Wine Tasting for a Cure

What a night! Roughly 80 friends and family members gathered at Wine Styles in Marysville tonight to taste wine for a lung cancer fundraiser. The Schmitt family would like to thank everyone who participated in the event, donated to our fundraising efforts or sent well wishes. Our event was a huge success having raised $2,230 for the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation.

In addition to raising money, we also celebrated something else tonight. Kelly Lloyd, Mom's amazing caregiver was informed that she has been selected as the first annual "Caregiver Award" through Bonnie's foundation. Our family nominated her by writing a letter and sending it off to a committee for review. Not only did she beat out the other 38 nominated caregivers, she won the award unanimously! We are so lucky to have you in our lives Kelly! She will receive her award at the gala in San Francisco next month. Congrats!

Dreaming of brighter tomorrows!

Angie

Adventures from the Pumpkin Patch

In the spirit of Mom's least favorite holiday, Halloween, we went on a family field trip to the Stocker Farms Pumpkin Patch in Snohomish today. After much anticipated corn dogs at the concession stand we entered the gates to pumpkin heaven! We laughed a lot, took tons of pictures, found the "perfect" pumpkins to take home and left just as the rain began to fall.

We stopped by the cemetery on the way back to Stanwood and left a little pumpkin there for Dad. Mom began to feel under the weather so we took her home and got her into her pajamas. After another hour of laughing on her bed and eating Halloween candy we called it a day and headed home.

Amy and Mel are carving pumpkins at our house tonight while drinking wine, baking pumpkins seeds and working on a jigsaw puzzle. Of course we have the UW football game on in the background. With Dad's love for his children, football and jigsaw puzzles, he would have loved it here tonight...

We hope you enjoy the photos from our adventures at the Pumpkin Patch. We sure had a great time!

Dreaming Big-

Angie & Amy

Treatment Delayed

Mom and Aunt Vickie stayed at our house in Edmonds last night in order to shorten their trip to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance this morning. I noticed that mom looked very tired when they arrived at the house and she just didn't have much energy. After blood work results today we know why... her counts are low and she is anemic. They said she was close to needing a blood transfusion. As of now they sent her home, without having her scheduled chemo treatment, and rescheduled her chemo for next Tuesday. As expected, the doctor is very serious about us limiting mom's number of guests for the next few days. With her counts being as low as they are she could pick up an illness that her body simply can't fight off. Dr. Eaton also required all of her caregivers to get a flu shot and asked us to stay out of mom's house until we do so. As of right now we have face masks, hand sanitizers and other precautionary items at the front door of the house for visitors. If you find it important to stop by and visit mom this week please help us keep her home free of germs.

Thanks again for your continued support, love and understanding.

Dreaming Big,
Angie

New Game Plan

All 3 of the kids joined me at my doctor's visit today to hear about  my choices as we enter the next phase of this journey.  I can always go back to 2 of the chemos I've been on before (they didn't do a lot...but they slowed the growth down a little) or I can try a new new drug called Navelbine that may or may not do the trick, but we'll never know if we never try. I'll go to the clinic once a week for blood work, doctor's appointment then an infusion. I'll do this for 3 weeks in a row then have a week off.  I won't get scanned again for 2 months.  After that, we'll check it out to see if the progression has stopped or at least slowed down.  I'm running out of options  at this point, so let's just keep thinking positive thoughts about Navelbine...you never know....it could be my new TARCEVA :)

While waiting for the doc this morning, we had the nurse take a new family photo.  Not bad for 4 worried faces?

Dreaming Big,

Dor