Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Where has the year gone? I can't believe five months slipped away since I last posted information on my blog! Still a blog looser. The Great news, all my doctors have told me there is no sign of cancer and my blood markers are good. Last August I made the decision to go off Tamoxifen and Fermara (estrogen blockers) because of all the crazy side affects. I just could not live that way and told the doctors I will take the risk. I am finally coming out of chemo brain and feeling more like myself in the last few months and getting my energy back. I feel very blessed in life. Our granddaughter Charlee Star is five months old and beautiful inside and out! Our grandson Caden is 7 and doing great and Amber, Brandon, Caden and Charlee moved 10 minutes away from us and we see them often. Our daughter Erin Templeton, who works with us twice a week, is engaged to Adam Riedell and his son Noah, 7, and getting married August 2010. We are all very excited! I knocked another thing off my bucket list! Got a hole-in-one the day after Thanksgiving 2009...64 yard, hole 9 using a pitching wedge at Harvard Gulch.

Adam and Erin - Wedding Aug 2010 and our grandson Noah.

Charlee Star - 5 months old

Click here for our Templeton Holiday Card for more info and pics.

On a sad note, we lost a dear friend of ours, Bob Hogge, from Cancer in November. Bob was only 53. Our love continually goes out to his wife Dee and the Hogge family. Also to my friend Leslie Blessinger's family. Leslie was in my cancer support group and lost her fight in October from Lung Cancer.

Thank you all for your love and your continued support in finding a cure for cancer! We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Our Granddaughter is Here!

Our granddaughter, Charlee Star Vincent, was born on Monday, July 20th at 11:12 p.m. after 19 hours of labor for Amber. Charlee was 8.1 pounds at birth and 21 inches long. Isn't she beautiful! We have been spending as much time as possible with her since she was born. Our daughter Amber is doing great! What a blessing in this crazy past year. One year ago today, Tuesday July 29, 2008, my cat Stella helped me detect my breast cancer. I can't believe it has been a year. I am in the midst of 5 doctor visits in the next two weeks for my three month check ups to make sure I am still cancer free and remain that way!

I hope all my friends and family can continue to help me fight the battle against breast cancer. I have a Team, Freddies Friends, again this year for the Race for the Cure. See the link below to join my team. http://www.komendenver.org/site/TR/Race/General?px=1488364&pg=personal&fr_id=1090

I hope you are all having a wonderful Summer!

Love Freddie

Celebrating Life!

Where do the months go? I can't believe it has been 11 months since I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer! Since my last post the end of February, I have been getting back my health and celebrating life! I went to Cabo San Lucas (see the picture outside our hotel room!) with my sister, brother-in-law and four other great friends the end of May to celebrate life (my new motto), 10 years of marriage to Keith, Keith's 51st birthday and my sister's 50th birthday. I have not laughed that hard in years and it was so needed!!! My cancer support group of friends I went through chemo and radiation with, and their spouses, met at my house on Friday, June 26th for food, fun, laughs and support. We will be getting together monthly and welcome anyone who has, or is, going through cancer to join us for ongoing support. One of our support group goals is to go back to the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center (RMCC) at least every two months, if not more, to help support the new patients by making them laugh and help them bond with those that are going through treatment at the same time. I have made lifelong friends with my friends who were there with me! I plan on having a team for the Susan G. Komen Race October 4th and will be sending out my team link soon. Until then, here are some fun pictures from the last couple months.

Thank you Patricia Graham for walking for me at the Avon walk and carrying me in your pocket!

Being fed sushi in Cabo from my husband..how sweet life is! Enjoying the sunset and ATVing on the beach and mountains in Cabo with hubby Keith

Celebrating 10 years of marriage in Cabo with Keith!

Celebrating Life - My new Motto!

Love Freddie

Blog Looser = Cancer Survivor!

I am still a looser at updating my blog but I am now a cancer SURIVIVOR! I apologize for not keeping my supporters more updated in the last month but there was not a whole lot new to say until now. I can finally say that I am a Cancer Survivor and believe it! I am celebrating life! After a seven-month journey, I have finished all my breast cancer treatment! Last week, February 26th, I finished my seven weeks of daily radiation and the doctor’s prognosis is great and they say the cancer is gone…and I believe it! I, of course, will have doctor follow-ups on a regular basis for months but I am done with surgery, chemo and radiation treatment! I now go on an estrogen blocker medication, Tamoxifen, or one like it, for five-years. Statistics show that women who have had the same cancer diagnosis as me and take this medication it decreases the chance of cancer recurrence by 50%. Now that I am done with all my treatment, I can take antioxidants and a lot of my health herbs and supplements that I was unable to take for five months. This not only will help get my energy come back but my hair also. Yippee! Our company is in the midst of our busiest season of work and we have a lot going on so life is crazy right now but we feel truly blessed. We have work and our family is healthy and happy. Again, I am sorry to not update this blog as much as friends would hope. Don’t hold your breath on me ever being a face booker, space book or twitter gal but I do appreciate all of you! I would like to again thank my family, countless friends and clients who understood the energy my journey took and helped support me through all of this. Thank you for all your tremendous love and support! Words can never truly express how much you have all meant to me.

I do what to again publically thank my husband Keith, the love of my life, for proving to me that “love will keep us alive.” Keith, you are my rock. Thank you for standing by my side 24/7 through this fight and thank you for making me feel truly loved every day. If possible, I love you even more.

I have met tremendous friends through this journey that have, or still are, battling breast or some type of other cancer. I pledge my support to the fight against cancer. At this time, I am planning the vision stage of some type of cancer support group or foundation for the future and will keep you all posted on my blog as it unfolds. As I wrote earlier in my blog, there are many people that have cancer that Keith and I have met along the way that don’t have the love and support that I have had. The support group I am envisioning will have something to do with supporting those that need more love and helpful services in their battle with cancer.

Thank you all for being with me through this and I will keep you updated monthly…give or take a week or two!

God Bless You All!

February Update

Hello family and friends. Where has the last month gone? For me, the New Year came fast and furious with work for our clients along with radiation and doctor appointments. It is our busiest quarter for business with our MIC Conference on March 18th and our CSAHU Symposium in April along with three other client events and admin a month so we are very busy trying to keep up with all the A’s in our life. Keith and I made the decision to resign from one of our clients in September, the International Food Service Executives Association (IFSEA), due to the stress it put on our life with my cancer diagnosis. We are in the transition now to their new management company. They were in town last week training as we shipped off 34 boxes to them to take over. We met wonderful new friends, Synergy Communications, but a very exhausting week. After this busy quarter, our hope is to be able to reduce the stress in our life. We feel very blessed though to have work during this crazy time with the current status of our economy when so many friends are losing their jobs. We heard a rumor that we were closing the doors on our business…to set the story straight this rumor is very untrue. We are just downsizing back to the five association clients we have had for years. Due to the downsizing, we do have to have our full-time employee, Kari Quinn, go to part-time though until we figure out where life will take us. She has been an amazing support for us in the last year and I truly believe she was put in my life to help me through this cancer. For anyone reading this blog and needs some part time help, she is incredible and we don’t want to loose her but hope that we can help her find another part time job in the industry so we don’t loose her completely.

As far as my health, I have almost made it through four weeks of radiation with three weeks to go. As I expected, it is not as taxing on me as chemo but with how busy we are, having daily radiation for seven weeks has been a challenge with our work schedule. The doctors and radiation technicians are wonderful and kind though and are helping me make it as easy as possible. I am making it through it but radiation builds up and fatigue is setting in as I was warned. I am very tired and Keith is trying to get me to cut back my work schedule but at this time, that is difficult with client expectations during this busy quarter. I was only sleeping 3 to 5 hours a night for months due to all the chemo and the symptoms it brought on. In the last couple weeks, the doctors have me sleeping 5 to 7 hours a night, which is helping some with the fatigue. I was also diagnosed a few weeks ago with mild lymphedema due to the nine lymph nodes removed during my cancer surgery last August. Lymphedema happens when there is some sort of compromise within the lymphatic system. The lymph nodes controls our fluid circulation within our bodies, and when there is an injury, or other sort of compromise within that system it can cause swelling (edema). I am having to have weekly physical therapy once a week this month to keep the swelling down and manageable and I have to wear a compression sleeve on my right arm during exercise, housework or flying on a plane for the rest of my life and I have to be very careful not to cut myself or get infections in that area so that it won’t get worse. What is my next step after radiation? My Oncologist suggests I go on Tamoxifen for at least a year and then another type of medication that helps block the estrogen in my body. High estrogen in my body is suspected to increase my chances of cancer.

All in all, my prognosis of cancer not coming back is very good and I am almost through this seven-month journey that rocked our world last August! Again, thank you to all my friends and family who have been so supportive of Keith and me during this time and we thank you for the bottom of our hearts!

Happy New Year!

The last five months have flown by since my first diagnosis. I can’t believe it is 2009. I hope you all had a great holiday and it was wonderful. Personally, my favorite gift was I am done with chemotherapy as of December 23rd. I was able to enjoy a beautiful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family without major side affects. The picture here shows me with my mother-in-law, and dear friend, Eileen on Christmas morning.

I did not get the migraines this time, thank goodness, but I was physically ill the night/day after Christmas for hours and was in bed for three days. I will spare you any other details and just state I am overjoyed this portion of my treatment is over. I am now in the week where my white blood cell count is extremely low for a week and then it starts climbing back after next week and so will my hair (yippee!).

My next step is radiation, which does not affect my white blood cell count like chemo. Radiation starts two weeks from today, January 12, when my body is strong enough to start. I had my radiation “orientation” today. I will be having 34 radiation treatments, five days a week for seven weeks. It is only a 15-minute treatment but getting there and back is an hour out of the day and somewhat of a pain fitting it into our company’s busiest quarter of the year. All the doctor had to give me were the percentages today of how women with my exact type of cancer go from a 45% chance of cancer returning to a 4% chance of return if they do radiation…so I will try not to complain much on that hour out of my day for two months of my life. As far as getting healthy and strong I still can’t take a lot of my health regiment I was on before starting chemo until after I complete radiation. The doctor today discouraged me from taking antioxidants during radiation because it affects how the radiation kills the cancer. There are several side effects from radiation but I am hopeful and somewhat confident that they are nothing like chemo. One of radiation’s side effects is fatigue but I am not afraid of radiation like I was chemo and I believe I will get stronger and better from here on out. For more information on radiation and what I will be doing see the following website: http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/radiation/

Thank you again to all of my family and friends for your special and beautiful Christmas/Holiday cards and gifts. Thank you also for supporting Keith and me through this crazy journey. God Bless you all and may 2009 be rich in love and health for you and your family. I will try to be better about updating my blog in 2009!

Happy Holidays!

The exciting news is our daughter Amber is pregnant and we are going to be Grandparents in July of 2009! They saw the baby and heart beat yesterday! What a blessing. Reporting on my health, my last chemo I had was December 2nd. It had been three and a half weeks since my last chemo and I was starting to feel stronger. My dear friend Danny Findley came over the night before my third chemo treatment and helped decorate our Christmas tree and get me in the holiday spirit. Besides a wonderful personality, Danny brought some of his classic wigs on loan to me (see pictures). I sported the “Britney” wig look for chemo the following day bringing a few laughs to the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center. I felt fairly good the day of and the day after my chemo treatment, all thungs considered. The night of December 4th and morning of December 5th I suffered a migraine headache though that had me physically sick for hours (a new ailment I had never experienced in my life). My doctor sent me to the hospital for a brain scan because these symptoms are not “normal” chemo reactions she stated. The scan showed my brain is fine…well at least cancer free. I still have what I call “chemo brain”. I am on the mend now contributing as much as possible daily towards our company and clients and getting stronger for my last chemo on December 23rd. Several family and friends asked why I don’t wait until after Christmas for my last treatment. I thought long and hard about this and decided I would rather be sick on Christmas day celebrating that I am done with the chemo portion of my treatment instead of anticipating having it the following day. My hope is to build my immune system as fast as possible to get me strong for my last leg of treatment…radiation starting in late January. I anticipate 2009 being a much brighter year in my family’s and my life but I am still witnessing many blessings in my life through all of this. Not only the continued love, support and special gifts from countless family and friends but also it was confirmed this past Friday that my mother is cancer free as of one year. She has been battling bladder cancer for more than two years. On a sad note, our dear friend Megan's father lost his battle with brain cancer. Our heart and prayers go out to Megan and her family. I will continue to encourage all my friends to support the fight against this disease.

I hope all of you have a great holiday season and again, thank you for your continued support and encouragement throughout my journey. I wish you health and happiness in the coming New Year and hope it is prosperous for all of us and that we see an end to these hard economic times for our country. God bless you all.