Tuesday, July 28th update

I apologize for the lack of blog posts recently. I have been so incredibly busy since I got back last Friday! Mom picked me up from Logan at about 9:50 PM and we were able to get home by 11:00 PM. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dad was still up! It was such a great feeling to finally come home and see my family knowing that I was going to be back for an extended period of time. On Saturday, Dad had another great day. He and I set out to try and sell my all time favorite car, my 1998 Oldsmobile Intrigue - more commonly known as White Lightning. We found a local gas station that may be willing to buy White Lightning. They are inspecting the car today and will (hopefully) make an offer. I was really proud of Dad, because we spent about an hour running around outside in the heat, which is enough to drain anyone's energy, but he continued to have high energy levels throughout the rest of the day. Unfortunately, Saturday night proved to be difficult because of his lingering cough. I don't think he slept particularly well.

On Sunday I met up with Alyssa. We were able to eat a delicious lunch at her favorite restaurant, The Macaroni Grill. The food is unbelievable and I highly recommend it. Then we stopped at Old Orchard Beach, which is a sight to be seen... It is sort of like a perpetual carnival....except way less classy, ha ha. We went for the experience and had a great time dominating the arcade games, specifically Deal or No Deal. More importantly, it was so nice to finally see her in person as apposed to just talking on the phone. It was a really great day.

On Monday I had to get up early and go to work in Concord, MA which was uneventful, but it is my understanding my parents had a VERY interesting day. They had to go to the dreaded DMV!! Dad had to get his license picture retaken because his current license picture was 9 years old. I cannot even get over how horrible their timing is. Thankfully, he had the energy to go.

OK, I have to get back to work!

Love,
Nick

HOME

I am finally coming home today! Thank the good Lord. I have been looking forward to this day for over two weeks now and I am SO excited that it has finally come. I fly out of Orland Int'l Airport at 6:50 PM and get into Logan at 9:55 PM. Thank you to all the people who have provided me the support I needed to navigate through these difficult past couple of weeks in Orlando. I especially want to thank my business partner, teammate, and good friend Noah Atlas as well as our company Storage Made Simple for providing ongoing support and the funding for my flight today.

Even though this visit is only going to be 9 days, I simply cannot wait to finally spend some quality time at home with the people I love. This is absolutely a time for friends and family to come together and I feel so blessed to have that opportunity.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Mom saying how Dad had a rough day on Wednesday after his treatment, but he was currently feeling "fantastic" and that his diet was close to normal... well, his "normal." Here is the direct quote.

"Dad had his 2nd chemo yesterday and had somewhat of a rough night, but today he is doing fantastic - for breakfast he had 2 eggs, 2 toasts with peanut butter, 2 clementines, 2 OJ's and 2 banana breads."

If you're like me just the thought of this combination probably makes your stomach turn, but trust me this is my father's "normal." I am just surprised that there was no tabouli, crab meat or pasta sauce involved. :)

OK, I have to get back to work now, they're not paying me to write blog posts ;)

Love,
Nick

Reality Check

It seems as if we had received nothing but good news since the prognosis just over a week ago, but yesterday did not follow suit. My mother informed me that the doctors believe that Dad is slightly anemic, which is very common but disheartening nonetheless. Needless to say I was not pleased with the news and was not having a very good day...until about 11:00 PM. There I was getting ready for bed, exhausted after a long day at work when I heard my phone ring. The caller ID said 'Home' and I became extremely worried that it was going to be some sort of emergency. I picked up and it was my dad, just calling to catch up and say hello, and he had so much energy you would have thought it was Christmas morning. What I'm trying to convey with this story is that there will inevitably be ups and downs throughout this process, but no matter what the situation is no one should ever feel discouraged, because my father, the strongest man I have ever known, is fighting every single battle and will never ever give up.

Believe in Steve.

Love,
Nick

Sunday, July 19th Update

I realize that I haven’t posted in a few days, so I wanted to give you all a quick update on how my Dad is doing. As you know he underwent the chemotherapy treatment last Wednesday. Since then he has been doing really well and his general health has exceeded the doctor’s (as well as my own) expectations. The most exhausting day was Thursday, but besides a slight fever he did not have any issues. Today he was able to get out of the house and go to mass at St. Margaret Mary’s in Westwood. Kasey told me that the sun really drains Dad’s energy quickly, but I’m sure he was happy to be outside and simply enjoy the nice weather (finally!).

You probably noticed that I changed the color scheme of the blog to purple and white. Purple is the color used to promote the awareness of pancreatic cancer, so I figured it was more appropriate than the standard orange and white. Please let me know if this is difficult to read.

The support that our family has been receiving has been quite literally overwhelming. I wish I had time to thank everyone properly and on a much more personal level, but the amount of prayers coming our way is literally overwhelming, so I will have to use this blog as a forum to express my gratitude.

First I want to thank my beautiful girlfriend, Alyssa Kavanagh. She has been the one to help me navigate my way through this difficult time day in and day out. We have spent countless hours on the phone and her support means so much to me. She has been my rock during my time in Orlando and she does not get nearly enough praise for that difficult task. So thank you, Alyssa. I love you. I also wanted to thank her mother, Nancy, for her countless hours of research, daily messages and proactive approach to help raise awareness. She was the one who found out about the PanCan program (http://www.pancan.org/) and has led this movement for our family.

I think it is also very important to thank the Planeta and Maney families for their continuous support. My mother, Kathy, and sister, Kasey, have done such a wonderful job taking care of all the daily tasks and supporting Dad during this trying time. I feel as if sometimes we all forget how physically and emotionally draining these daily tasks can be, so I wanted to make sure that they know their hard work is appreciated by not only Dad, but everyone else as well. Having such a large and loving extended family has certainly helped us out a lot. Every call, message, visit and prayer helps and we have been so blessed to have such a loving and caring family. We love you all so much.

Lastly, I have to recognize the truly spectacular amount of prayers and support that my family has received from the Colby basketball family. It has come in the form of letters, phone calls, text messages, visits, e-mails, IMs, facebook messages, and blog posts. What has amazed me the most is how far this family extends. It not only consists of current players, but also their families, coaches, past players and their families, and even girlfriends. The power of the Colby Men’s Basketball family has honestly blown me away and I feel very blessed to be a part of it. Thank you.

We love you all so very much and appreciate everything that you have done for us. Please keep Steve in your thoughts and prayers.

God bless my father.

The support is amazing

My good friend from Colby, Chris Lemmons, just wrote a post on his blog, The Life of Lemmons, for my Dad. It's perfect. I wish I had more to say about it, but I know I wouldn't be able to find the correct words to articulate how truly sensational it is. Everyone who is reading this post NEEDS to go to http://www.lifeoflemmons.blogspot.com/ and read his most recent post entitled "To The Planeta Family." I not only want to thank Chris for writing such a heartfelt and moving post, but also for being the inspiration (along with fellow teammates and bloggers Mac Simpson and Adam Choice) for me to write this blog and for his ongoing support during this difficult time.

I also wanted to quickly mention some great personal news. I just got off the phone with my boss and they are going to be able to relocate me to the Concord, MA office on a temporary basis! I will have to go back to Orlando for 10 days throughout the rest of the summer, but I will be coming back to Massachusetts from July 24th to August 2nd and from August 7th - September 14th! After that time we will revisit the company's objectives and how I tie in to those goals. I am so very excited that I will be able to spend that time with my family and cannot wait to be back HOME!

Please keep praying and remember, BELIEVE IN STEVE.

Thank you, Max Mutter!

Max Mutter is a good friend of mine and one of the most caring and genuine people I have ever met. Late last night I received word that Max was able to have a personalized message written in chalk for Steve on the course of the premier French bicycle race, the Tour de France. After doing a little bit of research online I found that the chalk messages are written by a robot which is appropriately named the "Chalkbot." The "Chalkbot" was funded, built and developed by Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Nike and Armstrong's foundation for people affected by cancer, Livestrong. It was created so that people anywhere in the world can write messages of inspiration, hope and encouragement along the course of the Tour de France. You can find more info about the "Chalkbot" at http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/livestrong/en_US/chalk_messages .

Now, back to Max. He is a member of the Colby College Class of 2010. Last semester he did a study abroad program in Africa which allowed him to enhance his research abilities in the field of Biology. Unfortunately, he has been pretty sick since he returned to the U.S in late May and his doctors cannot seem to pinpoint what is wrong. So please keep Max in your prayers as well because a) he is not feeling well, b) he has a heart of gold and c) (most importantly) he is a DIE-HARD Red Sox fan. God bless you, Max.

Chemo - Day 1

Today was Dad's first day of Chemotherapy treatment. I wish I could be there with him, but for now I'm stuck here working in Orlando. Anyways, I just got word from Kasey that "he looks great!" and that he does not seem to be physically drained due to the treatment. So it sounds like all great news so far. Also in the great news department is the fact that yesterday he had a preliminary brain scan and the results were such that they canceled his PET Scan, which indicates to me that he does not have brain cancer!! I am SO happy that everything is going smoothly during this first phase; it allows me to be more optimistic and have even more faith in the power of prayer. For now we all need to simply pray that the treatments will be effective in shrinking his tumors!

BELIEVE IN STEVE!

The Diagnosis

Monday, July 13th 2009 was the worst day of my life. At 9:00 AM my father, mother, sister and I went to Dana Farber to finally hear the official diagnosis of my father's illness. As it turns out, my father has probably had pancreatic cancer for about a year now. The doctors informed us that there is no way we could have known and that the disease would not have presented itself during his physical in December. Over the course of the past year the disease has spread to his liver and possibly his lungs and brain (although these are unconfirmed EDIT: (7/14/09 2:55PM) It has been confirmed that he does NOT have brain cancer :) ). The cancer has been classified as Stage IV and they have informed us that there is little to no chance that his body will ever rid itself completely of the disease. His treatment consists of chemotherapy and a pill (I can't remember the name of it) and he starts his weekly treatment this Wednesday. He will most likely feel pretty drained for 24-48 hours following the treatment and then be himself for the remainder of the week. He is SO very excited to finally stop all the testing and start the treatments; we're finally moving forward!

There are a lot of very scary statistics surrounding life expectancy and stage IV pancreatic cancer, but my Dad does not care, neither do I and neither should anyone else. I have spent the last two and a half years of my college education studying statistics and I have come to the conclusion that they mean absolutely nothing. This is especially true when it comes to health statistics because there are so many factors that vary from case to case. Even though the statistics say MOST people don't survive this disease that should not scare you, because MOST people are older than 59, MOST people have a family history of cancer, MOST people have smoked cigarettes or drank regularly, MOST people have been sick at least once over the past 22 years, and MOST people are afraid of the disease and are willing to give in. Well, my Dad isn't most people; he is the strongest, happiest, healthiest and most stubborn person I have ever known. He is not your typical cancer patient, so don't expect typical results! I have complete faith that he will live his life to the fullest and live as long as humanly possible no matter what the circumstances are.

God bless my father.

Thank you

I wanted to thank everyone who was able to come to our house for my Dad's birthday on July 12th. I am so sorry the notice was short and the time you got to spend with him was even shorter, but he (and we) truly appreciated the support and love you all so much. So thank you Grandma Maney, Linda, Diane, Grandma and Grandpa Planeta, Jay, Krista, June, Judy, Alyssa, Rich, Vita and Minty.

I also want to quickly thank everyone for all of the messages, e-mails and phone calls. We appreciate the support and are so thankful to be surrounded by such wonderful people during this difficult time.

Love,
Steve, Kathy, Nick and Kasey

"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing!"

I want to take a minute and explain how I came up with this particular blog title. The phrase "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing!" is one of the most popular and misunderstood quotes in sports. The credo gained national exposure in 1959 when Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi shouted it during his opening talk on the first day of training camp. Many people believe that this saying is fuel for "over-competitiveness" and that winning a game is truly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. One blogger wrote a post called "'Winning isn't Everything...it's the Only thing' Is a Big Fat Lie!" The author writes "It is the notion of winning all the time that is so in grained in our society that we do all kinds of things including ignoring our higher sense of self to achieve it. At times we are willing to do "whatever it takes" even if it means not doing the right thing." This man is completely and utterly misinformed.

My father is currently reading (and loving) Vince Lombardi's book. On the car ride to Dana Farber he was explaining to me how, in the book, coach Lombardi addresses this misinterpretation and the true meaning of the famous phrase. Coach Lombardi explains that, contrary to popular belief, he was not referring to winning in terms of the end result. He truly did not care whether his team won or lost, he simply wanted his players to "win" by preparing physically, mentally and emotionally TO THE BEST OF THEIR ABILITY EACH AND EVERY DAY. Anyone can win or lose on any given day, the end result depends heavily on luck, fate and many more factors beyond our control. Coach Lombardi simply wanted his players to focus on the factors which they had control over in order to give themselves the best chance of winning in the end. Once the team reached this level of preparation the end result became irrelevant because they had already won.

I truly believe in my heart of hearts that my father personifies this concept. He understands that he may beat this cancer or he may not, but no matter how hard it gets he is going to do everything he can to prepare for the battle and that in itself is a victory. I feel as if we all need to take on this persona and prepare ourselves physically, mentally and especially emotionally for this battle in order to "win" (whatever that may be).

So please pray for my father and remember..."Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing!"

I love you Dad.