This is Trisha. Trisha was my classmate in 4th grade, my first year at HBA. I remember that she was very tall and much more outspoken than me (don’t laugh, but I was very quiet at the time). I know, we look crazy young even now, right? (Come on, give us that much.) But check out how young we looked, well, a long time ago:

That’s Trisha in the bright red dress (told you she was bold) in the front row, and I’m next to her in the light blue dress. I think we only spent that one year together, though, before Trisha transferred to a different school.

So, this is how Trisha and I ended up getting together again:

1. I randomly connect with Scott on Facebook, and we begin following and leaving comments on each other’s blogs, etc., and become good friends that way — well, better friends than we’d been while attending high school together, anyway.

2. Todd and I start going to the church where Scott is a pastor. There, one day, I reconnect with Lance, who used to work in the development office at HBA. (I’m not really sure why I know the people at our development office so well, but somehow, I do.)

3. I become friends with Lance on Facebook.

4. One day, I notice that someone with an oddly familiar face has posted to Lance’s Facebook wall. Surprise! It’s TRISHA!

5. Trisha and I break our iPhones on the same day (well, mine isn’t broken, but the home button is acting up, so I figure it’s best to get it replaced while it’s still under AppleCare) and end up at the same Apple Store at the same time the next day.

Haha, OK, so that last part is just coincidence . . . or is it?! Weird, right? But I’m so glad it happened!

Things have been going relatively OK lately. The most horrendous thing that has happened as of late is a humongous roach somehow drowning in 2mm of water in my Starbucks Chicago coffee mug. [Click here if you want to see a pic of the "victim."] Several friends insisted that I can the autoclave idea (which, while I probably could have gotten it done, was not really going to happen anyway) and let the mug live the rest of its unnatural life in a landfill. But I grew up in Palolo Valley, dagnabbit, and heck if I’m gonna let one roach do me in. It’s called dishwashing soap and hot water, people.

See? Still using it, and I’m not dead yet.

But mostly, things have been really good. Thank you, God, for giving me a break. We’ve started going to Friday night services at church, which not only gives us an opportunity to sleep in on Sunday, it also means we get to hang out with Keao and Casey! Since Keao went back to work, we hadn’t been able to see the two of them at Sunday morning services.

Look how big Miss Casey is getting! Hard to believe she’s 9.5 months old already. I took this pic yesterday. We love Casey! She smiles and laughs all the time but is usually moving around so much, it’s hard to shoot in low light. Good thing she was kinda zonked last night. Random people ask me about Casey all the time, so I figure some of you must be wondering how she is doing. As you can see, she is awesome.

Oh, and I got new art for my office:

Sure, it’s stuck up on the frame between windows by six pieces of blue painter’s tape . . . but whatever. Hockey season may be over for the Blackhawks, but, like baseball season, it never has to end in my head.

But then a couple of weeks ago, Pedro wondered aloud on his Facebook wall whether any of his friends would be interested in going skydiving to celebrate his birthday in mid-May. I threw my hat in right away, and I thought that for sure a whole bunch of Pedro’s other friends would be jumping at the chance, and I’d probably have to wait for another opportunity because there would just be too many people.

As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. NO ONE else wanted to do it. No one. (Yeah, Liana is coming, but she’s actually my friend, not Pedro’s – yet.)

Now, I don’t know the first thing about skydiving. I have, of course, heard people make off-the-cuff remarks like how it’s pretty much all about jumping out of a “perfectly good plane.” I think a parachute is involved. I’ve seen pictures here and there. But other than that, I know nothing. When Pedro mentioned that he wanted to do the “high altitude tandem,” I had to look on the skydive company’s website to see what that meant. Apparently, it means that you get at least one whole minute of freefall.

“Freefall?” I asked Todd. “Do they mean like a whole minute before you even whip out the parachute?”

Todd said yes.

Now, my stunted media exposure (which, let’s face it, comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons) tells me that if you happen to be outside a plane, in the sky, and don’t have a parachute open, you have only fractions of a second before gravity yanks you down and you disappear into a poof of smoke at the bottom of some canyon. I’m sure that’s not how it actually goes, but I don’t know what it’s really like AT ALL. I have no concept of it. None! And I feel like reading someone’s description of it would somehow cheapen the experience for me or make me have unrealistic expectations, so I refuse to do that in advance.

But the weirdest part about all this is, I’m not scared at all. I didn’t think that was odd until I started asking other people whether they wanted to go, and their eyes bugged out and they squawked at me like I was completely out of my mind. Pedro keeps mentioning how freaked out he is about it, though he’s kind of doing it to get over the freaking-out. Is it just because I don’t know enough to be scared? It’s definitely not that I’m “fearless.” Will the fear kick in at some point? Thoughts?

Hahaha, I love this picture so much, I had to blog it. May Rose, Tina and I had lunch today, and let’s just say Tina was the only one who didn’t have a purple purse. Love, love, love this shot, especially since I’m all “cancer nerd” (MR’s term), with the NCI clinical trials pamphlets in my other hand.

In other news . . . The Cubs beat the Dodgers today. Guess who got credited with the win? KERRY WOOD. That’s right. Told y’all he’d be a good re-investment. So he’s 1-1. It’s early in the season yet! Eamus catuli!

Cancer robbed the world of another really awesome person this past weekend as my dear friend Ty Wakefield succumbed to the osteosarcoma that had been causing him so much pain for the past four years.

Even though he went through seemingly endless treatments that robbed him of his hair and put an enormous strain on his finances, Ty never, EVER gave in to cancer. He received his diagnosis and immediately took up the fight with the LIVESTRONG movement, determined to make life better not only for himself, but for the countless others affected by cancer. He fought to raise awareness for osteosarcoma, a little known – but obviously, deadly – disease. He wrote and provided the art for two Captain Cure comic books, to “help children understand chemotherapy and the fight against cancer,” to empower them so they wouldn’t be afraid.

In June 2009, Ty wrote to some of his friends to update us on his battle with cancer and the options with which his doctors had presented him.

“I want to be honest,” he wrote. “I don’t know what option I will take. I just want to live no matter how long or short it is. I don’t want to hurt, and I don’t want to be sick for whatever’s left. I’m hurting from this news, and to be honest my hope is lost, actually misplaced, I know that it’s dark now, but I could never totally lose my hope.”

Like our mutual friend Courtney, Ty fought cancer with such humor and dignity, you would never know how sick he was from what he let you see. Sometimes Ty’s online self was so peppy, it was hard to keep up with what was going on, other than through alternate channels (e.g., Marcia). When Ty was angry with cancer, he would sometimes express it, but other times, he tried to maintain a positive front and was reluctant to share any bad news unless you specifically asked. I was going through some old e-mails and was surprised to note that just 13 months ago, he and I had talked about him being “cancer free” for 6 months at the time – even though he had to cut his message to me short because he had to receive what I presume was a chemo drip.

I wish Ty and I had had more time to talk about things other than cancer. I wish we’d joked about more than hospitals and clean CT scans (“What are those?” laughed Ty.). But cancer robbed us of those opportunities. And that’s just selfish me talking. Ty leaves behind a doting wife, Angie, and three beautiful little girls. Cancer has robbed them all of so much.

I apologize that this blog entry is so incoherent and disjointed. It’s so hard to write about a friend dying. As Marcia so eloquently expressed earlier, even though you know what’s coming, it doesn’t make it easier to process the feelings once it actually happens. I know that the tributes and messages being posted now to Ty’s Facebook wall and via e-mail cannot erase the pain that accompanies his passing, but hopefully they will help Angie and the girls to remember the good times, to see what a real superhero Ty really was – the fictional Captain Cure had nothing on this real-life hero.

We miss you already, Ty.

I’m having a hard time figuring out how to follow up that last blog entry. Thanks to everyone who’s left such kind words here, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. It really means a lot to me, as well as to my friends. As much as Court made each person feel like they were super special, she clearly did that for a lot of people, and that’s no easy task. I guess that’s why everybody’s still hurting so much. It’s been a week since she passed away, and in a way, it feels like she’s been gone for longer, but at the same time, the pain and sadness are still fresh.

No one I know was able to attend Court’s service on Monday, but by all accounts on Facebook, it was beautiful. I read somewhere that the procession held up traffic in Portsmouth, which would have simultaneously horrified and amused Court, I’m sure. She probably would’ve been doing some kind of Miss America wave. ;o)

Oh, I forgot to mention in my last post that, some time during our stay in Austin, Court had given me the nickname “Miss Hawaiian Tropic” – just because I was the only delegate from Hawai‘i among our group of friends. I didn’t leave that out on purpose: I had actually totally forgotten about it until our friend Porz dredged it up on my birthday. Ahh, Courtney. Seriously, only you could match an appearance like mine with a beauty pageant name like that! And somehow, the nickname stuck for a few good years. Thanks, Porz, for bringing it back around – I’m only letting you get away with it as a “tribute,” as you say, to Ms. C.

Anyway, I guess the point is, although life goes on, I’m still thinking about my dear friend every day. I still miss her so much.

It was a beautiful and fun wedding, and I know that Karla and James, being the people they are, will have a fabulous marriage. Congratulations, you two!

Thank you for your continued prayers. They work, keep on doin’ it!

Heard from Mrs. C today. It’s been a bad day b/c Court tried to get up by herself and ended up falling. Fortunately, she didn’t get hurt. She has been getting confused again, though, as of last night, and the family is concerned about that.

Court is back at home as of Friday and experienced a lot of nausea over the weekend. That’s getting under control, but of course now the confusion is setting in. Since Court’s little sister graduated last week, she has been taking care of Court during the day while Mrs. C tries to get in some hours at work.

If you would like to send Courtney and her family some good ol’ U.S. Postal Service love but don’t have their address, leave a comment, and I’ll forward it to you.

Unfortunately, as these things seem to go for poor Courtney, times of highs are followed by times of lows, and she is currently back at the hospice center. Even though she has been doing “better” compared to how she was before, Court still sleeps a lot and eats little (some days, not at all). This makes following her at-home medication schedule difficult, especially with things like antibiotics, which sometimes need to be taken with food. As a result, one of her infections has gotten the better of her, which is why she is back in the facility. On the plus side, this means she can receive IV antibiotics, which should steady things a little bit.

Please continue to keep Courtney and her family in your prayers. Your prayer is powerful: Court’s sister graduated from college yesterday, despite everything the family has been going through! On Thursday, Court will undergo anesthesia to have some stents swapped out at the hospital, so please pray that everything goes well and that she will continue to have better days.