Wednesday, June 27, 2007

I have made it back from the worst cold I have ever had! It has been a process, that is for sure. Christi and I had a lot of fun at the beach with our friends and family. I got a cold the last night, and I have just felt better today. I did go to Duke on Monday for treatment, but other than that, I have been in bed.

More later!

Monday, June 25, 2007




Hello Everyone! (Christi here) Sorry we have been gone for so long...we are out there just living life! The beach was great. Addi isn't a huge fan of sand (she got wiped out by a wave one of the times we were in Hawaii) but she loved the seashells. We have extra if anyone needs some. She also loved having her family and friends close by. She woke up (after hollaring for Daddy) saying Peyton, Patterson, Lena, Phil and then proceeded to say the rest of the family...even Uncle Mikey. We had a nice relaxing weekend, Bo did catch a cold at the end, so we are trying to get him to rest (Which is like try to get Addi to sit down, impossible)
I do have to mention JULY 23rd...please mark your calendars if you are going to be in the L.A. area (Lawrence Area) at that time. My family and friends are putting on an Addi's Cure event at 23rd Street Brewery in Lawerence...at 3512 Clinton Parkway...please come. The restaurant is giving a percentage of all dinner tickets back to Addi's Cure. We are working on a other items, hopefully, but more importantly I would love to see everyone in Kansas. (if anyone wants to help or knows a company that would love to help sponsor, just email me at info@addiscure.org)

Talk with everyone soon!

Christi and Addi

Thursday, June 21, 2007

It has been awhile since the last post, so I wanted to make sure I let everyone know I am doing great. Christi and Addi have been at the beach this week, so I am home alone. I have worked a lot and gone out on the lake on the boat. I think the dogs and I miss Addi and Christi a lot.

Brian William, one of my closest friends, just decided to come to work with us. I am very excited.....

Thursday, June 14, 2007


Today I want to dedicate the blog to Kaitlyn and Madelyn Lloyd. These young ladies are very special and have done a very nice thing. They live in Chapel Hill and are the nieces of Phil and Lena. They decided that they wanted to do something for Addi's Cure, so they started raising money. Remember, these girls are 11 and 5. They each got a jar and off they went. You can see the jars in the picture. They raised over $100.00 for Addi's Cure. I just thought they should be recognized for standing out. Thanks Girls! You get a boat ride soon!


I hope everyone is doing well. I also wanted to announce the birth of Mia Regan Bradley to my buddy Lee. He is really going to see what he has been kidding me about!


I also did get a copy of the news report on TV they did on lung cancer that had Christi, Addi, and me in it. We are putting it on the web now, so look soon. http://www.addiscure.org/ is the website....


Sunday, June 10, 2007

Don't forget the MILLION dollar challenge: http://www.addiscure.org/

I hope everyone is well today. I wanted to tell you about the weekend I had here in Cornelius. Steve, a buddy of mine, came in Thursday morning for my member guest tournament at The Peninsula. We played an 18 hole practice round on Thursday afternoon, then went to a banquet. The real deal started Friday morning. We had nine hole matches against people in our flight which was called Pinehurst. There were eight flights. Steve was the A player at a 6 handicap, I was the B player at a 14 handicap. It was A vs. A., B vs. B., and then a team best ball net. Each was worth a point for the match, so if you won all three, you got three points. On Friday, we had three 9 hole matches, and we got 7 points. On Saturday, we had 2 nine hole matches and got 3.5 for a two day total of 10.5. We tied for first in our flight, but we did beat the other team 2 points to one point in our head to head match so we won the flight.
We made it to the "king of the hill" shootout for the overall winner. Out of forty-eight teams, there were 8 left for this shootout. Basically, we had two groups of four teams. Each started on a hole and no matter what, one team had to drop out after each hole. If everyone tied, you had to do a chip off. In this chip off, it was closest to the flag for the winner. However, the other team s could not watch each chip to make you go for the flag. I am sorry to report that Steve and I were out on hole one! What can I say, it was high humidity and 95 degrees both days, I guess we were tired! :)
All this was made possible by MY WONDERFUL, AMAZING wife who let me do all of this. She even fixed us breakfast each day.
Because we did go so far, I had to miss Jim Cooper's wedding. I was really mad, but I did not have a choice. Christi went, and she said it was fun. One thing that was good; Addi and I had all night to play together. We went to the park in her wagon, hit the swings, played with the dogs, and had a really good time. It was a lot of daddy and daughter time.
I also wanted to make sure I said something about Nicole McClure Milano. She wrote in the comments on my last post. I do remember her well. She was a very pretty young lady from back in my Hendersonville days. I am glad that I said something to help in a positive way. I always knew she would turn out great. No doubt in my mind. She was a little like me in the fact she had to find her way and she took her time as well.
I am now really wrestling with what to do for my cancer. I feel like I have three options:
1. stay the course with the treatment I am getting, knowing it could last for three months or maybe forever.
2. decide to really push for the double lung transplant. This has no really good data on it for effectiveness, and it would be great if my body just accepted the lungs. Cancer could come back, but I would be starting fresh.
3. Push for Duke to take out a big chunk of tissue from my lungs and allow a brilliant Dr. Potti to try to make a match from my genetic makeup to the medicines I would be taking.
I feel that I need to do something very strong. The bottom line is that I am dieing slowly and the doctors do not have a cure. I am sure I would like the research done on me to heal me, but if not, I also want to make sure that others can be helped from the data I give. It is very tough.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST - Steve's son Marshall is going to Vanderbilt this fall as a freshman. He really wanted to get a good start on experience in business, so he decided that he needed to get some sales experience. He is selling Cutco knives. They are SUPER knives. If you need some, PLEASE email me and I will get you in touch. Throw the kid a bone......

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Hello to all. I am sitting at Duke waiting to get my dose of avastin. I just met with the doctors and they reviewed my scans with me. Everything remains stable, and I will have more scans in 9 weeks. Until then, I will continue to get avastin treatments at Duke every 3 weeks. It was really good news.

I also talked to them about a double lung transplant. I decided at this time to stick with what has me stable but to revisit if something changes. I think another option at that time will be genomics, which is basically Duke getting a better sample of the cancer (surgery) and really looking at my specific tumor and build a treatment plan on my tumor. Dr. Potti here at Duke is really a leading guy for this type of research. Google him! He is a super nice guy as well. The lung transplant continues to be on my mind....

I am very proud of everyone that has been sticking by me. It is hard on me, but hard on all of you as well. I will keep it up so you have to as well....