Any checks thusly received will be sent in with our final donation to the BCRF.

Our corporate address is listed over here. Kate’s here in the Seattle office so if you wish to send in a check for the campaign, you should send it here.

Thanks, folks, for anything you can do.

All you folks asking your online friends to post status updates and/or wear pink or whatever, your hearts are in the right place, but I implore you: if you really want to do something to help fight not only breast cancer but cancer in general, then what would really be best if you donated to the cause. Find whatever means of donation works for you. I’ve already posted about the Help Felix Find a Cure campaign my workplace is running. And my local Safeway is taking donations all month; your own local grocery store may be doing the same. There are a plethora of donation options available if you expend a bit of effort to look. And consider donating to other forms of cancer research–because breast cancer isn’t the only version by a long shot, and men and women both suffer from its various forms. It was cancer of the brain that gave my mother epilepsy and ultimately killed her, so, um, yeah, been very well aware of cancer all my life.

I have been privileged to know several women both locally and online who have fought the same fight I have, or who are even currently fighting it. And I feel that for the sake of these women, the best thing I can do is to make what donations I can to the cause, as well as ask you all to consider doing the same. Updating your status on Facebook or wearing a pink shirt ultimately accomplishes very little. Throwing actual cash at actual research, however, can save lives.

Besides, Internetz, c’mon. I don’t even use a purse for the most part. I use a backpack, which ain’t nearly as sexy and girlie. And the only pink article of clothing I currently own raises a lot more awareness of Great Big Sea than it would of breast cancer, given that that’s what’s actually emblazoned on said article of clothing. Given that it is also now October, I ain’t wearing that out without wearing several layers over it, which kinda defeats the whole purpose, y’know?

Anyway. I’ve sent email to the coworker running the Felix campaign to see if I can drum up a way for non-Windows users to donate without buying the actual multimedia package. I’ve also been donating to Safeway’s efforts the last couple of times I’ve bought groceries there. Again, please consider doing the same. It’ll mean a lot more than status updates. Thanks.

However, I will spread the word about this. My workplace, Big Fish Games, is having a fundraiser to raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. We’re selling little $5 packs of multimedia downloadable goodies, including wallpapers, screensavers, and avatars. So if you like the games we sell, consider checking this fundraiser out.

You can get all the details and buy the download package right over here. Fair warning though: the download being sold is a Windows executable file, so not immediately interesting to non-Windows users. (I’ll be asking the folks at work if there are any plans to sell equivalent download packages or other goodies for the Mac users.)

darthhellokitty

solarbird

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petit_chou

The way this works is, you tell it your current weight, where you want to actually be, and it’ll work out for you how long it should take you to get there and how many calories you’re allowed to consume in a day. Then you enter in what foods you eat and it’ll tally up that up for you. You’re allowed extra calories if you get in exercise, which it also lets you record. (Courtesy of this I learned I burn roughly 300 calories a day just walking to and from work during the week.)

So yeah. Given that I’ve continued to have weight issues and that I really need to get on the stick dealing with this, given that it’ll significantly reduce my risk of a recurrence of breast cancer, I’m going to give this a shot.

I started trying it on Thursday night and so far the app is quite easy to use and kind of fun. Since I have my iPhone with me all the time anyway, it makes it very easy to just whip the thing out and track stuff as I eat it, or as I finish a bout of walking. It’s also handy for providing immediate visual data on how much I’ve done during a day and how much more I’m allowed, and for keeping track of progress as well. This seems like it’ll be a way more effective tool than what I’d tried before, which is to say, keeping a manual food log on my laptop.

Trying it last night when we went out for sushi was fun, too, since it meant I was able to go “okay, I’m down to about 120 calories left, I can either have another round of sushi or go for the mochi!” Mmm, mochi. And today, I’m feeling kind of weird and almost-hungry, like my system thinks it should have more food except it doesn’t really need it. So it should be interesting to see how far I can get with it all. Wish me luck, folks.

So, yeah. Good to get that confirmed and I am deeply relieved. Or at least I will be when I get my energy back from being worn out from being nervous and tense!

Again, thanks all for your good wishes. Very much appreciated.

Heard back from Dr. McMillan’s office who had no idea what was up with the mammogram stuff, so that told me that whatever was up with that, it wasn’t prompted by them. So I called the breast center people back, and they pointed me at the records nurse, who looked in my actual file to find out WTF. She said Dr. Carlson (who I actually met, I think, during the last round of BFFN) had noted something about a bit of a thing that was visible from one angle and not from another, so they wanted more angles of that. According to what the nurse described, it sounded like it could well just be scarring from my reduction.

So. Still nervous but not quite so paranoid. Keep your fingers crossed, people.

It is within the realm of reason that this may just be a scenario of scar tissue on my left side making the scan turn out weird. Or hell, just pictures that got fucked up for some technical reason. I will be focusing on this, because really, seriously, I am not up for Round Three of this shit.

Please to be directing any positive thoughts towards the least annoying scenario here, people. Thank you in advance. I’ll be over here trying not to be stressy and irritable and paranoid until Thursday morning, when I go in for the followup scans.