Coburn Family 2010

PMC Fundraising...Done!

A huge thanks goes out to all who supported us in our 3rd year of fundraising for the Pan Massachusetts Challenge. We are now within our goal as we are also donating to close the gap and Nestlé will match the donation dollar for dollar. Our combined totals will be over $9,000 when all is said and done. We so appreciate the generosity. This brings our three year fundraising total to $34,000!

On August 7 & 8 we will ride 163 miles over two days with 5,000 other riders. It is a great event.

On other news, we spent Memorial Day weekend in Chicago with Michael's family and had fun at the pool, playing Texas Hold'em and the adult boys went and raced high speed indoor go karts which was a lot of fun. We took a family picture which was much more pain free than prior years. The bummer was it was our first family picture since my dad died.

Ready for summer. Once Memorial Day weekend hits it seems like a crime that the kids are still in school.

PMC 2010 Here we come 163 miles, 2 days $8,400 raised for research!

Heidi after completing the Big Sur 9 miler last weekend

When my wife, Heidi, was diagnosed with Carcinoid cancer 2 1/2 years ago, I was very open with the process to all I knew, that's what I do. In return, you have all been so supportive of my family and me. Time for an update. Heidi still has cancer in her liver (20+ tumors). There are, at present, no great cures for this cancer. She is currently receiving monthy chemo-therapy type injections of Sandostatin, a drug from Novartis, which have shown to slow the growth or even shrink the tumors in some patients. Heidi's last scan of the liver showed that of the three largest of these tumors, two stayed the same size and one had shrunk by 2 mm in diameter. This was after a previous period of some growth being noted. That is great news!

On the positive front, Heidi is feeling great and has no ill effects from the treatment. Our kids (age 13, 11 and 10) don't spend their days thinking about their mom's health. We have not given cancer any power over our day-to-day lives. Heidi is amazingly strong and even supported another woman through her battle with cervical cancer recently. She just finished walking 9 miles of the Big Sur Marathon course last weekend in Northern California. Now our focus turns to training to ride our third Pan Massachusetts Challenge on August 7 & 8th across Massachusetts. This year we will take on the two day full version of the ride for a total of 163 miles. This is our main way to fight this cancer. Raise funds specifically targeted at finding a cure via the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, one of the top institutions in the country. I invite you to help us both reach our fundraising targets which totals $8,400 between us! The generousity we have seen in the past is amazing and we would welcome any support you could give this year. So far, in our prior two years of riding we have raised nearly $25,000. These funds are specifically spent on Carcinoid Cancer research, there is no other place we can make such a direct impact. 100% of donated gifts go directly to the research, no administrative costs.

If you know of someone who would like to support us, please forward them this link.

How to give:

Michael & Heidi - click the link:
Click on +Sponsor more than one rider with one donation
then click + Search by Name...
My name should already be populated and you add Heidi's by using her gift ID of HC0036 or her name and fill in the amounts.
We both have a committment of $4,200 each so splitting your contribution would be of most benefit!
If you do need it our gift IDs are HC0036 and MC0320.

Here is the link:
https://www.pmc.org/egifts/default.asp?Add=MC0320




Thanks you so much for your continued support,

Michael & Heidi Coburn

So long Snow!

We have had very wintery weather here for two solid weeks. Now it is melting and Isabelle and I made a snowman today.

Stratton Success

We made it home from Stratton in about 8 1/2 hours of solid driving. Our Malerick / Coburn caravan was fun with the talk-a-bout radios keeping the cars in constant contact. We even managed to leave the house by 6:10 a.m. and no blow ups or tantrums. The weather got milder and milder as we moved west. We had a ton of fun and in contrast to the rain we had today in Ohio, the cold weather was much better for skiing than 37 and rainy would have been.

Now we had Christmas this morning and we tortured the kids by making them wait while Heidi and I showered, made coffee etc. They posed for their picture on the stairs which will make it onto our montage of a New Years card along with the Good News/Bad News letter we finished authoring today. We had no family and no plans today so we just lounged in our pajamas and the kids played video games while Heidi and I traded naps. Heidi is making the mother of all Christmas dinners and convincing herself that cooking is very over rated. We are having a no bake pumpkin pie, roasted chicken and salmon, spinache souflee, mashed potatoes and some fantastic Sanford Pinot Noir. Merry Christmas!