Inspiration from Jimmy V

by Jennifer Yandle on December 8, 2010

Posted In: Cancer,Life

Last night, hubby and I were watching the Jimmy V Classic. I can remember the same time last year when I first saw the video of his speech at the ESPY awards. Casey had just gone through Chemotherapy and we didn’t know at that point what was going to happen. By, time I finished watching it I was sobbing. Last night, I watched it again and instead of feeling anxious and sad, I was inspired by his words. I was not only inspired but reminded that I have so much to be thankful for.

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special. – Jimmy V

I have friends, family and the sweetest boy I’ve ever met in my life I get to call my husband that make me laugh everyday. Last year, I didn’t know if I’d ever get to spend another Christmas with him and I needed that reminder that every day we have is a gift. And, I am thankful that I am a thoughtful and emotional person because there are more days than than not that I have a full day. One full of laughter, thought and emotion. I am a very lucky and thankful girl.

I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you’re emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm,” to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality. – Jimmy V

As, I reflect back on last year and all the fear and anxiety that has been replaced by hope I realized that more than one of my dreams have come true because I get to spend every day with my best friend in the whole world, more friends than I can count that I consider my chosen family, and two supportive and loving families. It brings me to tears thinking about how blessed I am. I have kept my dreams alive despite what we’ve been through and I am better person because of that.

So, thank you, Jimmy V for the inspiration and the reminder of how blessed I am in this life. He reminds me to tell my family and friends how much I love them, and hug them every time I see them. So, if you’re reading this, I probably consider you one of those people I am blessed to have in my life. Thank you.

So this Christmas, consider how lucky and blessed you are and take inspiration from a man who lived with enthusiasm for love and life until his last breath.

If you wish, you can make a donation to the V Foundation in his honor.

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Christmas Cards!

by Jennifer Yandle on November 29, 2010

Posted In: Cancer,Life

Happy Healthy Holiday LIVESTRONG Holiday 5×7 folded card
Unique party invitations and announcements by Shutterfly.
View the entire collection of cards.

Our Holiday cards on our their way! Email us at jenniferyandle [at] gmail [dot] com to make sure we have your address so we can send you one! We can’t thank all of you enough for your support throughout this year and for making us realize how thankful we are to have such amazing family and friends.

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Cancer Awareness Ribbon Magnets

4″ Cancer Awareness Ribbon Magnets – $2.00 each

Currently, our Nash Relay For Life team Huntin’ For A Cure has these 4 inch cancer awareness ribbon magnets for sale.

We’re also able to take orders for the following cancer awareness ribbon magnets: Caregiver, Leukemia, Kidney, Childhood, Colon, Bladder, Liver, Thyroid, Melanoma, Lung, Pancreatic, Leiomyosarcoma, Multiple Myeloma, Cervical, Head & Neck, Esophageal, and Stomach Cancers.

All proceeds will go to our Nash County Relay for Life to help fund cancer research.

Buy two or more & get FREE SHIPPING anywhere within the U.S.

Feel free to comment below if you’re interested in ordering these magnets.

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On Saturday, got up at 5:30 and the anxiety over the party planning and all the emotions of what the day would bring were swirling around in my head. We decided to head over to the gym and get our workout in first, since we knew it wasn’t going to be the healthiest day of eating.

I was nervous, excited and emotional. I’ll never forget the feeling of fear that day, 1 year ago, when we heard the news, but we didn’t want the day to be about those sad anxious feelings. We wanted the day to be about the celebration of the fight and just enjoying the life we got a second chance at living.

We hurried home and got the food going and started getting everything packed up so that we could get things checked off the to-do list. I’m a perfectionist of the worst proportion and I just wanted everything to be perfect. We were celebrating the most important person in my life and by giving to other people, that’s how I show my love.

I worked hard on this party. I spent hours shopping for the perfect plates, cups, napkins and trays and serving utensils. I spent even more hours designing cupcake flags and cutting each one out by hand with an exacto knife and thinking of decorations and games for kids. We ordered LiveStrong bracelets, balloons and cupcakes. Everything had to be perfect. And, it was.

Now, I can laugh about it, but we were running about half an hour behind schedule and stopped at our local grocery store to pick up the cupcakes I ordered, plain vanilla with extra yellow icing to match my cupcake flags.

Here’s where I had an anxiety attack. They brought out 4 dozen cupcakes with yellow roses with green leaves! I kinda freaked out, and they insisted that’s what I had ordered. Turns out that the lady had filled out the order-sheet wrong and wrote the icing color next to flowers. We had to wait for them to redo them, which only took about 15 minutes, but  it did put us 45 minutes behind schedule. However, the two bakery ladies were great with their customer service and even gave us a dozen of the cupcakes for free. Plus, there was no charge for the extra icing either.

We got to the event location and my best-friend Amy and her mom brought some food over and came to help me get everything set up for the party. I frantically set about making the food look perfect as well as getting everything set up.

It was such a gorgeous day and we picked a location we had found out about through a Twitter friend called Party & Event Creations and it worked out PERFECTLY. There was a huge yard where the kids and adults headed out to play and once we got all the food ready and a few of our lost guests had made it, we called everyone in to eat.

Here’s where I wanted to say thank you to everyone, but I got so choked up and didn’t want to cry in front of everyone. So I just said Thank you and let’s eat. It was a feast!

If I was a good public speaker, I would have wanted to tell everyone how proud I was seeing Casey surrounded by all the people who love and support him. To thank everyone, who traveled from around our area to celebrate his fight and his life. That the feelings of fear and anxiety that 1year before had overwhelmed me, were now was replaced with so much joy that it felt like my heart couldn’t hold all of it.

Just to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart because I can’t even express how much it meant to me. Even those who wished they could be there and sent us messages of love and support. I cannot thank you enough. It was such an amazing and inspiring day, even now just thinking about it still makes me smile.

You can see our entire Facebook album of pictures from the celebration here.

While we celebrated Casey, we also celebrated and raised awareness for those who are survivors and those who are currently fighting. We will work as hard as we can every year to raise as much money as possible to help find a cure for this horrible disease.

We’ve just kicked off our Relay For Life efforts and if you care to make a donation to help us in this fight or buy a Luminary in honor of/in memory of someone you know who has battled cancer, please consider visiting our Relay For Life website.

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For the past few weeks, Jenn has been asking me what I want for my birthday and I tell her the same thing each and every time. “Nothing.” There’s nothing I NEED or WANT. I don’t NEED or WANT any presents for my birthday. Granted, we canceled all of our plans for my birthday due to my current job situation, but that was something more so for my bucket list anyways. Why you might ask do I not need or want anything for my birthday? It’s simple really. It’s because I already got what I wanted.

You see once when you’ve diagnosed with and treated for cancer, there will be lots of “firsts” that will come afterwards from your first vacation to your first Christmas to your first New Year, etc.. And that is exactly what Friday will be for me. You see this Friday will be my first birthday since my testicular cancer diagnosis and just like next month will be my first year since my diagnosis.

The fact that I was able to get to get diagnosed and treated so quickly and the fact that I was given the chance to have my first birthday since my diagnosis means there’s nothing more I could need or want for my birthday; no gifts, no money, no nothing. I got what I already wanted because #cancerismybitch.

What I got was the opportunity to wake up each day with a 90%-94% chance that the cancer never comes back. What I got was the opportunity to wake up to someone you told you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. What I got was the chance to spend more time with my family and spend more time to spend with my friends. What I got was the chance to continue living life to its fullest, to grab the bull (life) by its horn so-to-speak.

Given the fact that month after month, I keep hearing about people I know being affected by cancer in some way makes me appreciate all of these firsts for me. So you see no birthday present can beat that! I’m more than happy with what I was given instead; after all it’s not your average birthday present. :)

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