Inspiration Strikes Where I Least Expected It

To everyone who commented on the last blog post--thank you. It was great to see some of you getting your names posted. I know that you get a lot out of reading the blog and I have to tell you that I get a lot out of your comments and emails.

This has been one heck of a week for inspirational stories. I have 3 inspirational stories to share. The first one came when I was tired from Chemo. I sat down on the couch and was channel surfing. Nothing was on, so I had to settle on Oprah (nothing bad meant about Oprah). Well, she had a show about people with cancer. Unfortunately, I missed her first guest so I went to her website. She had Kris Carr on the show. Kris Carr is an actress/model who was diagnosed with liver cancer. She had something like 24 tumors on her liver. She made a documentary of her cancer struggle, starting with day 1. The movie was aired on TLC and was called "Crazy Sexy Cancer". It's very positive and uplifting. She also wrote a book called "Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips". I've rented the DVD and bought the book. She has even gone on to create a really cool website community. She seem to be winning her cancer through diet and lifestyle. It's a direction that I've said all along that I'll switch to. I'm not quite ready yet, but major diet changes are certainly in my future. Also, Oprah also had Professor Randy Pausch who was talking about his "Final Lecture". Wow--more inspiration, but I won't talk about that one here or now.

Story 2 comes straight from Craig's List. Who would know that I would find inspiration there?!?! I was looking for a bicycle for myself and wanted a nice, used mountain bike. I used to ride a lot in college (you would too if you had a Yugo!) and was ready to get back on 2 wheels. Also, Robin and Erica have new bikes and I wanted to be able to cycle with them. I found a bike on Craig's List and arranged to meet "David" to see his bike. While we were haggling about his bike, I mentioned chemotherapy. He asked about what type of cancer I had. It turns out that his mother has been battling colon cancer for 5 years. She spent 1 year at stage 3 and 4 years at stage 4. Erica and I were invited into their house and got to meet his inspirational mother. I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it was to meet someone who's survived 5 years when the doctors have told me things about the "textbook average" of 2 years. As if that weren't enough, David told me that the bike came with lifetime tune-ups. It was in need of one, so I took it into Sports Chalet. Unfortunately, Sports Chalet told me that they didn't do lifetime tune-ups. I called David and asked him about it. I had no doubts about his honesty--I just wanted to see if I had missed something. He surprised us by catching up to us while we were shopping. He gave me a $20 refund on the bike (presumably for the tune-up that I had to pay for). Much to my surprise, when I went to pick the bike up from the shop a few days later, it turns out that he payed for the tune-up too! I truly got more than the bike from David and his family. Not only were they inspirational, but showed me kindness that most people don't show to strangers.

My final note of inspiration this week came at Erica's school. I stopped in for a few minutes as I often do. I was given an envelope and opened it. It turns out that it was a gift card from the promoting 6th grade class. The card said that they had recycled cans and bottles and used the money for our gift card. I am always impressed at the kind things that kids will do if given the chance. Also, there were several years that I had my 4th grade and 6th grade classes recycle and we donated the money to charities (mostly tsunami aid and hurricane aid). If I'm not mistaken, some of these graduating 6th graders were my 4th graders in one of the classes were we donated to charity. It makes me feel impressed by their kindness and proud that I may have influenced them positively.

That's it for now. Oh, I'm doing well too. My heart has been warmed by this inspirational week. My body is tired from the chemo, but I still feel very good. Also, I nearly forgot to mention that Erica came to chemo with me last week (for the first time) and was impressed by the great nurses (who brought her warm blankets, graham crackers, and juice).