Noteable Hess Family Events

Thursday night we were contacted by student body leaders at Saddleback High School, where Judd has been teaching English and serving as the yearbook adviser for several years, to invite his family to surprise him by attending a school assembly the following day at which it would be publicly announced that "Mr. Hess" had been selected "Teacher of the Year" for 2008 by the students. Kim and I and Katie and Michele and her Mom were able to attend, and Zach would very much have liked to attended had his school commitments so permitted. This was a "Renaissance Assembly" with a Harry Potter theme with lots of Harry Potter characters depicted on wall posters. The student body leaders said that the idea was to help the students feel that it is "cool" to be smart and to learn...kind of a learning renaissance theme. Reportedly, admittance to this assembly had originally been danged as a carrot only for those students with a 2008 GPA of 2.5 or higher, but then administrators changed their mind and let everyone in, probably to the chagrin of those who had worked hard to make the cut. School assemblies are sure different than when I went to High School. Back then the teachers had to try to corral the kids to make sure they attended. Now they have security at the doors to check for wristbands to make sure that no non-student trouble makers get in. They had a very loud sound system, coupled with a programmable, rotating spotlight system, topped off with a laser light system that definitely kept you awake, even with the house lights dimmed. It was very evident that a lot of planning and work had gone into the preparation for this assembly. After several cheerleader and pep squad dance numbers, Judd was called up out of the audience to play a game of "Are you smarter than a Twelfth Grader?". With infrequent assistance from a student 'helper', I think he answered all the questions correctly. After the top ten students from the Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior classes were introduced, Judd was called back out of the audience and announced as teacher of the year and we were led out from behind a projection screen to greet him at center court of the gym. He was pleased and very surprised that we were there to share this honor with him. We're all proud of him and glad that he's been able to find satisfaction in applying his talents to help others. We're grateful that he is being recognized by others for the talents and abilities and potential that his family has known about all his life. In addition, he is nearly finished with his Masters degree. We love Judd and are grateful and pleased with his professional success. It was wonderful to see him so happy. Here are photos of Judd with family and students.




Thursday and Friday night the Commercial Dance Conservatory (CMD) of the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA) performed their year-end Student Choreography Concert at the Pavilion Theater in Santa Ana. Zachary's choreographed dance was one of those selected to be performed. He and another student also recorded lyrics that were played while the Senior CMD students performed their senior dance number at the end of the concert. Here are some photos from the event. The photo on the left is of Zachary and another student both receiving "Triple Threat" awards, due their abilities to dance and sing and act, where as most of the other CMD students just dance. Each of the graduating CMD seniors were asked to prepare a short biography and photo to post on a display board in the theater hallway. The other photo is Zach's entry. The video is a 30-second snippet of the CMD seniors performing their "senior dance" which they all choreographed and performed themselves. I am told that even though the video is large in size (57MB), that it should be playable by everyone since it does not need to be downloaded to your local computer.


Even though Zachary has many good friends at OCHSA that he will miss and even though it has been an environment where for 6 years it has been safe for him to be himself and develop his talents without the ridicule and teasing from other students (and pressure from teachers for this square peg to fit into their round hole) that he experienced while attending "regular" public schools, and even though CMD has been successful in helping him enhance his dancing skills and abilities, his parents are looking forward to Zach attending Brigham Young University where he can take his talents to a whole new level as he learns even more than he already knows the importance of developing and sharing his talents in a Gospel standards environment to uplift and entertain for the betterment of both performers and audience alike.

Speaking of Whirlwinds...

We had some wild weather in Southern California this past week. Because the weather.com website had forecast just a 10% chance of rain for our area on Thursday, I rode my bicycle to work, as usual. The forecast for the entire week had been for 10-20% chance of scattered showers with highs in the upper 60's and lower 70's. By mid-morning on Thursday, it was very obvious that the weather forecast was dead wrong, all due to a strong cut-off low circulating over the region. Various parts of Southern California experienced snow, hail, heavy rain with flooding and accompanying mud and debris slides in areas affected by wildfires last fall, as well as several tornadoes which overturned semi-trucks and even trains! It was surreal to recheck the current weather forecast on the Internet in the middle of all this wild weather and still see only a 10% chance of rain continuing to be predicted for the rest of the day, even though the same website was posting Flash Flood Warnings (current or imminent flooding). Check out these newspaper articles and photographs on the weather and its effects.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/across-2050232
http://www.ocregister.com/community/mud-slams-into-2049428-canyon-homes

Even though the most severe part of the storm was over by quitting time, I made arrangements to get a ride home from work. We continue to have cool, unsettled weather as we head into the Memorial Day weekend, when we usually have weather appropriate for pool parties. Not this year!

Another whirlwind trip to Utah

This past week Kim and Zach and I and Katie, Larry, Amarah, and Kaylee drove up to northern Utah for an extended Hess family wedding and a Riggs family reunion. My brother's oldest son Matthew got married. See my niece Emily's flicker website for photos.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/readyformycloseupmrdemille/with/2464702454/

Kim's side of the family also held a family reunion for all descendants of her parents. See her brother Rob's blog for more details. http://robintrish.blogspot.com/
Click on the following link to see some photos I took at the reunion.
http://picasaweb.google.com/CameronHess/2008RiggsFamilyReunion?authkey=2FTKV9bFqfI

Prince Zachary, the charming?

Zach is on a roll!

Last month he participated in a "mock" audition held by Disney at Zach's school for the purpose of giving the attendees experience in the audition process. Perhaps as a result of that audition, and the resume and photo Zach provided, he was invited to attend a real audition last Thursday and was asked to tryout for the role of Prince Charming in Disneyland's Electric Light Parade. There were so many people trying out for various jobs that Zach did not get home until 1:30 in the morning. What was odd, is that he was not asked to sing or dance. The judges made their decision only by looking at the contestants and had them try on a fancy white jacket with red shoulder epaulets. He thinks he has the job, but is waiting for more details.

As for myself, for the past year or so my employment with Parker Hannifin has been focused almost exclusively on working to help implement a product lifecycle management and collaborative development software tool called Enovia MatrixOne. This has required, and will continue to require, my traveling more than usual, which I do not relish.
http://www.3ds.com/products/enovia/products/enovia-matrixone/products/

Proud parents announce that Zachary makes BYU Young Ambassadors!

Two weeks ago Zachary auditioned for the BYU Young Ambassadors (premiere singing-dancing performance group) and for the BYU Dancer's Company (premiere modern dance performing group). Hundreds of current and incoming students tried out for these groups and any of them would be thrilled to make either of these premiere groups by the time they are Seniors. Zach has been invited to join both groups as an incoming Freshman, a rare accomplishment. Not too shabby! He will only be able to join one or the other. I think its a pretty safe bet that he will chose Young Ambassadors.

http://pam.byu.edu/similarpage.asp?title=Young%20Ambassadors
http://pam.byu.edu/similarpage.asp?title=Dancers

"One, Three, Two"

Back on January 28th of this year while I was still recovering from colon cancer surgery, my son Clayton thoughtfully wrote a poem that combined a story about his daughter learning to count and his feelings when he learned that my November colonoscopy had found colon cancer, which was originally diagnosed at stage 3, then reduced to stage 2 following successful surgery. Clayton called me today to share that he submitted the poem to his Humanities class and it won 1st prize and is being published in the annual issue of the Penn State Medical School magazine.

"One, Three, Two"

"Not polyps," son, "Stage one, at least."
Dad's telephone-voice silenced our feast,
Haunting what-if's tormented me.
And next I heard, "one" became "three."

My daughter, learning to count to five,
Will she know "Gampah," will he survive?
"One…" Yes, child, what's next? She says, "Thwee"
No, darling, what lies in between?

Mom's elated call interrupts us:
News? What corrected diagnosis?

"Of course I know, Grandpa I do,
What comes next?"

Her answer back: "two."

-Clayton Hess

BYU Young Ambassadors tryouts

Zach and his vocal coach (Kim) and our granddaughter Kaylee drove up to Provo last Wednesday so that Zachary could tryout for BYU's premiere singing/dance touring group, The Young Ambassadors. http://music.byu.edu/ya/

We've been told that it is rare for freshmen to make the group. Zach was the best male dancer in his audition group and also sang well. If he doesn't make it this year, it will be because of his youth (he'll be a 17 year old freshman), not his talent. He also tried out for, and made the callback cut for, the premiere modern dance group at the Y, but the callback audition time overlapped with the Y.A. call back times. So, we'll have to see what happens if both groups want him. He was also able to do some vocal recording with a musically talented former member of the Orange Stake who now lives in Utah Valley. Kaylee *loved* playing with their live bunny. We are assuming that Zachary will find out about Young Ambassadors in the next few weeks after the Y.A. Directors analyze the audition videos and pray about their decision. One of the things we all like about the group is that their values and objectives are gospel-centered.

I spent most of last week in Fort Worth, Texas on business. I was awoken early Thursday morning in my hotel room by *wild* weather (severe thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, high winds, etc.). What a show! Reminded me of the news network feeds of the rain and winds as Hurricane Katrina was approaching New Orleans.

I started the day thinking that I was safe from the American Airlines flight cancellation nightmare at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport because my AA return flight was on a Boeing 737, not an MD-80. WRONG! I received a text message that my Thursday night American Airlines flight to SLC was canceled! I was able to escape the disaster by cutting short a training class and taking an earlier Delta flight to SLC where I joined the family in SLC on Thursday evening to spend a long weekend with them and extended family members. I ended up sitting by a very sharp missionary returning from Brazil, Elder Norris, who studied 2 years at the Air Force Academy prior to serving a mission. As it turns out, he was traveling with a sister missionary who was also returning from Brazil. I didn't realize it until I saw them greeting their families at the airport, but the sister missionary was my sister-in-law Lori's niece!

Kim and I were able to see Jayson and Celeste's nearly empty apartment (anybody in the SLC area have any furniture they wanna donate?) and take them out for breakfast. We drove back late Sunday and Monday morning. We managed to miss the record breaking, near 100 degree temperatures on Sunday in Southern California. Quite a contrast from the light snow I experienced on the east bench of Bountiful last Thursday evening.

And...most important of all......(drum roll please).....I finally got my taxes done...with a whole day to mail em.

If you're a music lover, you'll love this website!

http://www.pandora.com/

Thanks to Emily for the tip.
http://readyformycloseupmrdemille.blogspot.com/2008/04/pandoras-box.html

L.A.Times article about Mormons and Muslims

Checkout this interesting article about Mormons and Muslims.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-morlims2apr02,1,2488142.story

marriage of Jayson Hess and Celeste Diaz

Jayson Hess and Celeste Diaz were married in a 10:30am sealing ceremony in the Newport Beach LDS Temple. It was a wonderful experience and the words of counsel by Sealer LeMar Baron were very appropriate and insightful. Photos and videos were taken of the bride and groom and assembled guests afterwards. I do not yet have access to those, just the photos I took with my cell phone camera. We assembled at the El Torito restaurant in Tustin for lunch. There was an evening reception at the Newport Boulevard church building. It was even more beautiful than anticipated, due to some last minute work by friends. Considering that the event conflicted with a Stake Spring Youth Activity at the Stake Center, the attendance was pretty good, but we still had lots of wedding cake, pasta, sauce, and breadsticks left over. Due to the assistance of kinds friends and family, the cleanup went much faster than I anticipated. The newlyweds stayed local for a few days and then flew to Texas for another reception hosted by the Diaz family. Jayson and Celeste are driving back to Southern California and will then rent a trailer to haul furniture and gifts to Salt Lake city, where they plan to live with Celeste's brother and his family until they both get jobs and can into their own place.

I have uploaded to my Picasa Web Album the best of the few photos from the time surrounding the wedding that I currently have access to.

http://tinyurl.com/2xcxs5

I hear that growing older is better than the alternative

I hear that aches and pains are just part of the aging process, so I try to ignore them. However, the ache in my hip is getting harder to ignore. So I decided to give my legs a few days rest by not biking to work Thursday and today(Friday), totaling 4 days rest with the weekend. If this helps, I'll have to consider a Mon,Wed,Fri riding schedule rather than Mon-Fri. Last year at this time I was completing 2 double centuries just 2 weeks apart. This year I feel like I'm continuing the physical decline that began with the cancer diagnosis last fall. Its ironic that I'm writing this while waiting in the doctor's office for a post-surgery follow-up appointment. (BTW, I ended up waiting 2 hours and 10 minutes for my turn with the doctor. I finally gave up and went back to work)

On a more upbeat note, the wedding and reception were nice and I will be posting photos and stories as soon as I have a breather from the hectic schedule. Things are noticeably quieter and the food bill noticeably less since Jayson left.

pre-marriage festivities

Since Clayton and his family are in town for Jayson's wedding this weekend, we've enjoyed some family activities together. Last Saturday the boys and I went ATV riding at Windy Point near Palm Springs, after enjoying breakfast at a local restaurant. We brought back plenty of sand in our hair and clothes, managed to avoid getting sunburned for the afternoon family photo shoot, a sample of which photos should eventually find its way onto this blog.


On Monday night, Jayson's sibs put on an entertaining and humorous Nearlywed Game for Jayson and Celeste. They also gave them a bag of gifts that they might need to make it through the first few weeks of marriage while they are driving to/from the reception in Texas and up to Utah. The whole extended family attended. It was great to watch the cousins play together.



Sorry about the big size of this relatively short video. I'm still learning how to setup the camera to take lower quality (and smaller size) videos.

nonpolypoid colorectal neoplasms

I include this interesting New York Times article about difficult to spot, but more dangerous, low profile colon lesions- nonpolypoid colorectal neoplasms(NP-CRNs)- for the benefit of those who might be reading my blog to learn more about colon cancer.

http://tinyurl.com/yrm45s
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/9/1027

THE Decision

After a great deal of research, thoughtful consideration, and prayer, I've made the decision to decline my oncologist's soft recommendation to receive post-surgical chemotherapy. To the best of my doctors' knowledge, there is no evidence of any remaining cancer. I'm choosing to not undergo an invasive and expensive six month cycle of treatments which doctors indirectly admit has a 97% chance of being either unnecessary or ineffective in preventing a recurrence within 5 years. I will continue to have periodic follow-up appointments for physical exams, blood work, CATScans, colonoscopies, and discussion of any potential symptoms to enable the docs to discover any potential recurrence as early as possible.

Thank you for your ongoing love, support, and prayers.

MDT at BYU for Z-A-K!

A follow up phone call this morning seems to confirm the letter Zachary received yesterday from BYU informing him that he has been accepted into Brigham Young University's Music Dance Theatre (MDT) Department for next year. We're all pretty excited. I was told (no, they didn't wait for Dad to get home before opening the letter) that there was some very loud hootin' and hollerin' when the letter was read. This has been Zach's dream for some time now. MDT is part of Theatre and Media Arts in the Y's College of Fine Arts and Communication. http://music.byu.edu/ya/MDT/


He plans to return in April to audition for their elite Young Ambassadors touring performance group.
http://music.byu.edu/ya/

my new gadget

Even though I work in computer support, I'm not as much of a geek as you might think. In fact, my PCs run on old, obsolete hardware that I buy from work which they would otherwise sell by the pound to computer junk dealers. I am seldom one of the first to get the latest electronic gadget. This time may be an exception. This smartphone was announced less than 5 months ago, so its not quite obsolete, yet.

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-smartphones/?tag=dir
http://tinyurl.com/ypsrmq
http://blip.tv/file/427772

The doctor has given me 1 week...

Back on January 2nd, I wrote about my initial thoughts regarding chemotherapy.

http://camswebpage.blogspot.com/2008/01/to-chemo-or-not-to-chemo-that-is.html

Today I had my first official office visit with my oncologist (Dr. Holcomb) to discuss adjuvant (post operative) chemotherapy. It seemed fitting that it was a cold, grey, drizzly morning, because its how I was feeling inside. I met with Dr. Holcomb briefly in the hospital while recuperating from surgery. He's been Chief of Hematology/Oncology at UC Irvine Hospital for 11 years and was recently appointed Associate Vice Chancellor for Research. Basically, he is their #1 cancer guy. Here are a couple of reference webpages about him.

http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/som/deptmed/?p=80

http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/cancer/all_pdf_files/appointment%20of%20holcombe.pdf

We reviewed my case and he pretty much reiterated what he told me before. Since there is no detectable evidence of any remaining cancer (cancer free margins on the colon resection, negative lymph node involvement, normal tumor marker blood tests), statistically speaking a stage 2 colon cancer patient like myself has about an 80% chance of cancer not reoccurring or metastasizing to other organs (ie. liver and/or lungs) for 5 years, during which time I would be in "remission" and after which time I would be classified as "cured". Oddly enough, this does not include the chance of additional polyps (cancerous or otherwise) forming again in the colon. So, there is about a 20% chance of recurrence in other "distant" organs within 5 years.

The doctor lightly recommended that I receive chemotherapy, but isn't going to twist my arm. He told me that if I were his son, he would recommend chemo. He said that I'm "young" and now is the time to do it soon after surgery. If I consent to chemotherapy, my chances for non-recurrence within 5 years increase to about 83%. Another way to look at it is that even with chemo, the changes of recurrence (~17%) are nearly 6 times greater than the chances of the chemo having any positive effect. Hmm.

Other Factors To Consider

The doc is recommending FOLFOX, which is a cocktail of three different drugs.

FOL– Folinic acid (leucovorin) - sometimes called FA

F – Fluorouracil 5FU

OX – oxaliplatin

http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=15970

The drugs would be administered every 2 weeks for 6 months. The drugs are given via a device called a Port-a-Cath that is surgically implanted just under the skin in the upper chest.

This website says the cost of this procedure alone is about $5,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port-a-Cath

Day 1 of each 2-week cycle begins with FOLFOX being administered at their "Infusion Center" for 3-4 hours, after which you go home with a small, portable injection pump still attached to the Port-a-Cath. Patients return to the facility on day 3 to have the needle and injection pump removed. Patients recover from the drugs on days 4-14 before repeating the cycle. Common side effects include fatigue, numbness or tingling in fingers and toes, nausea, and increased risk of infection or illness due to decreased bone marrow.

I figured that chemo was not cheap, but I didn't realize just how expensive it is until I asked. The doctor said that chemo costs about $20,000/month, or in other words, about $10,000 per 2-week cycle. Wow! The doctor said most of the cost is for the medicine itself. Pharmaceutical companies making that stuff must be doing quite well. And we think that a gallon of gasoline is expensive! We would probably exceed our health insurance yearly deductible and out of pocket maximum expense just having the Port-A-Cath installed.

Doctor Holcombe wants me to tell him my decision on whether I will receive chemo by next Friday, which just happens to be leap day, February 29th.

Interestingly enough, I completed my first double century bike ride one year ago this week.

http://camswebpage.blogspot.com/2007/02/2007-butterfield-double-century.html

Sorry about the long paragraphs.

For some reason the spaces between paragraphs are repeatedly being removed from this post.

BOYCOTT BERKLEY!

http://www.boycottberkeley.org/

Dishonorary Hall of Shame members:
City of Berkley Mayor Tom Bates
City of Berkley District 3 Councilman Max Anderson
City of Berkley District 4 Councilwoman Dona Spring

If these city "leaders" attempt to leave the Berkley City limits and enter the United States, they should have their persons and vehicles searched prior to having their U. S. passports confiscated.

Old age & treachery will overcome youth & skill

My favorite character on the old M*A*S*H TV show from the 1970's and 80's was B.J. Honeycutt. He was the even keeled, seemingly regular guy who was responsible for most of the "anonymous" practical jokes whose humor helped keep everybody sane in a seemingly insane world.

Jayson and Zachary are always telling me that I have no sense of humor because I don't usually don't find their brand of humor amusing. Tonight I got them so good and showed them that their old man has a sneaky and delightful sense of humor.

I brought home a demo cell phone from work for testing to see if I want to upgrade. The boys even saw the phone and commented on how maybe now I might be able to text faster since the phone has a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Its been hard to text with my current phone because it won't let me send text messages to people in my cell phone voice address book, but requires a separate and redundant text message address book, which I didn't want to manually keep in sync. Another reason I have been slow when sending text messages is because I don't practice for hours everyday using a telephone keypad to send cryptic shorthand alphanumerical messages like some people I know.

Part way through the evening, I decided to send both Jayson and Zachary text messages on their cell phones. I thought for sure they'd know it was me because I said something to the effect, "How's THIS for fast texting?" and sent the message several times. I expected them to know it was me. They didn't, because they didn't recognize the cell phone number. They answered back and asked who I was. The hook was set. I had em! I spent the better part of an hour texting both of them and asking them questions and telling them things about themselves that only someone close to them would know. They became more and more annoyed and insisted that I tell them who I was. I gave them so many hints, which went right over their heads. I could hear them laughing and comparing text messages with each other. They kept getting frustrated and asking me to identify myself. They wanted to know how I knew both of them and how did I get their phone numbers. I repeatedly sent the message, "Who's your Daddy?". They didn't get the hint. Finally I made reference to the movie, "Dumb and Dumber", which had been a topic of discussion at a recent family meeting. They still didn't get the hint, but their smart mother, who was seated next to them, immediately recognized the hint and told them that it must be their father. The tumblers must have finally clicked because they both came running into the room where I was. They asked if I had been texting them. I kept a straight face, but eventually they found the new phone on the floor by the side of the desk where I had sort of hidden it. Even though we had a long, good laugh together, I think they were a little sad to have the mystery come to an end. They won't soon forget being the objects of their dear old Dad's practical joke. This one will be told and retold and enjoyed again and again.

Valentines Day

I took the day off work to try and make some progress on my personal to-do list, which includes working on wedding invitations, yard work, family history, and bishopric duties.

Kim and I and Jayson enjoyed a nice evening at the temple together, along with two other couples from our ward, where we had the opportunity to perform sealings, on Valentines Day no less. I took the opportunity to sneak a kiss across the altar, which I can't recall doing since Kim and I were married. Speaking of marriage, the sealer that evening, LaMar Baron, is the same man who will perform the marriage ceremony for Jayson and Celeste exactly one month later on March 14th.

We came home to enjoy some Marie Calendar pies Kim had bought ahead of time and unexpectedly found Zach and his date enjoying a candlelight dinner and a movie. Not wanting to intrude, we quickly made other plans and went to Marie Calendars for a late dinner and pie. A word of warning. The pie selection an hour from closing on Valentines Day is rather limited.