An Introduction

Out of the blue today, I decided that I needed a new blog. Perhaps some people reading this are familiar with Penguartica and the "movement" Alana and I started years ago due to our frustrations with the world. This blog will be dedicated entirely to my experiences living in the brain tumor world and to Team Lexie and Kristen and our continued fundraising efforts.

Over 6 years have passed since I was originally diagnosed with a brain tumor (later found out to be a grade II ganglioglioma) in my right temporal lobe. In just 7 weeks it will be 5 years since my brain surgery which successfully removed this tumor. But, even though 5 years have passed, my life isn't "back to normal" (if there is a such thing as normal), it will never be the "normal" it was before I was diagnosed. Not that that's a bad thing. It's like all the brain tumor parents from Camp Sunshine say, it's life in Holland when you always planned to live in Italy. (See Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley).

Now on to the point of this blog. Lexie and I met at Camp Sunshine in June of 2006. I was 22 years old, 3 years post-brain surgery and had just finished my junior year of nursing school at Boston College. She was 8 years old, in the middle of her second chemotherapy protocol for the brain tumor she'd had since she was 3 1/2 months old, and had just finished 2nd grade. It didn't take us long to figure out that we are, essentially, twins born 14 years apart.

Team Lexie and Kristen first formed about 1 year ago when our team of 4 bikers rode 25 or 50 miles in the pouring rain on May 20, 2007 for the Brain Tumor Society's annual Ride for Research. Together we raised nearly $5,000. Our team more than doubled in size and we raised over $10,000 designated for pediatric brain tumor research in September of 2007 for the annual Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk. We are very proud of our accomplishments from last year, but we are working very hard to surpass last year's fundraising totals in 2008.

Thanks for reading and for your continued support. I will update this blog regularly with news of our progress.