I sat in the airport yesterday and chatted with my mother-in-law.  The two folks sitting on both sides of me sat and watched, trying not to look at the interpreter signing away as I talked about my bumpy flight to my mother-in-law.  I’m used to it.   When I finished my call, the guy next to me asked a bunch of questions.  I explained that I was deaf and that I was talking to my mother-in-law but watching the interpreter so I could understand everything she was saying.  “Wow, that is just amazing!” he said, shaking his head.  The Z4 videophone always piques the curiousity of people when they see it in action for the first time.  Sometimes I use the VCO Plus feature with a plugged-in headset and other times I use American Sign Language on my calls. 

This video explains more about how you can use your voice with the Z:  VCO Plus.

But the best feature of all with the Z videophones is simply this:  I’m not chained to the house, I’m not stuck with one videophone option.  ZVRS is the only company that offers choices when it comes to videophone options.  Whenever I travel, I know who calls me on any of my videophones as I get a Z-Alert telling me that my videophone is ringing.  I don’t have to run into another room to see who is calling me.  If I’m taveling, people can leave a message and I can view it via email.

ZVRS is leading the way with mobile phone options and there’s a lot more to come!  The iPhone4 app is out and the Samsung Epic is next.

Every single one of our ZVRS interpreters is certified.  Sometimes people yawn when I tell them this but then I ask them if they’ve ever been stuck with an unskilled interpreter on their VRS/VCO call and I find out they have– and I wonder why they continue to deal with that.  Why select a VRS company that allows inexperienced, non-certified interpreters on their staff?  In my free time, I work as a writer, so I interview people from all over.  The ZVRS interpreters are the key to my success, because they skillfully keep up with the conversation and allow me to focus on the interviewing.   So if you’re experiencing frustration with your VRS calls perhaps it is time to explore your options.  I invite you to try a ZVRS interpreter on your videophone today.  Simply call 888-888-1116 and see for yourself.

And yes, here’s my big, bold disclaimer: I work for ZVRS and I’m proud of it.   Nearly 70% of the company’s full-time employees are deaf and hard of hearing and we are one of the fastest growing VRS/VCO companies today.  

So if you’re tired of being chained by your videophone, experience some freedom with ZVRS.

I can be reached at kputz (at) zvrs (dot) com or 630-405-6263.

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Today’s post is a guest post by The Hearing Company.  I asked them to share some funny stories and they did not disappoint.  Read on!

Guest article for DeafMomWorld.com from UK based high street hearing aid retailer The Hearing Company

As hearing aid retailers in the UK for more than 50 years, The Hearing Company is well versed in the need for crystal clear hearing.

But for an example of someone ‘learning the hard way’ look no further than Brazilian Valdemar Lopes de Moraes.

The 39 year old was suffering from ear ache but ended up receiving more radical treatment from his doctor – a vasectomy.

As reported by news agency Reuters, staff at the clinic had really called out the name Aldemar, who was actually scheduled for the snip, but hard of hearing Mr de Moraes headed for the treatment room instead.

When asked later why he didn’t complain, the father of two said he thought his ear inflammation “must have spread downwards.”

Travel a bit closer to home and quirky cases still prevail, though perhaps with slightly less significant consequences.

A favourite of staff at The Hearing Company comes from the casebook of one of its hearing aid dispensers.

It is standard procedure to follow up any delivery of a brand new hearing aid with a visit to monitor the customer’s progress and to offer advice and help if required.

This particular customer used her visit to express real concern over losing her hearing aid. She concluded that the dispenser must have mistakenly taken it with him when he had met her the previous week.

Calmly he confirmed that he did not have her hearing aid and perhaps it would be a good idea for the lady to retrace her steps to see if the device was nearby.

As the pair checked the kitchen, the customer recalled a recent and particularly upsetting encounter in the room with “the biggest snail ever”. A morbid fear of snails had led her to stamp on the offending creature and throw it out of the back door.

No prizes for guessing what the plastic debris outside really was. We are only grateful the customer didn’t find an actual snail and pop that in her ear instead…

The moral of the story? Take good care of your hearing and act quickly (and with caution) if you encounter a problem. And for those who do wear a hearing aid, take good care of the device that helps you hear…and perhaps consider taking a sight test as well!

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“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

This quote by Eleanor Roosevelt is something that I remind myself of every now and then.  Fear is often the emotion behind the reason we hold back.  “What if…”

One of the hardest things for me to do with my boys was to let them play football.  It wasn’t that I detested the sport (slamming others to the ground, ugh!), it was the idea that they could lose more hearing by butting their heads into someone else’s.  We have a family history of people losing their hearing from knocking around our heads:

For many years, my family was unique when it came to stories about hearing loss. Everyone in my family, for five generations, was born with hearing in the normal range. My Mom started losing her hearing as a teen. She became deaf at the age of 27.

“I was at a family BBQ and all of a sudden, I realized I couldn’t hear anything,” Mom shared. “I could see that lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.” Just like that, my Mom became deaf. Her five siblings also were deaf or hard of hearing.

I have four older siblings. My sister, Linda, was almost three years old when she fell off of a chair and hit her head on the corner of a baseboard. Later that week, my Mom noticed that she wasn’t responding to people. She began to stop talking. She was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss. My brother, Dennis, grew up with normal hearing and at the age of 36, he was hit on the head by a wooden beam at work and woke up in the hospital with severe hearing loss. My sister, Jeanie, grew up with a unilateral hearing loss and around the same age as my mom, began losing more hearing. In her mid-forties, she slipped on a rug and became profoundly deaf. My brother, Kenny, developed a moderate hearing loss in his late 30’s.

I became very sick with a high fever as a child and my parents believe it was that illness which triggered my hearing loss when I was in elementary school. My first hearing aid was given to me when I was nine– but I only wore when at school. I found that it caused headaches and tinnitus and I often took it off after school and never touched it during the summer. When I was 19, I was water skiing on my bare feet at a high speed and fell sideways into the water. For weeks, I thought I just couldn’t get the water out of my ear. I had become profoundly deaf. From that point on, hearing aids were a constant thing in my life. Years later, my brother Kenny also lost some hearing from barefooting.

Whenever I would share my family’s story about how we all became deaf and hard of hearing, people would be incredulous at the events that lead to hearing loss. “Y’all need to stop banging your heads,” one person remarked. 

Joe and I had long, deep discussions about whether or not to let the boys play football.   We both agreed that we didn’t want this gene to hold our family back– after all, my Mom went deaf in the middle of a conversation–she had done nothing to provoke the hearing loss.   My sister did not agree with our decision, she felt we were taking too much of a risk in allowing the boys to play a contact sport.  The kids have always known they could lose more hearing at any time, but I didn’t want them tiptoeing through life.

Last week, I found myself facing a little bit of fear that surprised the heck out of me.  I was up in Wisconsin spending three days barefooting with Joann O’Connor.  We were kicking back after a great day of footin and had just finished dinner.  Joann casually suggested that I try some wake crossing the next day.  All of a sudden, I felt like the wind was knocked out of me.  “I don’t know about that,” I said.  “After all, that’s how I ended up falling and going deaf.”

Like I said, it surprised the heck out of me.  I had long ago accepted the transition from hard of hearing to deaf and was quite comfortable with my life.  There was a little tiny piece inside of me that wanted to hang on to the little bit of hearing that I had left with hearing aids.  I already knew what it was like to be stone deaf once the hearing aids hit the nightstand.  Was I ok with being stone deaf if I whacked my head again and all of it went poof?

Joann and I discussed it and I told her if I lost the bit of hearing that was left, I’d be ok with it.  I still wasn’t sure if I was going to tackle any wake crossing though.  Heck, I spent the entire summer trying to conquer a deep water start and I just wanted to learn to get back up on the water.  I had spent the afternoon trying one deep water start after another with no success.

It was 6:30 a.m. when Joann and I reached for the wetsuits and headed for the boat.  “Here, try the shoe skis,” Joann suggested.   No sooner did I stand up on the shoe skis then my feet went off in two different directions and I face planted.

“Hey, you stood up too fast!” Joann explained.  I gritted my teeth and leaned back in the water for a second try.  This time, I patiently planted my feet and got up slowly.  I could see Joann grinning from the boat.

I looked at the wake and all of a sudden I said to myself, “What the heck!”  I went for it.  I crossed over once, crossed over twice and by the third time… I was grinning back at Joann.

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” 

Good ole Eleanor was right.

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I drove to Huzzy lake last week with great anticipation.  I had connected with the Kronewitter family via Facebook and for the first time in about 25 years, I was going to see them again.  The family was celebrating Andy’s birthday and I brought along a super soaker pump as his gift.  Not only was it a tribute to the fourth of July boat parades of the past when we would go around and soak the other boaters, but it was also a gift for traumatizing him as a kid.

In my teen years, I hung out with Andy’s sisters, Tammy and Tracy.  The three of us spent entire summers together on the water, sometimes skiing up to eight times a day.   In a previous post, The Older I Get, The More Adventure I Want, I wrote about them here:

Then there were the ATV toys that the Kronewitters brought into the picture.  They had two ATVs and a Dune Buggy.  The very first day that we unloaded the brand-new ATV off the truck, the youngest Kronewitter rode it into a tree and bent the foot rest.  That didn’t stop us. Tammy, Tracy and I would pack a lunch and hit the roads around the lake.  We explored abandoned houses and got lost a couple of times.  We built a dirt ramp in a field and borrowed Tim Brown’s dirt bike to add to the mix.  At one point, I had to go to the bathroom, so I rode the dirt bike home and headed inside.  Mom stopped me at the door.  “Whose motorcycle is that and why are you riding it?”  She was not pleased.

Fun was the operative word of my childhood.  Tammy, Tracy and I often came up with crazy ideas to pass the time.  We did an all-girl pyramid with me at the top.  We did three of us on two pairs of skis, with me riding in the back binder of each.  We tied ropes around black truck inner tubes which folded practically in half when pulled, but we hung on.  We boat jumped (don’t even ask).  We attempted to jump over each other with kneeboards–which ended right after I knocked Tammy in the head.  We settled for pulling up on the rope and jumping over the rope instead.  And one day, we had a competition with another boat on the lake, to see which boat could pull the most skiers.  We won, with eight.

(Tracy and Tammy on bottom, me on top)

One day, I drove up to the lake by myself for the week.  I invited a bunch of friends over that night and we sat around playing cards.  Suddenly, they all jumped.  “What’s going on?” I asked.

“There’s a noise coming from the bedroom,” one of them explained.  They all jumped again and some of them started to scream.

“Ok,” I said.  “Follow me into the bedroom and we’ll see what’s going on!”

I grabbed a monkey wrench and Tammy grabbed a broom and we all crept into the bedroom.  I flipped on the light.

Nothing.  We all relaxed a bit and then suddenly, the screaming began again.  The girls rushed back into the kitchen with me following behind.

“It’s coming from outside!” one of them said.

Another one screamed.  “It’s coming from that window!”

“Ok, we’re going outside,” I said.  “Jenny, flip on the floodlights and let’s head out.  If we all go together, whatever it is, we can handle it together.”

As soon as Jenny hit the lights, we saw them.  It was Andy and his friend, Billy.  We chased after them but they took off into the darkness.

So what do six scared girls do?  They plan revenge.

The next night, we removed a screen in Tammy’s house and crept inside the window.  We were armed with duct tape and ropes.  We tiptoed over to where Andy and Billy were sleeping and we pounced on them.  Duct tape went over their mouth and rope on their hands and feet.  We hauled them outside and tossed them into the rowboat and set them loose, minus the oars.  We sat on the bank and watched them wriggle loose as the sun came up.   As soon as they started paddling to shore, we took off.

Later that day, we held a meeting and declared a truce.  They never messed with us gals again.

So when I saw Andy again, I promised to reimburse him for any therapy that he needed as a result of that kidnapping.

“I sure hope you weren’t traumatized by that,” I chuckled as we reminisced.

“I’ve got some duct tape and rope around here to return the favor!” he said.

Tammy and me

Tammy and me on bottom, Tracy on top

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Last year’s birthday and this year’s birthday– quite a difference!  Last year, I sat in the pontoon and had a moment of looking back on my teen years and crying.  At the age of 44, I figured the best years were over with.  No one was barefoot water skiing on the lake anymore and even the younger generation wasn’t taking up the sport.

Then the hubby sent me a fateful link to Judy Myers, the “Old Lady” who is now 67-years-old and competes in barefoot water ski tournaments.  In fact, she’s in Germany right now, competing in the World Barefoot Tournament.   Earlier this year, I went down to the World Barefoot Center and met Judy and Keith St. Onge and as soon as I put my feet on the water, I was bitten by the barefoot bug again.

I have been working up in Michigan this week and every day, I’ve been barefooting.  I accomplished one successful deep water start this week, my fourth one this summer (one step forward, twenty steps back, but I’m getting there!) Yesterday, I managed to pull a muscle in my back on my second run– I lost my balance on the kneeboard just as David hit the throttle and silly me, I pulled back trying to salvage the start. Ouch.

The best part of getting back into barefooting has been a surprising one.  My older friends are starting to rethink the process of getting older and changing some choices– they’re looking ahead with hope and inspiration– instead of the same resignation that I experienced last year.   I tell them stories about the 61-, 67-, 75-, 82- year olds that are out on the water.  And about Banana George who barefooted at the age of 94.  Inspiration is like a ripple: start one and the ripple goes on.   The stories aren’t about barefooting, they’re about challenging the “I-can’t-do-that-because-I’m-too-old” mentality.

Next week, I will be barefooting with 61-year-old Joann O’Conner, who learned to barefoot backwards just a year ago!  How’s that for inspiration?  And to top it off, she has a fused ankle!

So this year, I won’t be crying in the boat.  Instead, I’m going to calculate how many Motrin it’ll take to hit the water again.

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But we’re not there just yet.  This week is family week– my cousins are up from Missouri and it’s a week of making memories.  My cousin Cheri and I have grown closer over the years.  We didn’t know each other much growing up, but we’ve fostered a friendship as we’ve gotten older.  I love her like a sister now.

As most of you know, my Dad is working on kicking cancer in the rear end.  He kicked it in the corner for a while, but we just learned that it has spread toward the lungs.  The doctor has suggested starting chemo again in a month.  Dad is going for a second opinion on my birthday and I’m hoping the new doctor will come up with some better ways to kick it back in the corner.

Speaking of my upcoming birthday, I won’t be crying in the boat like last year.  I’ll be celebrating on the water instead, barefooting and wakeboarding.   I took up wakeboarding for the first time a few weeks ago.  When I announced that I was going to try it, David raised his eyebrow.  “Are you sure you can handle that, Mom?”

Ooo, the kid rankled me up inside.  “Watch me!” I said.  I strapped myself to the board and got ready for a dock start.  David gunned the jet ski and I took off.

I faceplanted right into the water.

Uh oh, I thought to myself.  What have I gotten myself into?

Back on the dock, it took two more tries before I found myself balancing on top of the water.  I felt like a 12-month-old toddler who had just learned to walk.  I wobbled back and forth, trying to get used to the rocking board.  I didn’t get too far before I found myself embracing the water again, face first.

David circled around, expecting to pick me up and take me back for another dock start.  “I’m going to get up here,” I said.  I thought I saw David’s eyebrow raise again, but he caught himself in time.  He gave me some pointers on how to get up.

I popped right out of the water on the first try and had nice run.

Take that, son!

“I’m going to do a 180 tomorrow!” I announced.  David laughed.  This time, he definitely raised his eyebrow again.  “All right, Mom, I’d like to see you do a 180.”

I did the 180 on my first try and attempted a second one, but fell.  The dang kid missed the whole thing.  “I didn’t see it!” David said as he circled around.

“What do you mean you didn’t see it!  I did it!”

“You gotta do it again.  I want to see it,” he insisted.

I got up again and I made sure David was looking back when I swung the wakeboard around the water.  I did it a second time for good measure.  Then I promptly lost my balance and fell on my rear.

“Never doubt your Mother,” I told him.

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It’s funny, I don’t consider myself disabled– that is, on most days.  Then every now and then, life will knock me upside the head and remind me that I can’t access the world sometimes.

I was born with hearing in the so-called “normal” range.  I know I started losing some hearing when I was in kindergarten, because I remember climbing into bed and asking Dad to repeat the story of Scamp, the scraggly little dog that went on adventures all over town.  All of a sudden, I was missing bits and pieces of the story.  I was outfitted with a single hearing aid at the age of nine, but the contraption often ended up on a shelf after school and disappeared during the summer.  I got by with lipreading and some impressive social bluffing skills.    When I was nineteen, I went from hard of hearing to deaf in an instant– I fell while barefooting and climbed into the boat deaf.

Sometimes it’s hard for people to believe me when I say that becoming deaf was the best thing that ever happened to me.  The bluffing skills went to the wayside and I picked up American Sign Language.  I worked at a Center for Independent Living and met people with disabilities from all over.  The very best thing that I learned was this:  Attitude is everything.

When we have an attitude of acceptance, equality and access, then we see the whole person, instead of just a disability.   Jo Waldron says it best when she says, “Attitude is the worst barrier of all.”

I generally find that most people have an open attitude when they meet me and we have to do a communication dance– I have to figure out how to lipread them and they have to figure out how to slow down and face me.  Once we get that dance coordinated, access usually follows.  The same thing happens with websites– sometimes I will ask for a transcript for a video or captions and folks are usually willing to follow up with some kind of access.  Eventually… someday… I hope for full internet access.  The passage of H.R. 3101 and S. 3304 would enable a step toward this access.

Today, bloggers from all over are uniting for people with disabilities.  Take a look at the posts and join the conversation.  Then take a look at your website and determine if it’s accessible for folks with disabilities.  If you need an accessiblity guru, connect with Glenda Watson Hyatt, she works miracles with her left thumb.

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“It’s your friend,” said my Dad.  “She’s in labor and wants you to come now.”

I grabbed my bag and jumped in the car.  It was a two hour drive to Mary Kate’s house, but I shaved off some time with a heavy foot and no traffic to deal with.  I didn’t want to miss the birth.  Mary Kate and I had met on a homebirth forum online and became friends.  We both had birthed our first two kids via cesarean and I had homebirthed my third kiddo.  Mary Kate asked me to be a doula for her home water birth and I was looking forward to supporting her during the birth.

When I arrived, Mary Kate’s labor had slowed down.  “I’m going to head to the food store and get a few things,” I said.  I figured we might be in for a long night and I decided to make some dinners for after the birth.  I started a pot of soup and a roast.  Mary Kate’s surges would come and go and she did a beautiful job of breathing through them.  “Get as much sleep as you can,” I said.  I settled in on the couch for a few hours of sleep.

Kyle, Mary Kate’s husband woke me up early in the morning.  Mary Kate’s parents arrived to pick up the boys and take them to their house.  Once the boys left, labor started to kick in.  Kyle started filling up the water birth tub so that Mary Kate could labor in it.   Before she stepped in, she was holding on to Kyle and she said, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Instantly, my instincts kicked in and I knew that labor was progressing.  “Do you want to call the midwife now?” I asked.

“No, not yet,” Mary Kate said.  “I don’t want her to come too early.”

Mary Kate sank into the tub and Kyle and I took turns supporting her.  The labor picked up more intensely and I told Kyle that I thought it was time to call the midwife.  He went off to call her and I continued to support Mary Kate.  When Kyle returned, we switched places and I noticed that the baby had moved down.

“Mary Kate, your baby is moving down,” I said.

She was in denial.  It was hard for her to believe that after two cesareans, she was going to be able to birth her baby.  I looked at Kyle.  “Do you want to catch or do you want me to catch?”

“I’ll catch,” he said.

A few minutes later, the midwife walked in.  She assessed Mary Kate and said that she was ready to push.  I went to grab the camera and videocamera.

Ten years ago on this day, Maeve slipped into the water and Mary Kate brought her up to snuggle on her chest.  It was a moment that I’ll always remember– the dawn of a new day and a new soul arriving in this world.  Happy Birthday, Maeve!

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From the time I was seven, I spent my summers at Christie Lake, a small lake located in Lawrence, Michigan. On the weekends, I would go up to the lake with my friend Chris, whose family owned a cottage. Most of our days were spent lazing on the water in the inner tube or zipping around in her father’s boat.

One summer day when I was eleven, my parents and my older brother came up for the day. We were cruising around the lake and my brother noticed a “For Sale” sign planted in front of a cute, green cottage.

“Come on,” my brother said, “Let’s just go inside and take a look. It won’t hurt to see how much it is.”

The next thing I knew, we were unpacking suitcases inside the cute, green cottage. My parents had placed an offer that very day and purchased the place.

While getting to know the new next-door-neighbors, we learned about the previous occupants of the home. The original owners were Mr. and Mrs. Eberhart and their two sons. Mrs. Eberhart had a reputation of being a rather tart lady and Mr. Eberhart often meekly complied with her demands.

One day, the combination proved to be a fatal one. A storm was brewing and it had started to rain. Mrs. Eberhart turned to her husband and insisted that the boat needed to be covered.  Mr. Eberhart protested as there was lightning in the distance.

He didn’t win.

He and his son headed out in the storm to cover the boats. As the rain pelted down, they were suddenly both struck by lightning.

Mr. Eberhart lost his life as he fell into the boat.

After a few years, Mrs. Eberhart and her sons moved away and sold the cottages to another family, who in turn, sold it to us.

Hearing the story sent chills through me, but I didn’t give it another thought. My sister and I eagerly unpacked our things in the room we shared. In the bedroom, we discovered an unusual closet with two doors. One door was at eye level and the other door was high up near the ceiling. We had to get a step stool to reach the upper door and found it difficult to open. We stuffed a sleeping bag inside that closet and went off to explore the rest of the cottage.
We spent many wonderful summers at the lake.  At night time, I wasn’t too crazy about the room that my sister and I shared. It was dark and paneled in pine, with a single lamp illuminating the darkness. I didn’t like
falling asleep there, especially late at night.  I always felt as if someone else was in the room with me.

Every now and then, we would have a guest and have to get out the sleeping bag. This was no easy task, as the upper closet door was often hard to open.  A chair was required to reach the latch and it would take some tugging to get the closet door to budge.

One night, while heading to the bathroom, I noticed that the upper closet door was ajar. I shrugged it off, thinking that someone grabbed the sleeping bag after I had gone to sleep and simply left the door open.

The next morning, I woke up and noticed that the closet door was closed. I looked around and observed that no one had used a sleeping bag the night before.

Hmmm, I thought to myself, I must have been dreaming.

During a few more occasions, the same thing happened. I started to wonder if perhaps Mr. Eberhart was actually around.

Oh come on, Karen, I mumbled to myself.  Of course, I didn’t believe in ghosts. How silly.

Fast forward, many years later, and my parents hauled away the cute little cottage to the other side of town. They built their brand new retirement home on the same land.
One evening, my father and I were watching TV and he casually turned to me and asked, “Karen, do you believe in ghosts?”

Startled, I looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

So Dad went on to explain how at night, he would hear strange noises. He would often get up to check, and find nothing. There were many nights he felt that someone was in the house. He could hear the stairs creaking as if someone was walking up.

But no one was there.

So I told him about the closet door and how I would find it wide open at night.  Just at that moment, my sister walked into the room.

“What are you guys talking about?”

We filled her in, and to my utter surprise, she said, “Oh yea, I remember seeing the closet open at night too. It was really weird, because in the morning it was closed. I always figured you closed it.”

And I had always figured she had closed it!

Hmmm. We looked at each other and we all burst out laughing. We figured that Mr. Eberhart was living with us all those years.

He must still be mad at his wife for sending him out in the storm.

Fast forward to this summer. Two weeks ago, the radio in my boat kept turning on. We thought the kids were leaving it on but they vehemently denied even touching the radio. Joe replaced the cables on the battery that week and I had taken the boat to a mechanic for some repairs. We thought maybe the wiring was loose or the rocking of the boat had turned on the radio.

Last Friday, I took my Mom and sister for a boat ride in the evening. When we arrived back at the dock, I made sure everything was turned off, including the radio. I climbed on to the pier and I was talking with my Mom, when suddenly, a light caught my eye.

The radio turned on.

I nudged my Mom. “Take a look, Mom! The radio is on! You just saw me turn everything off!”

We took one look at each other, then at the boat, and we burst out laughing.

I guess Mr. Eberhart has a sense of humor turning a radio on for a deaf family.

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I left for Michigan with the boys in tow.  Lauren was down in Texas with Sarah and Joe was still working.  The boys let me enjoy my mellow music on the way up while they buried their heads in the laptop.  There wasn’t much talking on the way up, we were decompressing from a busy week.  Heck, make that a busy summer.  The kids were off in three directions most of the time with Mom on a plane the other half of the time.  I vaguely remembered a husband somewhere in all this.

On the way up, I thought about my Dad and the ups and downs since his diagnosis of esophageal cancer last summer.  Last November, we celebrated with good news:  Dad had kicked the cancer on its rear end.

A few weeks ago, he found a new lump.  At first, the doctor wasn’t too concerned, he figured it was benign.  Dad went for a PET scan and he was waiting for the results the morning we arrived.

Dad was sitting in his chair when we arrived and after a hug, we cut to the chase.  “Well, the results aren’t good,” Dad said.  “The tests show that the cancer is back and one tumor is heading toward the lungs.  But the good news is, it’s still small.”

So another round of chemo is coming up and Dad is determined to extend another kick into cancer’s rear end.  I’m buoyed by his optimism and his outlook and I know he has the strength to withstand anything.  The other tough blow over the weekend was the news that both of my brother’s have Barrett’s, which means they’re at an increased risk, but with diet, exercise and monitoring, they can kick this too.

All of this which had me thinking about how life goes by crazy fast– and I thought back to a friend’s recent remark about how I seemed to have it all together and have achieved a balanced life. “You need to teach me how you are able to travel, write a book, go barefooting with the world’s champions, and advocate for causes to change the world for the better,” she wrote.

After laughing hysterically, I informed her that my life was actually an unbalanced washing machine on a lopsided spin cycle.

So every now and then, when life slaps us upside the head, that’s when we slow down and pay attention to the stuff that matters:  the relationships we have with those around us and the stuff that brings us joy instead of sorrow.   One friend reminded me to celebrate the fact that we were given a gift of time since Dad’s diagnosis last year.  So I’m thankful that I get to wrap my arms around my parents each time I visit them.

So, over the weekend, I slowed it down.  I bonded with the boys as we floated in the lake after tubing.  I went shopping with my Mom, sis and a neighbor and we gathered some healthy food for the weekend.  I watched Two and Half Men with Dad and told him about my barefooting and wakeboarding adventures of the day.

Don’t wait for life to slap you upside the head.

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