Bronchialitis is back

When I made Piper's list of maladies, I forgot her two most recent: over Christmas, she had a double ear infection and bronchialitis. I may have tried to block it out because it was a rough time filled with some pretty difficult behavior to deal with, but I blame that on the ear infections, and the fact that her first antibiotic didn't work so she was in pain for an extra 6 days. With a trip to the doctor's yesterday, we discovered that her bronchialitis is back. Luckily, she is great with the nebulizer. She sits for the 10 minutes while she inhales the albuterol, and then we wait for the albuterol to kick in! It makes her a crazed animal, bouncing around uncontrollably like a ball in a pinball machine. It is unreal the impact it has on her, but after 24 hours of being on meds, she is definitely acting more like herself. Too bad Reid and I both woke up sick this morning ... I blame it on one too many direct sneezes to the eye. Thinking back to Christmas and her behaving ridiculously, I love this picture of Piper right after she opened the toy chainsaw Daddy got her. If she hadn't looked so maniacal, I think Reid would have been proud instead of scared. Just that morning she'd been diagnosed as being super sick. Somehow, you'd never know ...


These past two months, I've spent a lot of time thinking about cancer, and if there's one thing I realize, it's that it is incredibly pervasive in all of our lives. All too much so. Just last weekend, we stayed with friends, and while we were out on a cross country ski, my friend told me about one of her good friends, Jennie, who had just lost her third sibling to cancer. Her siblings were 32, 35 and 36. One had three kids. Jennie is one of two remaining kids in her family and is running the Boston Marathon this year in honor of the three siblings she's lost, as well as all the other people fighting this terrible disease. Jennie's running on the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team and 100 percent of the money they raise goes to fund the Claudia Adams Barr Program for Innovative Basic Cancer Research program. Her personal goal is to rase $20K, and she's really close ($19,150).

I've never met Jennie, but I can't imagine the amount of loss she's experienced in her young life. I greatly admire her courage and strength and would love to see her reach her goal. If you want to help, here's her fundraising page: http://www.rundfmc.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=425293&supid=274266000. She also has a a blog, which is pretty amazing. And I promise to never make a habit of asking for money, but cancer sucks and Jennie's doing more than I am to fix the problem so I would love to help her help others. Thanks!