Do Good, Feel Better - Ginger's Update

There's something about the holidays that fills the air with magic, and something about sending the kids back to school that provides the ultimate feeling of Joy! Ah freedom! Bless the public education system and those teachers who watch over my kids during the day. :)

My holidays were great as usual - but this year they were even more special because my father was around to share them with our family. He was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer right after I finished my chemo treatments and it wasn't looking pretty for awhile there. But now - after lots of nasty treatments, helpful prayers and a positive attitude - they can't find the cancer anymore and he's gone back to work. It's a real live miracle. One I'm glad to be a part of.

I was able to continue Do Good, Feel Better at McKay Dee hospital in December and it was great fun to see the patients faces when they found out they won a prize just for being in the chemo room. I love seeing their faces light up. It's such a contrast to when I first enter the room. It is so much fun to make people happy. Especially when you know how awful they feel. Empathy is a beautiful thing.

I was also selected to be the 2009 President for Young Survivor Sisters - A breast cancer support group for girls who live along the Wasatch Front, who are under the age of 45 and who are breast cancer survivors. So if you are reading this - and you're a survivor - and you're under the age of 45 - CONGRATULATIONS! You just became a member! Our group now totals around 41 girls and is growing each month. A sad reality of the current situation. But having our group for support was a life saver for me! The girls in the group have been through it all. I think the youngest a girl was diagnosed in our group was at age 21. We have girls who were pregnant, girls who were nursing, girls who were/are triathlon participants and aerobic instructors. We have girls who are single and girls with lots of kids. Girls who've had hysterectomies and girls who had kids after chemo was over. We even have girls who went through divorces during their treatments. Yep - if you've got breast cancer - we can help. Young Survivor Sister - where support is guaranteed and boobs are optional. :)

You can visit our blog at www.youngsurvivorsisters.blogspot.com or email our group at youngsurvivorsisters@gmail.com for more information. We get together during the year to chat and also provide lots of email support. We just had our 2nd Annual Celebration of Life Dinner and Social at the Lion House in SLC. It was an amazing evening! Especially considering the fact that we are not a non-profit group or anything like that - but we were able to enjoy a night of dinner, entertainment and prizes all valued over $10,000 total for free. Just because there are good people out there who wanted to support our group and did more than just talk - they actually did it. People are good.

This year I'm planning on turning Do Good, Feel Better into a non-profit to try to do more good for more people. I'm also working on getting my health back to what it needs to be. My friend is hosting a "Biggest Loser" contest that I entered and I'm going to win it! I've decided that being healthy is just a state of mind. Anyone can do it - they just have to make the choice and stick to it. I've tackled bigger challenges and so getting healthy again should be a walk in the park. (I say that now - hee hee). But with anything in life - it's all about enduring to the end and being happy along the way.

I hope you all enjoy today. It will be over soon. What will you do with it? I hope you'll find ways to make others happy and, in turn, find happiness yourself.

And finally, I'd like to leave you with 20 Ways to Maintain A Healthy level of Insanity

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
3. Everytime someone asks you something, ask "if they want fries with that".
4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it 'IN".
5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffine addictions, switch to Espresso.
6. In the memo field of all your checks write, "For smuggling diamonds".
7. Finish ALL your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy".
8. Dont use any punctuation when typing a sentence not at all ever no matter what you write
9. As often as possible, Skip rather than walk.
10. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat - with a serious face.
11. Specify that your Drive-through order is 'To Go'.
12. Sing along to your favorite song in your best Opera voice, with the windows down.
13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
14. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.
15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their parity because you're not in the mood.
16. Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name. I go by Boobless Wonder.
17. When your money comes out of the ATM scream "I Won! I Won!".
18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES THEY'RE LOOSE!"
19. Tell your children over dinner, "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."
20. Ad the final way to keep a healthy level of Insanity is to pass this on to someone and make them smile. That's called Therapy. :)

All my love!

Ginger :)