Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Girl of the Year.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is split into regional chapters. For our region, Emily was selected as the "Girl of the Year". She was nominated by her social worker, Leah, who we have assigned to our case at Packard Hospital. Leah of course checked with Tracy and I before she nominated her, and since we have been very public about her disease and battle, we really didn't have an issue with it at all. Tracy and I see this as a fun experience that we get to be involved in, and we have the feeling that a lot of money is going to be raised through the campaign.

Here's a little information about the campaign and what is going on. The LLS (leukemia and lymphoma society) have a campaign called "Man and Woman of the Year". It's a group of very influential people, men and women, who enter to compete against each other to raise the most money for the LLS. These adults are not necessarily cancer survivors, but a lot of them have been touched by cancer in some way in their lives. So they are competing to raise money. In order to help them raise money the LLS chooses a Boy and Girl of the year. The Boy and Girl help each of the Men and Women of the year candidates raise money. They help all of the adults so the kids win no matter what, and it's just an experience for them to be recognized for their battles against cancer, representative of all the people who have Leukemia and Lymphoma, and show that you can survive. And let's face it, people are more willing to donate when they see a picture of a sweet little girl or boy who has had to fight the disease. I don't mind "using" Emily for that at all, I mean she is super cute, and very good at expressing herself, so she's a natural for this kind of thing. She is also excited about it, which is also very important, I would only do this if it were going to be a positive experience for her. Emily will have her picture up on the LLS web site and displayed other places too, along with her bio and story.

So for example this coming Friday we are meeting one of the women of the year candidates. We are going to meet her at a nice home in Los Gatos for a photo shoot. One of the contestants, Greg Kihn, has a morning radio show, and we will likely be on the air with him at some point, and other opportunities like that with the candidates to help them raise money.

There is going to be a kick off dinner at the Plumbed Horse in Saratoga, just two days before our cruise. I am going to have to speak at this dinner and share Emily's story. I am a little nervous about it because I've been told there will be around 100 people there. And I can't imagine telling the story without crying, so we'll see how that all goes. But as I think about it, in the event that I do cry, I bet I won't be the only one, so it will be ok.

Emily is doing really well. She is feeling great. Next week is the big week for us. Monday the CT, Tues PET, Wednesday Bone Marrow, Thursday nothing, Friday RESULTs. Dr. Link is even coming in on his day off to give results so we don't have to wait any longer than absolutely necessary, and so we can start to relax and pack for our cruise to the Bahamas and Disney World.

I am taking 3 weeks off of work, my last day is this Friday. My work is being extra supportive of me right now, as they know this week is pretty hard to focus on anything but those test results. Intuit really knows how to treat their employees, I'll always be grateful for how I was treated over the past two years.