What LiveStrong Really Means

The livestrong bracelet was originally created as a method of fundraising for cancer with the original goal of achieving 25 million. Since 2004 when this bracelet took off it has successfully sold over 80 million copies and inspired countless other charities and organizations to create their own bracelet.

I see many people wearing livestrong and I often wonder if they know what it really means. Are they wearing it for a fashion fad, or to make a statement or is it truly a declaration that they do livestrong.

Well I guess to determine that we would first have to understand what LiveStrong meant. I looked around on the internet and the best I could come up with I found at wikipedia and it said it is meant to encourage people to live life to the fullest.

Now how on earth can a bracelet encourage you to live your life to the fullest with just one word? Frankly, I don't think it can. Unless you have the consititution to be living your life to the fullest and this serves as just a reminder to you and everyone else you are doing that. But to expect a bracelet to change our entire vision and start making us live life differently is crazy.

A Broken Hearted Super Hero

I am so pleased to present another post from my new contributor, Kristine.  Last week she shared an emotional tale about the "other side" of an Acute Leukemia diagnosis.  This week she shares another "other side" tale.  My blog has always focused on the recipient side of a Bone Marrow Transplant, since I am a recipient.  Today we hear about the "other side".

It's funny how it isn’tuntil looking back on things in your life that you begin to find meaning andunderstanding for the significance of different events that have taken place.When I was 18, my mom took me to a hall to get signed up for the unrelated bonemarrow donor registry.
 

This meant very little to me at the time.  It was an event being held to find a donor for a little girl, whom I didn't know. I didn't really even know what bone marrow meant, but mom thought it was a good idea to do, soI just went with the flow.

Now jump forward 9 years and where am I working? With blood disorders! It's funny how things happen. I'm glad mom was the one to point me in this direction, without either of us knowing how important this would be to me. But this wasn’t the only time something like this happened, to start we have to go back again into my past.
 

As a kid, I grew up on Fairway Drive, with a few very close friends that lived on the street (and area) while we grew. Brian W or BW lived across the street from me. He was my age, but hung out with my brother more as kids. With that said, BW and I were the crazy ones of our friends; always jumping over trees and going door to door selling hockey sticks as vacuum cleaners.   BW was much more adventurous and much stronger than me; he was able to climb up lamp posts and do other crazy things.Getting hit in the head with a football and falling off a stop sign was just another day in the life of BW.

As we grew older we all moved away from the street, but our family homes were still there. From time to time we would run into each other and catch up briefly on life events or we would hear updates from our families.

As we grew up BW remained very adventurous and seemed very cool to me. He's done a lot in his time here on earth. He went to Ecuador one year to climb the volcanoes. You know...... actual mountain climbing with ice picks. Things that I can't even pretend to comprehend.

He fell in love, hadkids and married young. Well maybe not young in other people's standards, but young to me. He had what he thought was the dream life. He had a great house, abeautiful wife, son and daughter. From the outside looking in it was perfect.  Even from his eyes it was perfect. Until one day, everything changed; his marriage ended and he had to deal with lies and fight for a month to see hiskids. Luckily all that time climbing the mountains paid off and his perseverance and strength paid off and he was reunited with his children. The battle took its toll though, not only was he destroyed that his family had been ripped apart; he lost 60 pounds in a month from all of the stress.
 

Imagine this happened toyou?

Wouldn't you be a little bit resentful and feeling like life was pretty shitty, and really wouldn't you be feeling sorry for yourself?

Well I know that I would.

As fate would have it,months earlier BW had seen a link to onematch.ca come up on his Facebook news feed. (Yes I do like to put things like this up!) He decided that is seemed easy enough and that he would take the necessary steps needed to join the unrelated bone marrow donor registry.
 

Now remember just because you sign up doesn't mean that you will ever be a match. You can be on the registry from 18-50 years old and never be called upon.
 

Well not my magical BW.  He got a call almost immediately! He'd been identified as a potential match and was asked to come in and do more testing. Brian agreed to begin the process and went in to have all the testing and paperwork done. And wouldn’t you know, he finds out he is a match.
 

To me this is the coolest thing that I have ever heard. He was literally a super hero, potentially saving a stranger's life, with no rewards, other than knowing thatwhat you did was right and honourable.

One day BW and I were both on Fairway Dr visiting our folks when he yelled across the street,

“Hey do you like onematch?”

I yell back, confused

"Yes, why do you?"

 

Now I'm used to weird questions, because well I am weird, but I couldn’t help wondering where this came from. He then fills me in that he would be donating his bone marrow the next week.

 

We parted ways but continued chatting over bbm as I had to know everything!

It was such a small world. He was dealing with the transplant coordinators that I had worked with for years. I also knew the docs that were going to be doing the harvest(collecting BW's stem cells from his blood) I knew the drug (Neupogen) they would be giving him before hand to stimulate the bone marrow to produce more stem cells in order fo them to be harvested. I can't tell you how much I loved this story.

 

The Neupogen caused BW alot of bone pain. But do you think he complained? 

He was just happy to help save a life. God I love him for this!

 

It's amazing that even when life seems to be ripping out your heart, that you are able to find the courage to save another person's life. Brian may never find out who the recipient was, how they did, where they live, anything. But what he did was absolutely amazing. Everyone needs to take the time to go to onematch.ca and join the unrelated registry!

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Suriving Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: The Misunderstood Cancer

Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or ALL is a very misunderstood cancer because it is not very common. When most people think about cancer they turn to sources they know; either from family members who have experienced a bout with Cancer or even TV programs, movies, or books. Unfortunately most of the times the forms of Cancer found in their search have something in common; the time from diagnosis to survivorship can be very "short".

Now enter the realm of Acute Lymphoblasic Leukemia; it is like entering another world. This is an extremely aggressive form of cancer; oftentimes killing a person within days or a couples weeks if left untreated. And the treatment is anything but "short".

The treatment protocol is extremely long and extremely aggressive. To my knowledge (I could be wrong so don't quote me on this) but blood Cancers are the only form of cancer where the treatment requires a minimum of a month stay in the hospital to go through the chemo program.

A Festering Problem

A problem has been brewing.  In fact, it has been simmering away for a couple months now and with each passing week seems to be picking up more and more steam.  I have purposely allowed it to fester though, as I have been reflecting on courses of action I can take to correct it. 

So what can this big problem be you ask?  Well street photography just doesn't seem to be doing it for me anymore.  Not exactly an earth shattering problem I know, but is something that I have been needing to address nonetheless. 

The problem has been twofold. 

What Would You Do If You Knew Too Much?

Today I have something really special for everyone.  The Aaron Outward family is growing and we have a new contributor.  I have been talking to Kristine for quite sometime now about adding her thoughts to the blog because she brings such an amazing perspective with all her life and work experiences. 

You have all experienced my deepest thoughts while experiencing one of the worst weekends of my life in the posts:

A Day That Will Live In Infamy - The Story Of My Acute Leukemia Diagnosis Part 1
A Second Day of Infamy - The Story Of My Acute Leukemia Diagnosis Part 2
A Third and Final Day of Infamy - The Story Of My Acute Leukemia Diagnosis Part 3

 

So what goes through the mind of someone on the outside looking in, and what would you do if you knew too much? 

 

So where do I begin?  I guess the best place is Facebook.  All of the sudden I saw all these messages being sent to Amy wishing her luck and love.  I knew something was definitely not right in her life and it made me wonder what the hell was going on? 

Saving Another's Life (Blood Cancer Awareness Month)

Today marks the beginning of Blood Cancer Awareness Month.  First. I thought it is was imperative to share some staggering facts about this terrible disease. 

• Approximately every 4 minutes one person in the United States will be diagnosed with a Blood Cancer.  While, approximately every 10 minutes one person in the United States will die from a Blood Cancer.
• There is an estimated 275,000 people in the United States living with or in remission form of Leukemia
• In 2011 44,600 people were expected to be diagnosed with Leukemia.  While 21,800 people are expected to die from Leukemia.
• Approximately 31% more males are living with Leukemia than females
• Leukemia causes almost one third of all cancer deaths in children and adolescents.  

When you really sit down and look at some of the stats surrounding Leukemia and Blood Cancers it is easy to be taken aback.  These are extremely aggressive forms of Cancer that take some of the most brutal and aggressive forms of treatment there is to fight them off.   

In fact the five year survival rate for someone diagnosed with Leukemia between the years of 2001-2007 is 57%.    When looking at some of these stats it is understandable why most people get quickly overwhelmed with grief and fear when they are facing them for the first time.   The fact is it is not all bad news.  In fact, being diagnosed with Leukemia a mere 50 years ago (between 1960-1963) was essentially a death sentence with a five year survival rate of merely 14%.   So you can see significant progress is being made in the fight against this disease.   I thought to kick off Blood Cancer Awareness month I would take you on a short pictoral jouney. 

On my way to get diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Receiving some life sustaining Red Blood Cells, through the selfess generosity of a stranger

 

Receiving the best Christmas Gift one could ask for....a bag full of stem cells. 

 

Achieving the milestone we were hoping for 1 year post transplant

Enjoying a walk down the beach to celebrate

 
The sad fact is though is that Blood Caners are not a "popular" form of Cancer.  As you can see from above, although deadly and affecting many people the total about of Blood Cancer cases are but a blip on the grand total of Cancer cases and thus often go unnoticed.

So with this now being Blood Cancer Awareness month you might be wondering waht can you do?  Well as you can see from my little pictoral journey there were two key steps that allowed us to reach our stroll on the beach that without them would never have happened.

• Donating Blood
• Getting Swabbed for a bone marrow registry

If you can do one thing this month, please get out there and donate blood.  It really is what sustains us throughout our brutal treatments and keeps us alive.  And if for some reason you cannot donate blood, encourage someone else to donate.  Finally, if you haven't registered for the bone marrow registry I would encourage that as well.  It is a non-invasive procedure similar to giving blood that literally saves someone else's life.

How do I know this?  I am one of the people who's life was saved by another!  How many times in your life do get the chance to literally save another's life?
  

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Livestrong: Its more than a bracelet when you are Living Strong

I see many people wearing the livestrong bracelets and I often wonder if they know what it really represents.  I wonder if it is just a fashion fad for them, are they wearing it to make a statement, or is it truly a declaration that they believe in living strong.

The Unknown Truth- You are Stronger than you Think

When tragedy comes knocking at your door one of the most common things you will hear is, "I don't know how you do it, I could never get through what you have been through".  I know this because I have heard this countless times.  First, when my father died when I was 12 years old and again the past two years as I have undergone the treatment for my Acute Leukemia. 

A common response to this statement is, "You are never given more than you can handle", if fact I wrote a short post about this very response just over a year ago here.

The core of this belief can be summed up in this quote by Lisa Wroble:

You are stronger than you think,
remember to stand tall.

Every challenge in your life
     helps you to grow.

Every problem you encounter

strengthens your mind and your soul.

Every trouble you overcome
     increases your understanding of life.

When all your troubles weigh
heavily on your shoulders,

remember that beneath the burden
you can stand tall,
because you are never given
more than you can handle...
and you are stronger than you think.

When I originally came across this quote I was of the mindframe that I was given my cancer for a reason.  I knew I was extremely strong enough to beat my cancer but that every ounce of that strength would be tested to achieve this.  Not only that but I knew I would be able to learn something from this experience.

It wasn't just this circumstance though, I believed my father died for a reason.  Without that tragedy I wouldn't have grown up into the person I am today.  In fact, I believe all the tragedies that happen in our lives happen for a reason.  I won't get too deep into this concept as it is a topic that I will discuss on its own another day.  But it is true from the smallest to the most devastating challenges, they have all happened for a reason. 

Unfortunately, tragedies present themselves regularily in our lifetimes.  In fact, it is more likely that you will have to face a tragedy or two, than not have to face one.  So is that people see someone else going through a difficult time, do they believe that they can't do it themselves? 

I have been contemplating this thought for that last little while in conjunction with Lisa Wroble's quote and came to this conclusion;

We are capable of getting through anything life throws at us

It is in our nature to do so.  We as human beings instinctively are survivors, that is the reason our race survived the threats of natural selection and fluorished.  Not only are we capable of surviving tragedies, we are wired to learn from them.  Remember,

Every challenge in your life
helps you to grow.

Every problem you encounter

strengthens your mind and your soul.

Sometimes when I look back on the past two years at all the things I have had to endure to get through this nasty cancer, I myself am a bit in awe.  I wonder how I got through everything, and even catch myself wondering if would be able to get through it again.  But I know deep down that if I was ever presented with the situation again I would find a way.  That is what we do when we are presented with seemingly unsurmountable tragedies, adapt and survive. 

So if you are ever presented with one of life's tragedies remember the Unknown Truth; you are stronger than you think.

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I think I may be a Senior Citizen

Well the day has finally come, I think I may be a senior citizen.  I am sure you are thinking how can this be?  Well let me lay out the facts and see what you think.

Exhibit #1 - Well the first exhibit is that I chose to do this posts in exhibits instead of paragraphs.  This is inspired of course by my favourite new show the Firm, but it could have just as easily been inspired by Murder She Wrote.

Exhibit #2 - I own a 4 level pill dossier. Really think about it, who do you know that has the need to organize their pills that much :)

Exhibit #3 - I need to take on average 20-25 pills a day! Thats right you read that correctly, up to 25 pills a day.  Remember that picture from months ago with the hand full of pills?  Well it still is ;)

Exhibit #4 - This is more of my brother's joke towards me but works well in this arguement.  As he would say, I am in my early retirement :)

Exhibit #5 - I used to live in Port Credit.

Exhibit #6 - Did I mention my grey hair ;)

Exhibit #7 - I joined a weekly photography group but instead of group it is a "Guild".  First, I hadn't heard of a guild since my readings on them in the medieval times and fantasy books.  But how cool is that, I am a member of a guild ;)  With that said, I am one of the youngest members in the group by a long shot, although my grey hair helps me camoflage in :D 

Exhibit #8 - this was the piece of evidence that finally sold me on my senior citizen status.  I went to a public swim yesterday afternoon to try and begin building back up my strength and I was again the youngest in the pool by at least 40 years.  Again thankfully the grey hair helped me fit it :D  When I started swimming I had to choose the slower swimming lane or grey lane as I like to call it

It is okay, I accept my fate; senior citizen it is.  But just one question, where do I get my discount card??  :D

disclaimer - this post was just to have a little fun on this friday and poke some fun at my situation.  I don't think I am senior and have many many years before getting there but I thought I would lighten the mood for this friday. 

But I do want a senior discount card...that is pretty badass!

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Surviving Leukemia - It's Not About the Numbers

Less than 100 is all you need to know

A diagnosis of Acute Leukemia (or any Cancer for that matter) is a very scary and confusing time.  You are bombarded by so many different things that you have no prior knowledge of and as such start seeking out sources to try and help you gain a better understanding.  In the first couple hours and days (and truthfully including even years later), the mountain of questions of the unknown is continually growing.  The ultimate question and summit of your mountain of questions is always the same for anyone going through this terrible process:

     

              What are my chances for survival?

Unfortunately this one question can do so much more harm than good for someone going through something as terrible as Acute Leukemia.  It is expected than when you are told you are going to die without medical intervention you are going to be curious about the odds for your survival.  Naturally the first place we go for this information is the internet. 

I am here to tell you this is a mistake, the internet is a wonder source of information, but in cases like this it can be overwhelming and destructive to the most important tool you have in your fight against your Leukemia; your positive attitude.  It is so destructive because lets face it the stats on survival for Acute Leukemia are just terrible.  It is one of the most aggressive and terrible forms of cancer there is.  In addition, the protocol for treating it is extremely long and just as dangerous as the disease itself.

Now I am not saying don't research your disease at all.  I am the biggest supporter of becoming educated on your disease.  When I got sick I half joked that by the end of this process that I would know as much as my doctor's about my disease.  Now this was half in jest but also half reality.  I think it is so important to be educated, if anything else it allows us to prepare mentally for the extremely long and difficult battle that we have coming up. 

But there is a big difference to researching your disease and focusing on the numbers for survival.  To give a frame of reference, I myself made this mistake one night just before my stem cell transplant.  Amy and I were on the couch watching tv and she had passed out so I decided to do some research on my "chances" on the internet.  It was alarming how bad the actual numbers were; shocking in fact.  The worst part was although I could feel it stressing me out internally and destroying my positive energy I just couldn't stop looking.  It was almost addiciting in a sadistic sort of way.  Thankfully I came across a forum of survivors.  As soon as I saw that others survived this regardless of the odds it broke the spell the negative odds had on me and I closed my laptop and have never looked at odds since.

You see the only important thing we need to know when fighting a life threatening disease is if others have survived so too can you.  This is the most important thing we need to latch onto regardless of how bad the actual number is.  If it isn't 100% then others have survived, and so too can you.

The source of numbers like this are studies, and they are just that studies.  There is no, and never will be a, study that is able to give you a true representation of what your personal chances of surviving something is because so many other factors involved that just what type of cancer you have.  Take me for instance, I have no met anyone in two years that has the same cancer, Phildelphia positive bcell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, that is in the same age group as me.  So for me to get hung up on survival statistics done on people that weren't even close to my age seemed silly.  Sure they tell you that when your cancer is more rare you are higher risk, but I think part of that is just because they haven't seen enough cases to say much else.  Remember it is all about statistics, if only two people have a terrible condition and one dies, the survival rate would be 50%.

So whenever you are faced with something that feels like it has impossible odds, take the glass half full approach;  if others can defeat and overcome it, so too can you.  Your personal attitude is more powerful than anything a doctor can prescribe so always remember to fuel and reinforce that attitude with the right type of positive thinking.

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Spreading Ourselves too Thin

You wake up and go to make breakfast.  As your toast is cooking in the toaster, you cue up the tassimo for some nice coffee.  Your toast just finishes cooking and rush to spread the butter on the toast so it melts nicely but the unthinkable happens, there is not enough butter.  You try to "make it out" scraping every last scrap of butter onto your bread, but it just isn't enough. 

Has this every happened to you?  In the end you eat that piece of toast but it is never that satisfying. 

This post isn't intended to be about bread and toast but rather something that happens much to often in our lives; spreading ourselves too thin.  We are guilty of at some point taking on way more than we can handle.  This usually result in one of three things:
-something falls through the cracks
-we become unhappy with how we are stretched so thin
-the things we can get done aren't to our potential

I am as guilty as the next person for this.  In fact, since the new year began I am realizing just how thinly stretched I made myself for the final 4 months of last year.  As I reflected on it I realized just how impactful it had been on my life; and not in a good way.

I realized that always having to be go-go-go with no downtime for personal enjoyment can really wear a person down (whether in cancer recovery or living our day to day lives).  Even though life has started to return to a semblance of normalcy, I find myself wanting to just to do nothing in an attempt to counter balance the months of being so busy.

During that time I didn't get to do as much photography as I am used to.  As many of you know, photography is more to me than just taking photos.  It is a chance to challenge my brain, see things in a different light, and just a great oppurtunity to get outside in the fresh air.  Since the new year has started I have noticed it is much harder to get back into this hobby, but without it I realized how unhappy I was becoming.  So I have taken steps to infuse photography back into my life.

The other thing that has fallen through the cracks is updating here on the blog.  It is not for lack of posting ideas, I have plenty.  It more comes down to not feeling up to writing a post, opting to just relax instead.  But it isn't just that, I have plenty of ideas to talk about but they range vastly in topics.  Originally I had created multiple websites, which turned out to be a nightmare to maintain and resulted in it being so overwhelming none got maintained.  While lying in bed trying to fall asleep I had an epiphany, this blog is for my thoughts and reflections regardless of the topic.  And so I have decided to streamline everything into this blog.  Not only will it be easier to maintain but will allow for many different topics and will keep the content much fresher. 

I am also trying to get back into the habit and routine of doing a couple posts a week again.  I have found that the best posting habit is usually a tues, thurs, and maybe saturday routine.  Everyday is just too much work to write, and too many posts for you to read :) 

This was kind of a rambling post but there is a moral to this.  Be careful you don't stretch yourself too thin.  Inevitibly it will happen and you will be forced to deal with it.  Take time to step back and look at your life's "pie" (that we discussed two weeks ago), access where you are spending all your time and eliminate the waste.  Just remember to not eliminate the things that make you happy like I did.  Not only are they difficult to get bad started up again, not having them makes for a very unhappy life.

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Reflect then Resolve

I wrote recently about how we are often not successful in our New Year's Resolutions because we come at it from the wrong angle.  Instead of just randomly picking resolutions we should take the time to analyze our life's pie and what's important to us. 

Before any resolutions can be made there is something that must be done first; reflecting on the year that has passed.  This is such an important step that so many people often ignore or forget at the beginning of each year.  In your reflections take time to look at:
  - what worked for you in the past year and what didn't
  - was your time allocated to the slices of your life that you wanted most
  - did you achieve your goals for the year
  - what would you like to change going forward

All these reflections give us insight and set the blueprint for the goals for our upcoming year.  Without them our resolutions won't hold the same strength and be much harder to achieve.

Even though I use it from time to time, I don't like the term resolution.  To me it is whimsical and fluffy often made with little to no thought minutes before midnight on New Years Eve.  I propose instead of making resolutions we should be making goals or objectives for our New Year. 

The first step to goal setting is reflecting, as I stated above.  Because lets face it, how are you going to set goals that set in motion change in your life if you don't know what it is you are going to change?  After that follow the SMART principles of goal setting and you shall be fine.
  S - Specific
  M - Measurable
  A  - Attainable
  R  - Realistic
  T  - Time Bound 

Instead of setting a resolution like "I want to be healthier" or "I want to lose weight" the SMART principles will help you set a goal with a plan in place.  Make your goal more specific with something that can be measured.  For instance, "I want to lose weight by working out 3 times a week".  

When setting this goal make sure it is not only attainable but realistic.  If you can barely remember the last time you worked out, setting a goal of working out everyday is not very realistic or attainable.  Setting goals like this are only setting ourselves up for failure. 

Finally, no one says your goal needs to be a year long endeavour.  Something that is much achievable is make it a 3 or 4 month goal.  This shorter timeline is no only much less daunting, but it allows you to build momentum throughout your year. 

Even though it is almost 2 weeks into the New Year, take some time and set yourself up for success; reflect then resolve.  No one said your resolutions had to start on January 1st ;)

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Rebalancing Life's Pie

With the beginning of a New Year, come New Year resolutions for many people  Unfortunately, now that is is a couple of days into the New Year most people have already failed at keeping some of their resolutions.
-Why are resolutions so hard to achieve?
-Are we setting the wrong resolutions?
-Are we looking at it from completely wrong perspective? 

I personally think most of us are taking the wrong perspective.  In order for our resolutions to succeed I think they all have to have a very specific purpose.  We have to look at our daily lives as a pie.  Each thing that is important to us, are pieces of the pie. The longer we spend on something, the bigger the slice of the pie it takes, therefore shrinking the other slices of pie in our lives. 

Instead of spending all of our time building random resolutions, I think we should instead spend time analyzing our pie. 
-What slices are most important to us?
-Are we allocating the proper amount of time to each of these slices? 

Obviously this isn't a perfect science, as life will always pull on us and make other slices get larger.  But we need to actively make sure we are re-allocating our time to the things most important to us.  This is the key to setting our resolutions.  They should be aligned with creating the our "perfect" pie.

When our resolutions are focused like this we will be much more successful in achieving them.  And by achieving them, we will create a happier lifestyle. 

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