Vince's Journey

I am a couple days late but I did want to post a birthday wish to Abbey, who celebrated her 17th birthday on Monday. Last year her birthday took a back seat to the hurricane which blew through September 14 of 2008. This year, with the boys at school and the weather being perfect, she received all the attention. We took her to PF Changs for dinner on Sunday and then I prepared her favorite, baked potato baked soup, for dinner Monday night. She received numerous cakes, cookies and treats from her friends at school and uncle Steve brought her a pint of hand dipped Cookies and Cream ice cream after I had baked her a chocolate chip cookie cake, as well. Julie took her on a shopping spree on Sunday - I'm not sure what she got but she's also lobbying for a free tank of gas for her birthday, as well!

Hope all is well with everyone. We went to the Ohio State/USC game Saturday night. Ohio Stadium was rocking like I've never seen and despite the loss, it was a fantastic college football game - I just wish it would have ended about 70 seconds earlier than it did. At least they didn't lose on an absolute fluke like the Bengals did; how do you recover from that?!

I'm heading down to Norris Lake for my annual male bonding weekend; play a little golf, watch some football and movies and lay on the couch while everyone else is on the lake boating. This will be my 7th year at the lake and I have yet to step foot on the dock, much less get in the water - I have every intention of keeping this streak in tact this weekend.

We'll be heading to St. Louis the following weekend. It is family weekend at St. Louis University plus Abbey is playing in a field hockey tournament at a local high school. It will be great to see Aaron (God, I hope he's stating focused on his school work) and also watch Abbey play some teams from outside Ohio.

I also will be having some medical tests done next week - I'm scheduled for a PET scan on Sept. 23 and my follow-up visit with Dr. Leming is set for Sept. 30. It has been 6 months since my last visit; I feel good andI've actually lost over 30 pounds since March. I'm optomistic that everything will be fine but if you're inclined to life up a prayer for me I'm sure that wouldn't hurt.

I'll let everyone know how the visits go - it's coming up on the 4th anniversary of my diagnosis, hard to believe it was that long ago. Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

Vince