David's Web Site: A battle with Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma

I thought a lot about David last month - Different project that needed to be worked on or fixed that he would not be here for, his birthday on the 20th of August, the fact that our trip to Tennessee is getting closer - I was surprised at the number of people that remembered his birthday - For me personally, I remembered in my minds eye seeing him born and just how Happy that made me, mainly because I was in Texas when my oldest was born and missed it completely - Heidi and I are doing well and are looking forward to our planned vacation in October - We will take some pictures when we spread David's ashes and post them on the "Memorial Page" (our final farewell)

Heidi and I had a pretty quite week, working, our cooking class, yard work - I started thinking about the upcoming hurricane season and what other preparations still need to be made - Mariya, (our daughter) turned 21 on Thursday and we took her to dinner as part of that celebration - Mariya and Francis still plan on moving to Tennessee around August - Our trip to Tennessee, to scatter David's ashes, has been extended by an additional weekend - My 30th High School Reunion happens to be the weekend we start our trip so we are going to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina before heading to Knoxville, should be fun -

Let me first apologize to everyone that reads this page for not keeping it up to date - It seems that the more time that goes by, the busier we get and important thing like updates here get put on the back burner - Heidi and I are doing well but still have our moments - I hope I will always have those moments, thinking about "What David Would Do" in a certain situation or what he would say (especially the funny stuff) - I still expect to see him standing in our kitchen or sitting next to me in his truck - For me, seeing him in my mind, always smiling, always happy, makes me smile and miss him a lot - My sadness comes when I see David in my mind during his last day in the hospital or recall the last words we shared together - I still feel that there was more that we needed to do for David, but just what that was, I cannot say - Maybe just guilt on my part - Heidi and I can at least talk about David without it turning into a tissue convention (most of the time) and I am glad of that, for both our sakes - I will try to keep everyone up to date on how we are doing - It seems the only time to do this is early Saturday mornings, before everyone gets up - I will also encourage Heidi (if she will) to relay her thoughts here too -

If you check this site regularly you will notice that the Guestbook has changed - I, and others started having problems with posting to it and the provider was out of control with their spam - I have moved it to my ISP (the one that hosts David's site) and will take care of it myself - I just wish I could pull and import the entries in the old Guestbook because they are precious to Heidi and I and we really do not want to lose them - I will check to see what can be done to retrieve them but feel that it will not happen -

I started working on David truck yesterday - He had a heater problem that we never look at and I figured I would take it to our mechanic on Friday and get this fixed - The mechanic told me that the labor charge to replace the heater core is 7 to 10 hours on Ford F-150 (at $75 per hour) so I had them flush the core to make sure it was OK - After they returned it, the heat still was not working and I decided to do this work myself - Boy did I miss having David to help me - The problem as I discovered was the blending door or the rheostat that controls it (the heater is working fine) - David loved fixing this type of problem and this job cost what it does because the whole console has to be removed (which I know he would have loved doing) - I swore I heard him snickering at me late yesterday afternoon, right in the middle of this activity -

David was an organ donor. Because of the cancer, the only organs that they could transplant were his corneas. He had beautiful eyes. I praise God for giving us the wisdom and knowledge to enable us to transplant organs from one person to another. Today we received a card in the mail from Lions International/Lions Eye Institute for Transplant and research. In the card it said, "The loss of your loved one cannot be measured in words. Feelings of this dimension are not easily expressed. However, through your caring, our goal to eliminate blindness moves closer to reality. We hope that you will receive comfort in knowing that your loved one's gift has enriched the lives of others. Please accept our profound gratitude for giving the gift of restored sight." I am so glad that David's corneas have been used to restore someone else's sight. In the card was a little silver "Donor Family" pin....I would rather have my son.... Heidi

So many times I have thought about writing on this page as Don has done and then I couldn't. Or what I wanted to write seemed silly. This has been an emotional week. I am not a big fan of going to movies and David was Don's movie buddy the past couple of years. They usually went once or twice a month. Anyway, Don asked me to go to the movies with him and I did. I am glad I did, but it just made it so real...again. I have gotten used to missing David, and him not being here. But little things like that bring it right out front and I cry. Yesterday I ran into one of the CNAs from the cancer ward at the hospital and I said hi! and gave her a hug and promptly burst out crying. It was so unexpected. I was at work, on the patio surrounded by people I know and they all were very polite and pretended that I wasn't crying...they just acted like nothing was happening. Eventually I stopped but maybe I am just being selfish but I wanted someone...anyone...to acknowledge my pain and comfort me. It's like everyone thinks I should be "over" the grief. I was reading a book called Good Grief the other day, and there was a quote from a Rabbi Joshua Liebman's book Peace of Mind where he says "The melody that the loved one played upon the piano of your life will never be played quite that way again, but we must not close the keyboard and allow the instrument to gather dust. We must seek out other artists of the spirit, new friends who gradually will help us to find the road to life again, who will walk that road with us". I know that no one can replace David and I would not want anyone to. I know that life goes on, but every now and then if I want to remember the melody that David played in my life, I want others to acknowledge that the song was there and it is okay for me to mourn the loss of that music.-Heidi

I thought about David while working on the Web site yesterday - He always like looking for the changes I made no matter how subtle they were - Check out the Hurricane Jeanne picture of the Tillman Canal (empty) - David and I planed on taking that picture last year but never did - I also added a picture of DC (David's Cat) - We started leaving David's bedroom door open and she seems to know that he is not here -

I was up early this morning and of coarse there is DC (David's Cat) waiting to meet me - She still sits in the hallway in the morning waiting for David's bedroom door to open - This has been her habit since she came to live with us in October of 2003 (when we brought David home from Tallahassee) - She meets David in the bathroom for some scratching and morning talk - I believe she misses him also - I think I'll post her picture if she will sit still long enough -

I talk with Heidi about renewing the www.checkondavid.com domain and we both agree that there is not a lot of information out there about FHC, so we are going to keep it going for another 2 years - We know it has helped many people who have had to personally deal with this type of cancer and we hope it continues to do so - I have talked to others who did not get the time with their loved one that we did with David and am very thankful for the 2 extra years he was with us -

I would encourage all who read this website to go to www.deliveracure.org and support this Foundation - It is the only organization we know of that is trying to find and organize a cure for FHC and we support them 100% - Remember FHC is very rare so there are not a lot of test subjects out there for trying new things - The Trisenox study that David participated in was one of those "Shot in Dark" studies - The drug works well on this type of cancer, let try it on this type and see what happens - So go out to the web site and get a lime green bracelet or a T-shirt and help spread the word -

Yesterday was a good day, spent we with friends and family, but incomplete without David - It was beautiful here in Florida on the 25th and we were greeted when we woke up by the sound of David's wind chime ringing in the back yard, wishing us a Merry Christmas - It was the same this morning, quiet until I open the sliding glass door and about 5 seconds later, the music of chimes - A nice way to start the day -

Christmas is close and we hope everyone has a Merry one and a good and prosperous New Year - What is Squirrel Patrol? - Well, Squirrel Patrol is a game that David and I played, and basically consisted of running the squirrels off of Heidi's bird feeders in our backyard with a paintball gun - Yes, we had a few yellow and pink squirrels in the neighborhood but that just added character to our block - The squirrels got to the point of making a game out of it by running as soon as they heard the sliding glass door to the patio open - Sometimes they would scamper to the backside of our oak tree and just wait or run to the top as fast as they could - All in all it was a good time that we both enjoyed -

I started this page as therapy to help Heidi and I deal with our loss - I can truly say that in setting up these last 2 pages, the time it took, selecting the pictures, collecting items from the Memorial service, and things like retrieving David's ashes from the Funeral Home has done both of us some good - We had David cremated and part of his ashes we will keep in a wind chime in our backyard - I call it Being on Squirrel Patrol (I will elaborate later) - The rest of his ashes will go to Tennessee with us next summer - We will take him up the "Tail of the Dragon" to an overlook and deposit him out over the valley - We know he would have liked this -

Without David @www.checkondavid.com

Without David
@www.checkondavid.com