"Thanks for Being My Errand Buddy!"

Brain cancer is...

 ...appreciating company.

Darrell is enjoying doing the errands together today.  "Thanks for being my errand buddy" is, in fact, a direct Darrell quote. Panera cheers for errand buddies, above.

Mousse is happy about our trip to Anaheim Feed:

And I made my own personal discoveries at Ralph's:

So that's a shallot!

It's a win-win-win day!

Word of the Year 2018

Brain cancer is...

...celebrating the New Year and its word.

Happy New Year!  Happy 2018 Wolf Super Moon...

...brought to you by Curt.

You probably know that, rather than choosing New Year's resolutions, we choose a Word of the Year.  (Click here to revisit our 2017 choice  or click here for 2016's word.)  

Our 2018 Word of the Year is....

...story.

Life in 2017 led us inexorably to our choice.  By living an "open" life we truly learned that every person we meet in our travels has a story.  And as an Optune ambassador, I was recently asked to write my (our) story.  Give that a try! 1200 words.  Go!  

We have lots to say on the subject, but here briefly is how "story" will guide us in 2018.

The Importance of Story

• Story is as old as the human experience.  Throughout history, the world's greatest teachers have taught through story.  Daniel Pink, in A Whole New Mind,  suggests that story is what binds us in today's digital, global society.
• Story is important across the professions.
• In education, using a constructivist epistemology, we hold that knowledge is not received; it is built.  Experience—stories of the meaning we have made—drives what we believe to be true about the world.  One of the best ways to teach, then, is to listen to the story and encourage the teller to hold that story up against other sources of truth to see what comes next.
• I recently learned about narrative medicine,  an approach to practice wherein the medical team attends to the patient's overall story and not just an isolated medical condition.
• Story has been an integral part of the Guillaume family experience.  
• When we took our little boys on what we deemed fondly our weekly "forced marches," we told stories to pass the miles.  Almost always Darrell's stories included the line, "And then the greeeeennn foogggg rolls in..."  
• We might skip brushing teeth when those boys were little, but we would never skip bedtime stories.  
• We still enjoy telling stories.  As we get older, though, Darrell and I preface our stories with, "If I've told you this story before, don't stop me."  
• So here's to stories past!
• And here's to stories future!  We watch our sons, grown men now, and feel wonder as we have the honor to watch their stories unfold with the women and work they love. 

The Importance of Other People's Stories

• We keep learning that, to truly understand other people's experiences, we need to stop and listen.  It's too easy to assume people's stories.
• We plan to ask.
• We plan to listen with the intent to understand.
• We plan to appreciate.

The Importance of Writing the Story

• We learn from each of our Words of the Year.  From Focus and from Open, we learned to pay attention to the setting, the characters, the conflicts, the story arcs of our lives.  And now we are counting on this year's word, Story, to help us be vigilant in paying attention to life:  Are we letting the days just pass, or are we writing the story?
• GBM has been a powerful teacher.  One of the first lessons it taught us is that the stories we write in our minds for the future are fiction.  They aren't real. They aren't our stories.
• Our story—the real story—is the one we write with the choices we make every day as we face life and its unexpected events.  We learned that the story is not what happens to us in life, but the meaning we choose to make of it. 

Here's to 2018, the Year of Stories!  Let's write some great ones together!

Guillaumes Do Brunch

Brain cancer is...

...thoroughly enjoying the last day of 2017.

Brunch at Claim Jumper was a great way to end the year with (above) Beowulf, Tiana, and Alex.

What a great treat to have a morning with them!

It seems that lots of people like to play games on New Year's Eve.  Here's a game for you:

• How well do you know your Andrea/Darrell Guillaumes?
• Check out the chart, below.  We can't say that this is all the food we ate at brunch, but we can say that the courses, below, were unstaged.
• Which Guillaume is which?  Is Guillaume 1 Andrea?  Or is it Darrell? Then who is Guillaume 2?

This game was too easy?  Did the pepperoni pizza for dessert give it away?  Sigh.  At least now you have more time to enjoy your New Year's Eve.

Thanks for being there for us every day of 2017.

More Friends, More Family, More Fun

Brain cancer is...

 ...having more fun.

Today we (Hallie, Ruth, Andi plus Darrell) had our 26th or 27th holiday celebration together.  Our annual Cookie Bake is still ahead, given scheduling "blips," so the fun isn't over yet.  It was great to enjoy coffee and quiche together.  Oh, and more presents.

Later, Alex, Tiana, and LuAnn gathered in Fullerton to enjoy Star Wars:  The Last Jedi with us at the dine in theater.  Thanks to an article in the LA Times (click here), we were pretty excited about the animals.  They didn't disappoint, but they deserved more screen time, in our opinion.

The Fun of 2017 isn't over yet: One more day of fun tomorrow.

Happy Saturday, Family and Friends!

Scheming

Brain cancer is...

 ...making future plans for fun, etc.

LuAnn is back in So Cal after a holiday season with family in Alabama (Hey, hey, hey, Cammacks!).

We spent much of the day planning for future celebrations, family vacations, investments, property acquisitions, the movies tomorrow...

Most families would call it "planning."  When it's Darrell and LuAnn, let's be precise and call it "scheming."

Welcome home, Mom.  We missed you!

New Sightings

Brain cancer is...

...continuing to make new discoveries.

Bird Discovery

On our walk this morning, Darrell sighted a fellow who was different from his crew, including  (a) the squirrel (b) the Canada geese. 

We noticed that the new guy (circled, above) was smaller than the Canada geese, had an orange bill and legs, and had different color markings, including a white ring above his beak.  After much research, our assessment of Darrell's bird discovery?  A greater white-fronted goose. 

We'll keep watching to ensure that this guy is not really another type of domestic goose with whom he is so often confused:  the Graylag.  In either case, it was an exciting way to start the day, this bird discovery.

(Geoff:  At least we're not writing about coots, yes?)

Cancer Community Discovery

In the mail, Darrell discovered this card from UCLA:

It gives UCLA's current and upcoming clinical trials for GBM.  There are no trials for someone in Darrell's great shape (finished treatment for newly diagnosed GBM, no sign of recurrence), but I know we all keep our eye on GBM treatments as they unfold. Wow!  Look at all that hope!

Of course the trials on the card drove me to the Internet to do some studying.  And, as is the way of the Internet, that search led me to others.

Intrigued by the last trial on the list above (DCVax-1), I found this great blog posting (click here), which details the emergent therapies for GBM.  I think it does a great job of explaining the various approaches, such as vaccines and viruses, in layperson language.

My final step in the Internet journey led me to the site where the GBM blog post lives:  Cancer Commons (click here), our last discovery for the day.  I can't believe it took us 22 months to make the Cancer Commons discovery! 

Basically, Cancer Commons is a non-profit organization pushing for globalized networking of everyone who is searching for treatment/eradication of a number of cancers (brain, breast, lung, prostate, melanoma, and neuroendocrine tumors).  According to the site, they will (at no cost to patient) review a case, consult with cancer experts, and give evidence-based opinions.

We are posting the site because so many Team D members are also members of other teams, facing so many kinds of cancer.  We think of you and your loved ones so often.

All these new sightings have worn us out for the day.  Good night, Team D.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

Brain cancer is...

 ...celebrating parenthood (remotely).

Alex's birthday is today.  He worked (boo for birthday workday!), but we did raise a burger to him at In N Out Today. 

Because we aren't with him today, we don't have a birthday picture from the day to celebrate.  Here's one from the past, until later. 

Alex, at One Year

 Alex, it's a pleasure and a privilege to say we know you.  Happy Birthday.