jennifer patel

(Just to be clear, the C-word is cancer in the title) I will never forget getting the call from my Mom that my Dad was taken to the hospital after suffering a seizure on the pool deck of the YMCA near Midland. After tests were run and imaging taken, we were told he had brain cancer. It was a sizable tumor that would need removing immediately. Talk about changing the lives of a family in an instant. After trying to stay positive and recover from the shock, we were then told that there was no way to get all the tumor through surgery and that post surgery, it was time to try and maintain and/or shrink the tumor with a concoction of radiation and chemo. The plan was so manufactured. Had it worked for others with the same illness?  Think Ted Kennedy...no, not many at all. I forgot the exact survival rate for stage IV Glioblastoma, but it was bleak.  Thanks for the free copy of your book though, Dr. Oncolo gist whose hyphenated name I have forgotten .  (She was so damn ...

I took Alex to get his first US hair cut this morning.  I didn't really want to, but he was starting to get really shaggy (which is cute) and people started asking if he was a little girl (not cute).   Shagalicious The place was right down the street from us where Vivek goes to get his hairs cut and is run by Korean women. A co-worker of mine said that was the only place her son didn't cry.  "Whatever they're saying to him, it works!" she exclaimed.   Korean magic. Sorry Alex.  I didn't take you to those fun Cool Cuts 4 Kids places where you get to sit on an airplane or a fire truck and a nice, young, pretty white girl tells you how beautiful you are. You sat on a sad-looking cushion, and were given an old, dirty electronic toy to play with that I was praying you wouldn't put your mouth on or put your hands in your mouth after holding it. Of course, you turned on the tears and tried to get me to pick you up.  Good English by the way...

In high school I went on a ski trip to Loveland, CO with what is now called Compass Christian Church in Colleyville.  I don't know if that is what it was called then or what kind of church it even is, but my friend, Cory, got a group of us to go with them. As I fought car sickness in the back seat of a passenger van and listened to the new Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy up the girl (probably 30 times), I was getting excited to give skiing a go. Sara taught us the basics and we began our trial and error of not dying on a frozen mountainside.  The only thing I remember from skiing was finally building the courage to try a blue (never really mastering a green) and crashing and sliding down the mountain so much that I had to crawl back up to retrieve my skis and poles from four different locations.   Fail. That night, as we listened to a sermon (wait, we had to do that too?  Oh, tricked by the 'ski trip' marketing) this man was really bashing us for being sinners and dam...

I went to my boxing boot camp class this morning at 5:45 AM.  I usually only go on Saturdays because now we live in Irving and the class is in Dallas (yes, I love it and the people in it that much), but with Vivek working through dinner time, I have to work out sometime.  Alex is not a fan of Jillian Michael's Shred by the way.  And to be honest, neither am I (it's boring).  I feel like exercise videos done at home are very 80s (Think Jane Fonda) with the exception of P90X and Insanity.  Nothing 80s about that, and nothing will ever get me to do those... Anyway, it was a bad decision.  It decided to snow/sleet today and if people become the worst drivers in the world for rain in DFW, everyone who lives here knows what happens in anything worse than rain.  I made it home from the gym in a little under an hour and got a terrible call: "This is Mrs. Belinda from Gymboree.  I am cancelling class this morning because my husband doesn't want me to dri...