have some pretty good photos of this phenomenon all over the place, labeled "minutes for sale". The joke was I wanted to buy many minutes so I could live longer.

One of the discussions in the info ecology workshops was telling about the relation between mobile phones and internet: none of the participants had ever used data on a cell phone, only one of them knew of someone who did (one who works at an international organization that pays for his phone plan), although all of them knew it was available. Reasons? Too expensive, too small screen, much easier to go to a cybercafé. Even use of text message is limited, given the logic of placing calls in public phone and receiving them in private phone... I don't see much opportunity in the very near future to make widespread use of internet access via mobile, or to migrate ICT4D to M4D any time soon...

Interesting insight around the issue of violence and conflict in Colombia. Medellin claims libraries have helped reduce violence. But one of the towns we worked in, on the Northern coast, has seen its share of violence in the past two decades, including one of the most vicious massacres in Colombian history ten years ago in El Salado (one of over 2000 documented massacres in the country), tenth anniversary on the week we were there. Little public acknowledgement of any interaction between public access ICT and violence, although some indication of community initiatives in communication (radio, tv, and to a lesser extent, internet) in building social fabric. Very powerful initiatives in recovering historical memory of violence, justice and reparation to victims, including use of video. ME, Camila's mom, is active in that work as well.

Two years anniversary

2010-01-26T15:47:00.000-08:00

Sunday came and went. And I could not get the boys to sit and watch the slide show of Claudia's pictures, which is the minimum I could get them interested in for an anniversary celebration. Two years since Claudia's last breath. And so much has gone by that it feels like twenty.

I found a way of importing first blog, Share Claudia's Health, and also another blog I had set up with a collection of photos from the past, all combined into this one. It is now all contained in a single place. Four years of intimate, public journal of life, love and cancer. Twenty years of pictures.

I wish I could also import the four years of blog entries waiting ahead... what are the next twenty years of photos. I guess we have to wait and take it one step at a time. One breath at a time. Like iguanas. They can just sit in the sun and wait.

A damper on the horizon

2010-01-12T15:17:00.000-08:00

Timing is everything. About half an hour after I posted the previous message I got a call from my doctor, followed by several calls from the hospital to schedule different tests. It turns out that the doctors discussed my case and agreed more testing was warranted before jumping to the conclusion that all is fine and dandy. So I have now scheduled 19 different appointments between tomorrow and end of March: CT scan, thyrogen shots, dosimetry scans to assess safe amount of radiation, blood tests, more thyrogen shots, 3-day radioactive iodine treatment, post-radiation scans, and final assessment.

I hope at the end of all this I will be able to confirm that the doctor's hunch that all is good now was in fact true. Even if I have to go through this labyrinth of tests and scans in the weeks to come.

In between, there will be a short visit to Urbana-Champaign to visit JAS and family, as part of the iConference 2010, followed by a short visit to Colombia, to do some interviews and workshops as part of ongoing research on telecentres, libraries and cybercafes. I go alone to Illinois, but I go with Mary and the boys to Colombia, it is their winter break.We start dreaming of places to go during spring break, after all these tests are done!

Is cancer gone?

2010-01-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

With cautious optimism my doctor told me I may not need more radiation after all... results of last surgery appear to be that good! Suspicious nodes had no cancer, and the big lump that caused problem behind the jugular vein, which was completely removed, appears to be the only piece that had any cancer, according to pathology. I'm feeling great, and it is possible that no further treatment will be necessary, at least for a while. A long while, hopefully.

I shared the news last night at dinner, and each of the kids had their own good news to add:

- Only two more days to my birthday! (Isabel, almost 7)
- Ski program with school starts tomorrow! (all boys)

We all have our own dimension of what constitutes good news. This picture of the beach (in Cozumel, just last week) is an image of what I want the rest of this year to be like. Beautiful, warm, peaceful... with some waves, but not strong enough to tumble you.

Camila is walking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu this week. Too bad she is not keeping her travel blog any more.

Life cycles

2009-12-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my "auntie" Natalia died, and my cousin's daughter, Ana Leonor, was born. Both surrounded by love and family, each at opposite ends of the mysterious cycle of life.

Natalia died after battling esophageal cancer for over two years. She was a potter and the mom of my lifetime friend, Nicolas. We saw her last in February, thin and smiling in Sopó, Colombia. We all knew her days were counted, we just did not know how many. She had some more chemo after that, especially after learning that her brother also had cancer, and she did not want to die before him. The last few days Nicolas and his family, his sisters and their families, were all around her, celebrating her life. Today they took her body to be cremated, the last pass by the furnace of life, her last pottery creation.

At about that same time Natanya and Juan Antonio got pregnant with Ana, and started counting the days to turn sperm and egg into live cell that divides and specializes, forms bone and muscle, heart and lung, nose and ears. They live in Illinois as a result of a string of impossible coincidences, where Juan is about to finish his doctoral dissertation. They counted the toes and started sharing pictures online right away.

Today we went to Christmas service at the Unitarian church, where they were "naming" three new kids in the congregation. They were blessed with water and the touch of a rose, to grow up to a life of love and service to humanity. I was welcoming Ana, and bidding farewell to Natalia.

End of Year Collage

2009-11-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

Dear friends

The end of the year is near, there are Christmas carols in the air, and it is time to extend our virtual hug to all friends and family around the globe.

This was an intense year for us, marked by the decision to blend our families and move in together to a new home in April. We found a spacious and well lit house in the Maple Leaf neighborhood, north of the University of Washington in Seattle, with room for each one and a back yard to play volleyball and croquet, and of course, some soccer. That is not all; we have set a date for our wedding next summer, on July 4. We will have fireworks for our anniversaries.

The adjustment has been difficult at times, but overall things are falling into place quite well. Isabel started first grade and lost her first tooth, started with her own soccer team, and learns to sleep by herself. Camila had 5 months of life-changing travel in India and Nepal, and after losing all four wisdom teeth she went to Bogota to start first year of college. She is thriving with the experience, opening up to life with a big heart and a big smile.

Reed, Mateo and Tomas are all in middle school (6, 7 and 8^th grades), and although Mateo is in a different school due to the bizarre school assignment process in Seattle, they are all finding their place in school and enjoying their Premier Soccer experience: Reed and Tomas are goalkeepers, and Mateo switches between midfield and forward. The intense soccer sometimes drives us crazy, with practices and games at different times and different fields in the region, but it keeps them busy, focused and in shape. Music is now playing a fairly minor role for all of them, with Reed and Mateo playing the sax and Tomas the trumpet.

Mary took on a larger job at Getty Images, managing the whole search strategy (all the stuff that has to happen so that people around the world type in words in their language and find the images they are looking for), and ends the year with an injured knee that has prevented her from playing soccer with her “women over 40” team again. Ricardo continues to enjoy teaching and research at the University of Washington, and continues to put a fight against the recalcitrant thyroid cancer that came back and needed two more surgeries in November.

Kali, the newest member of the family, is a sweet black lab that loves to be petted and pampered. She has been fantastic glue for the emotional bonds in all the kids in the family. Mary’s two old cats, Eddy and Riffle, have been having a hard time adjusting to the new house and the new dog. They are really getting old now.

We had some good camping and hiking trips this year, including a visit to Colombia with Mary in February, family reunions and a wedding in Mary’s family in Seattle, and a week at the cottage in the lake followed by Alejo’s wedding in Ottawa.

We look forward to a good and joyful 2010, with lots of soccer (world cup coming up), love and celebrations (wedding coming up). May you all have happiness and peace, and may you all join us in celebration of life.

Ricardo & Mary; Camila, Tomas & Mateo; Reed & Isabel; Kali, Eddy and Riffle

In Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T13:56:00.000-08:00

It is the day before thanksgiving. Never too soon to give thanks.

Thanks to all who have been writing and calling (and praying and lighting candles and singing and...). I cannot reciprocate to each one of you, but you are all in my heart and spirit. You make my load lighter, my path easier, my steps firmer.

Thanks to the doctors and medical team, who did a fantastic job with two surgeries over two days, and I went home on the third day. I've been recovering amazingly well, full of energy and enthusiasm as if life had been given back to me.

My incision is healing beautifully, stitches came out yesterday and all is going well. Pathology confirmed metastatic cancer in the tumors on the jugular vein, but no cancer inthe other lymph nodes that were looking suspicious. Talk about radiation therapy starts next week.

Thanks to my mom who came on a minute's notice, thinking the second surgery would be far more complicated, thinking we were in for a rocky ride. She is now back home with Christmas shopping done, and a better smile after a few days here with us.

Thanks to my friends, colleagues and students, who have welcomed me back to work with applause, care and concern. I was at the faculty meeting Monday morning, met with students Tuesday, taught class Wednesday... as if life was back to normal. It is.

Thanks to Mary, and thanks to each one of the kids, for being with me every inch of the way. We've grown closer and explored new territories in our relationships as a result of the adventures of the past few days.

We prepare for Thanksgiving tomorrow, a special family celebration in the US at this time of the year. In Canada it happens earlier, in October, and in the rest of the world it does not really happen. We will be with Mary's family in celebration, and they will learn more details of our wedding plans, scheduled for July 4, 2010. Plenty of time to plan for that celebration.

There, it is out. Life is good. We will have fireworks for our anniversaries.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ready to go home

2009-11-18T06:52:00.000-08:00

It is morning, and second surgery was successful, without even having to open the chest. Mary slept in the hospital and took the picture for the blog. Life is a work of fiction.

The resident doctors came by in a group and said I had surgery special, two for the price of one. I'm sure they will bill for both. We're going home later today.

update on 2nd surgery

2009-11-17T17:57:00.001-08:00

Hi, Mary here again. Ricardo is out of surgery and in recovery. I just talked to the surgeon, and they did not have to break his sternum, hoorah! He said it was a very typical tumor in a very unusual place. I'll stay at the hospital tonight, Rosario will be at our home with the boys, and tomorrow will be a day of recovery.
Take care everyone,
Mary

Between Surgeries

2009-11-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

Mary posted a note after surgery, I now write from the other side of night, where the wild things are. It was a long night with little sleep. On the tenth time they came to check my pressure and pulse I asked if I could use a computer somewhere, and to my surprise, yes, I can use the computer right here in the room, which I thought was locked for medical use. So I read email messages you all have sent, and I write to your all, echoing Jann's words on the phone: enough is enough!

The doctor started what was supposed to be a simple procedure to take out some more tumors on the left side of the neck. It started to get complicated when he found everything inside is very tightly fused together after last surgery: "You scar well", he said. Made me think of all the scabs I peeled off my arms and legs as a kid, mosquito bites I would scratch till they bled, which fortunately scarred well. He finally cut through and found the nerves he needed to protect, the clips of where past tumors had been, and the new tumors (or old ones, missed?) down low, around the jugular vein. Surprise, the tumors were not nice and loose, but tightly glued to the vein. the 1% additional complication, further complicated by the fact they are low in the neck, actually behind the bones, which makes it even more difficult to work with. So he tried to scrape the tumor off, worked on it for an hour, and got just a bit. But got more and more worried that he could not easily control any complications that deep into the chest, and piercing through the jugular or the chyle can be a problem. A bad problem. So he decided to stop and call on a cardiovascular surgeon, who knows how to work in that region, and finish the surgery with him. Later.

Quick stitches to hold things together and schedule a new operating room, a bigger medical team, and time to cut open into the chest. Most likely through the sternum.

The initial plan was to do it Wednseday, as Mary reported, but when I said I would like to go home and come back then, he changed course and found a way to book it all for today. I guess he did not like the idea of me running around lifting heavy things and playing soccer with such a temporary closure to the incision, and he did not like the idea of the incision to start healing (I scar well) and make it more difficult to pick up from where he left. So I'm going back in later today.

I feel good, painkillers keeping things at bay, and I'm no longer as scared as I was before the surgery. I had not wanted to write here in the blog about being scared before... self censorship? But I wrote to several of you. Not sure what I was scared about, since it was supposed to be an easy repeat. But there was something bugging me. Now that I know what the complication is like, I'm no longer scared. Uncertain, yes. Pissed, maybe. Why is this happening to me? When will this end?

Things end the day they end. We all got a ticket to that day, but we don't know when it is. Not even Claudia, who died a week after the date stamped on her ticket. We talked with Mary about death, and about the blessing of life together, short time for now. We want it to be much longer. The kids have had enough, too. The boys did not want to answer the phone yesterday (they really don't like to speak on the phone, they mostly text and facebook, even though I resented them for not sending a single text or facebook message while I was in Italy), but they came this morning before school, and then said they wanted to stay with me. Camila is far away, but we are in close contact by phone. My mom is traveling today, arrives tonight, mostly to help out with the boys at home.

Receiving help. Asking for help. Accepting help. The circle of life.
Writing on the blog. Receiving messages from around the world. Friendship.

Thank you all for being close by, for the prayers and candles and good wishes and offers to help. The path is so much better with you on board.

Surgery update

2009-11-16T12:40:00.001-08:00

Hi all, mary here.
Ricardo is out of surgery and recovering fine. However, the surgery couldn't be completed because the tumor is sticking to his jugglar (sp?) vein, so they need to go back in on wednesday from a different angle. The surgeon assured me it's very do-able, but needs a cardiac surgeon who is accustomed to working with veins. So damn, not as straightforward as we wished.
Unfortunately there is no cell phone coverage in the recovery area, but there should be once he's in a room, in a few hours.
Camila, got your voice mail, and your dad will call you once he's in the room.
Have to say, as usual, he's upbeat and charming, even while wearing that silly gown.
Mary

Preparing for surgery again

2009-11-12T19:23:00.000-08:00

After enjoying the food, sights and company in Rome (many statues had the same scar I have, it seems thyroid cancer was common in Roman times), I'm back home to get ready for more surgery, again. Same surgery, different context. Life plays games.

I asked the surgeon today, during the pre-op session at the hospital, if he would not put a velcro strap to make it easier to access. It is the same surgery as the first time around a year ago, going into the left side and taking out whatever they can get that looks suspicious, knowing that there are several nodes with confirmed cancer. It is more difficult, he explained, because of scar tissue and higher risk of complications. I know what comes ahead, I've been there, and I know to stay away from the meds that gave me hallucinations last year. Funny that the blog becomes my record of what those meds were, so I can let the doctors know, since I'm with new doctors and in new hospital.

I've been having a bad throat pain when swallowing, remnants of the cold or flu of a few weeks ago, and I was waiting for today's visit to the doctor to have it tested. Even though I was at the hospital they could not test it there, so I had to go to my general doctor to take a look. All afternoon with doctors, once again. It turns out I may have a throat infection, no reason to worry, except that it is just before surgery, and just following what seems like swine flu... so it appears I had swine flu after all, and it is likely that both Tomas and Mateo had it as well. They are not testing for it any more, since over 90% of the cases are turning out positive for swine flu, and the majority of them just go away after a few days. A few cause more complications with throat, sinus or lungs. Very rare ones lead to serious complications. My throat ache may be just a small complication of swine flu, just before neck surgery for recurrent cancer. What are the odds of that!

Camila had a pain in her knee and went to see the doctor, fearing recurrence of her bone tumor. It was just the result of her intense training for half marathon, which she continues to do with much enthusiasm. She will need some more physical therapy and better muscle conditioning, that is all. No hint of recurrent tumor.

It's all about the food

2009-11-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

First day in Italy. After watching Julia and Julie during the flight, I come out with an enhanced awareness of cooking for the family (I will want to use more cookbooks from now on) and a new awareness of eating, of course. Not a bad thing to do when you are coming to Italy. The movie is about a girl who wants to cook all recipes in Julia Child's cookbook in the course of a year and write a blog about it. In the end she gets it published (and it turns into a movie). It makes me think once again of having the blog published. Who would read it? Who would be interested in anything like it?

I arrived in Prato, near Florence, after a whole day of travel eating cheese and tomato sandwiches at airports. I went out to walk around the medieval town and to look for ice cream. Gelato. The dessert of the Gods. It is about 7 am back home, but here it is after lunch, good time to have gelato. I have two, one after the other. Why not?

Then, after some conference business, there is food. I'm falling asleep at the table, jetlag rampant, but not before I enjoy appetizers of bruschettas: bread with cheese, condiments, tomato. Why do they do them so well here, and so lame everywhere else? After appetizers there is dinner. It takes over half hour to get all the orders straight, from the waiter's perspective, for a disparate group of 7 who all want to speak a different language. I ordered pasta with turkey (something "faraona") followed by rabbit, a difficult choice given my avoidance of meats that come from four-legged animals, which make me the most sick. But I did well with the rabbit, which was really memorable.

Food is why you come to Italy. The wine is an added bonus. Any house wine will do. They are all good. I guess when I first wrote this entry I was a bit too drunk with good wine, because it was mostly unintelligible. I am now rewriting some of it for clarity, and adding some details for texture... like saying that dinner today had a fantastic octopus and a most memorable risotto.

This is the conference, Community Informatics, and it even has a twitter hash tag, #cirnprato09, for those who enjoy that kind of noise. I'm still not convinced there is much value in twitter as a form of meaningful communication, but I'm open to be proven wrong. We joked at the table about how many of the people who are active on Twitter have kids and jobs and life: where do you fit time to broadcast every detail of what is going on? But then of course there is Facebook, where you can also broadcast trivia for the world to see. At least twitter is minimalist.

For next year's conference I offered to organize something more active than talking heads presenting papers, or worse even, reading out power point slides. Yes, that still happens! Next year's conference is a long ways out. For now, tomorrow is the last day, there will be more great food, and Friday I meet Mary in Rome for a delightful weekend.

Mateo is no more a child

2009-10-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

Mateo turned 12 last week, and it was a hard birthday for me. I've been thinking all week about why.
It is true I was sick, starting with a flu that is now finally going away. That made me cranky. I was also hurt by his request to have store-bought pizza and cake, instead of the home made stuff I've made for all the kids every birthday till now. When his friends arrived, four boys and two girls, they were all kind of silly and annoying at times, like 12-year olds know how to be. But all these factors did not explain how cranky and annoyed I was. It was beyond all of them.

As the week went by I realized it was grief. I was grieving the loss of small children. No longer a child, he was asserting himself, he was embodying the in-between state of being that is neither here nor there, not a child, not an adult, not even quite a teenager. He is definitely no longer a child. He is getting ready to fly on his own.

On the picture he was by a plane that is like the balsa model I assembled when I was his age. The Pitt's Special, I think it was called. I too was 12, and I too gave my parents more than one headache as I was growing up. I don't remember anything about my 12th birthday. I guess he may remember it was the first time he finally got a store-bought cake and pizza delivery. I hope he does not remember how cranky I was.

Now that I'm getting over my flu (and I'm understanding my annoyance of that day) he is sick with the flu. I stayed home yesterday morning, and came back home early this afternoon, to be with him. When I called him on the phone to check how he was doing he said: "wait, let me take my temperature... 37.5, not too bad". No longer a child.

Inside the smile

2009-10-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

We go with Tomas to an orthodontist to check on slightly crooked teeth. Since that is his business, the recommendation is to do a $6,000 ortho treatment over two years… I wonder if the recommendation would be the same from someone who had no direct interest or benefit from the proposed treatment.

At least it is a cool picture, a view of his profile that is rarely possible to the naked eye.

I wonder what the images of my nuclear scans look like. The tumors glow in the dark, the report says.

How good is good news of test results?

2009-10-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

This week I got test results of nuclear medicine scan done last Friday. They confirm the lumps are in fact cancer, and they don't show any other areas with cancer except those lumps. I take this as good news, even though I know that not showing up on the scan does not mean there is no more cancer there, only that it is not visible yet or not visible in this test.

It was interesting to have this conversation about results immediately following a class in which we were talking about different scientific paradigms, from positivism to critical theory to constructivisim, and their differences in epistemology, ontology, methodology. Big words, that is why students go to graduate school. Yes, knowledge in social science may be more relative, but I do hope there is some reality to the claim made by my medical tests, and by the interpretation done of them by the doctors who will use a knife to get into my neck, again.

We are preparing Mateo's birthday party next weekend: he turns 12. At what point do they stop having kid birthday parties with games and balloons and cake? He is inviting his friends via text message. I offer to make a card to send to their parents. How old fashioned. Tomas helps me shop online for a skateboard: He wants to take his time and find the components through different online stores and assemble the board at home, I want an assembled board delivered promptly. How old fashioned.

Camila had her cell phone stolen in the bus on the way to university in Bogota, after returning from mid-semester break. I can only call her on her landline. How old fashioned.

With these test results, my plan for surgery at UWMC on Nov 16 is still in place. One night at the hospital. One week of recovery. Deja vu. I did it already last year, at about the same time. Surgeon will use the same incision on the left side and leave 44 stitches once again. Sounds old fashioned too.

Family visit and beginning of classes

2009-10-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

As Camila starts her mid-session break going to Parque Tairona, I start the fall quarter at UW, teaching research methods, a class I love teaching because it is all about ways of looking at the world. I know I used to hate it n college, and I then learned to love in graduate school. Much like playing the recorder, which I hated in middle school and learned to love when I could do it on my own. I think I'm better with research methods than I am with the recorder.

My parents were also visiting this week, on their way back from Colombia to Ottawa. A timely visit, that ended up coinciding with a new total body nuclear scan, in preparation for surgery next month. So the week had visits to the hospital every morning, including taking a radioactive pill on Wednesday. They won't touch it with their hands, but you have to take it into your body! It made me very sick this time around. I will learn the results of the scan on Wednesday.

Life is like the fugue I played for the students on the first day of class. It has multiple voices and they all form a harmony. It is sometimes difficult to hear it, though.

Soccer, Surgery and Travel

2009-09-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

Last week we slowly resolved some of the uncertainties surrounding surgery, thanks to a cancellation at the surgeon's office and a timely call to fit me in: he only sees four patients each week!

He was most encouraging by saying this is not at all unusual (among the small percentage of recurrent thyroid cancer patients) and should be treated like a chronic disease: while I will likely not be cured of this, I should be able to live a good and fulfilling life, every now and then bothered by yet another incidence of it recurring and disturbing the peace.

He will concentrate the surgical efforts on the left side, where there is more stuff, and leave the right side to be treated with radiation after surgery, to see if it makes a difference. If not, well, I may need more surgery yet again.

I realized it was 11 months ago that I found the first lump, and had two surgeries before the end of the year. I am now one month earlier, and I plan to have just one surgery before going on vacation. Not a bad prospect. We will set the date for early November, to give me time to go to a conference in Italy, just like I did last year. Only this time Mary will come with me for a few days to stroll the streets of Rome.

Next week marks the beginning of the quarter at the University. I will start teaching again, my second year as prof at the Information School. I'm working on a number of papers related to my research, hoping to beat the rush of the beginning of classes with another finished paper. The thrill of assembling ideas we have been working on harvesting over the past year!

This week is also the beginning of the school calendar for the kids at the Unitarian church, and Tomas is now in the 8th grade group that will start exploring sexuality and coming of age.

Finally, this week marked an important beginning for Isabel (6), who left the sidelines of the soccer fields and started to play in her very own team. Now everybody at home plays soccer with a team, except me (and except Camila, who is now in Bogota). I should play soccer too, one of these days.

Blogging again: Book 3

2009-09-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

Claudia used to say that if I did not speak I would have written words coming out of my mouth, as in medieval paintings and comic books. I had a hard time stopping my writing on the blog, withdrawal syndrome I guess, but I wanted to stop because I wanted life to be normal, a normal life of a normal blended family, and I did not want to be writing about normal life.

Last week I learned my cancer has come back: the ultrasound checkup that generally happens 1 yr after last test was done sooner, just in case, and it showed new masses. An MRI followed, just before Labor Day weekend, with results the following Tuesday: more masses, several enlarged lymph nodes, both left and right side of the neck. Dr says "there is no doubt in my mind this is recurrent thyroid cancer". No need to do a biopsy.

Today I start the two week no-iodine diet to prepare for a nuclear scan (no iodine for two weeks, during third week lower TSH with shots, give radioactive iodine so thyroid cancer cells will take it in, then do scan to see where they light up). With these results I will see a neck and cancer surgeon at UW Medical Center. In about a month.

Last Tuesday I was digesting the news. Talking with the kids, talking with Mary. The boys wanted to know what would happen if I die. We talked about that. Camila wanted to know if I want to go through the treatment; of course I do! Mary wanted to know if I have hopes to beat this thing; of course I do!

So I went out and got a dog. There is, of course, a direct connection between recurrent cancer and getting a dog that I'm sure everybody appreciates. Wednesday night we had a 4 month old black lab girl at home, and all the kids were sooo excited! In a Skype conference with Camila we discussed different names and agreed on Kali, the Hindu goddess, meaning "black" and "the force of time". Besides, it sounds good for a dog name.

Of course the kids had promised over the past few months that they would take care of the dog, that they would walk it and clean up after it and we would not have to do anything. Nonetheless, I know better than to expect that. She is my dog and I am backup for all those tasks.

Once I had the dog I could call the surgeon to make the appointment for October. I could talk at work and plan for alternatives for my teaching commitments, in case I have to be off work for more than a couple of days. I could talk to a few friends about the beast of cancer coming back, yet again.

On Sunday I went to Easthore Unitarian Church for the fall homecoming celebration and salmon bake. Since we moved to Seattle we will be going to University Unitarian instead, but I wanted to say hello to many friends. One of them suggested Peter mentions my recurrence as part of the joys and sorrows section of the service, which was a great idea: I heard it spoken out loud and it made it more real to me, and then I did not have to tell people individually about it. It was announced together with a new grandchild here, a 50 year wedding anniversary there, a family expecting a new baby. Life has its ways of rounding it all together. This is part of "the force of time". Several friends asked me, invited me, encouraged me to write on the blog again. It would help me, it would help them. So I am writing again.

After the service I went to Mateo's soccer game downtown Seattle, a couple of blocks away from Gilda's Club, a support center for families affected by cancer where we went to a couple of times a few years back, and right next to where a Komen walk for cancer cure was going on. Hundreds of people walking and celebrating and fundraising for cures against cancer. It was a strange feeling of coincidence.

Today is Monday, and life continues a new cycle. New iodine radiation process, new chapter in the relationship with cancer. I have recurrent thyroid cancer, just six months after the last test had shown no new tumors. Although the prognosis for thyroid cancer is still good, this recurrence just adds a few more stumbling blocks on the way. Yesterday was my nephew Gabriel's first birthday. Today is Ines, Claudia's mom birthday. Tomorrow is Mary's birthday. Wendesday is Camila's 19th birthday. Many celebrations, in different corners of the world. All of them close to my heart.

This is the beginning of Book 3. Living with cancer. Living with Kali.

Kali

2009-09-13T16:44:00.001-07:00

Soccer and memories

2009-08-31T00:38:00.001-07:00

Today Tomas played against Velocity, his former team in Bellevue, as part of a tournament in Monroe, WA. It was a good game (although we lost to them), but it was much more than that. Emotionally loaded, it brought back memories and images of practices and games, conversations, celebrations, transitions. Every pass and every goal brought back memories. Players patted him on the back after scoring on him, and even the coach yelled from the other side "good job Tomas" when he did one of his dives for the ball.

Velocity was a source of incomparable support for us during Claudia's treatment, giving Tomas something to hang on to during those two years, in addition to help with rides, meals, company, friendship. Claudia loved the team, and loved going out to games, the last few ones in her wheelchair.The whole team was in blue uniform at the memorial service, sitting around Tomas. They again came together to help and support when I had my own cancer diagnosis and surgeries last November and December, and it was one of the hardest groups to leave when we decided to move to Seattle in February.

Tomas now plays with a new team in Seattle (still as goal keeper), and this was their first tournament. Playing against his former team was a confirmation that life does move on, and on top of all the changes, friendships endure. We went for lunch with them, and then stayed to watch them play the final (which they lost in penalty kicks after tieing 1-1). The last four weekends have all been at some soccer tournament, but this day was filled with a special kind of soccer. The ball was life itself, the field was life unfolding, and every kick was an act of love.

Mateo's team champion at Federal Way Soccer Tournament

2009-08-10T10:13:00.001-07:00

Alejo's wedding

2009-07-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

Birthday, Relay for Life.

2009-05-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

House Warming

2009-03-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

Camila in Hampi, Holi celebration

2009-03-14T10:31:00.001-07:00

Relay for Life celebration

2009-03-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

Join our team and celebrate

No more tumors are visible in test results

2009-03-03T19:11:00.001-08:00

Flying!

2009-02-22T19:05:00.001-08:00