Things have been quiet on the Avon walk front. Our last fundraiser was several weeks ago, and I’ve received one huge donation since – my sister sent me $250! (This seems like a good time to mention that you can donate to the Avon walk and choose a flexible payment option which allows you to split up your donation over several months. It makes things less painful on your purse.)

Anyway, with the walk looming on the horizon, it seems like a good time for me to start thinking about my health – before, during, and after the walk. You’ll remember that in the first year of my breast cancer walking, I ended up at the doctor a week or so later, with unbearable pain in my knee. He chalked it up to walking 60 miles in 3 days and prescribed a brace for me to wear. With my cheap health insurance, the whole visit, including a quick x-ray, only cost me $40!

In 2007, I knew what to expect and wasn’t surprised when my legs started hurting during the walk. I spent a lot of time at the medical tent icing and wrapping my legs. No visit to the doctor needed.

This year, I’ll be in New York for the walk. It’s a shorter distance, so I’m hoping that means less pain.

My friend Deb joined my Avon team last month. This morning, I received an email from her that I wanted to share here. I hope my advice helps Deb, and anyone else who is thinking about participating in a charity walk.

I open my book (Avon Walk) last night and start reading it. I read about the sleeping bag, the tent, and packing a backpack for it, and collecting money, and about the night before, and I start to go…Overwhelmed much? Then I realize, it’s my fear of failure, I think. I mean, crap, if other people can do this, I can too.

Deb

Deb, the easiest thing to do is the donate money to walkers. Walking is the hard part. We walk because cancer isn’t easy. Imagine being a new mom, who just found out she’s got breast cancer. Or a grandmother to 7, who found out her cancer can’t be cured, and this will be her last Christmas. Cancer is hard. Chemo is hard. Dying isn’t fun. This may sound melodramatic, but it’s true. Compared to all of that, raising money, camping, and walking is the easy part.

Take it step by step, and you won’t fail. You can raise the money. You have plenty of friends and family members who will donate to your cause. If you still need help, have a fundraiser! Stand out in front of a grocery store and beg for loose change. Stalk the people you work out with at the gym.

Make a list, and gather your supplies. If you forget something, they will be 2,000 other campers willing to help you out. Walkers are among the most helpful and friendly bunch of people I know, and they won’t hesitate to lend you a hand.

Camping? My idea of roughing it is staying at a 2 star hotel, but I camped. I slept in a tent, I showered in the back of a truck, I went without air conditioning. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you look at this event and it seems like you’re staring up at the side of a mountain. Once you start raising money, and working towards your goal, you’ll realize that you’re now halfway up the mountain, and it wasn’t even that hard.

Take it one step at a time. You CAN do this. You can do anything you set your mind to!

Warning…shameless begging ahead!

I started this blog last year before my first walk so that I could share my experience, and I even blogged DURING the event from a hotel room that night (our campsites were rained out) – how’s that for commitment?

The blog is up for the best charity blog award at the Blogger’s Choice Awards.

Now, normally, I wouldn’t care much, except that I’m going to be at the conference where the awards are given out, and how neat would it be to actually be there to win? Some blog about helping kids is nipping at my heels, and not for nothing, but I don’t see them walking 60 miles. The most I saw was mention of a 2.3 mile walk, which as you all know is a warm up for me. I’m walking 60 miles, for the 2nd time, for my cause. And isn’t that worth a vote? (All of the above is completely tongue in cheek – kids are a worthy cause of course, but I do want to win)

I hope that if this blog wins, we’ll get a little more attention from the blogosphere for the cause. More attention means more donations, and more donations means more women with healthy breasts. And really, do you want to be AGAINST healthy breasts?

You do need to register to vote, but please consider doing so to help me out. If you can’t afford to donate, or simply don’t want to part with $20, this is the next best thing you can do to help me out. When you register, just return to the ‘best charity’ blog category and vote for 3DayMom here:

http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/166

I have several blogs up there in different categories, but best charity is the one I REALLY want to win. However, if you’re so inclined to vote for more once you vote for 3 DayMom – here are the links for all of my blogs:

Best geek blog:
http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/130

Best shopping blog:
http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/168

Hottest mommy blogger:
http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/169

Best sports blog (my husband):
http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/101

I got a GREAT email from the Breast Cancer 3-Day today!

Congratulations – you’re halfway there! Thank you for your hard work fundraising and for your support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Breast Cancer Fund.

Because 10 million women around the world could die from breast cancer in the next 25 years without the cure, we are fighting every minute of every day to save every life.

Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back – and then keep going! Continue with the same fundraising techniques that have been successful for you already, and add a few new approaches to your plan. Visit the Fundraising Tools page at www.The3Day.org for additional fundraising tips and ideas.

Please extend our thanks to your donors. Every dollar makes a difference!

Thank you, donors! Some of you are listed over there in my sidebar —>

If you’d like to be listed there, all it takes is one $20 donation. Your link will stay up til the end of this year, when I start fundraising for the 2008 walk! Leave me a comment if you’d like to donate with your PayPal account, or donate online right now at http://the3day.org/tampabay07/colleenc

I’m adding another name to my sidebar of donations right now. This time it’s a big fat $50 donation from Eric and the gang over at Executive Gaming Monthly. I’m less than $700 from my $2200 goal right now, thanks to all of you!

If you want to be listed in my sidebar for donations, it’s easy – just donate $20 to my 3-Day walk, and I’ll hook you up! You can make your donation online at http://www.the3day.org/tampabay07/colleenc

Do you remember a magazine called “Rosie” that was published a few years ago? It was some kind of tie in with Rosie O’Donnell, and it was one of my favorites, while it was still being published. I was on vacation with my kids in a beach house on the Jersey shore, and there were a few issues of Rosie in the house, so I started reading it. The very first issue I picked up was all about Rosie O’ Donnell’s hospital stay, and a nasty staph infection she caught in the hospital. I hadn’t ever heard of such a thing, and I read with great interest how this staph infection caused Rosie to almost lose her HAND!

Staph infections are big deal, because they are resistant and hard to cure. It used to be that you found them in hospitals, but they moved out of hospitals and recently, some pro football players have been found to be infected by staph. Ick! There’s a new over the counter wound care treatment called StaphAseptic, which can be used to prevent community acquired staph infections. You can find it at most major drug stores and online as well.

I need to show a little self control. It’s girl scout cookie time, and between my husband and I, we bought 20 boxes. That’s not the self control issue though…because the cookies DO freeze well, and we’ll be eating them for a long time. The problem is with me. I can sit down and eat a whole sleeve of thin mints in a sitting. Eek! Yes, I have a great metabolism and won’t see any weight gain from that, but the sugar alone is enough to give me pause. And it’s hard to tell me kids they can only have 3 cookies when I’m eating 5 times that many!

I wanted to share with you all what I learned about Accutane, and the changes made to how it is dispensed. It’s been 4 years since I was last on it, and at that time, it was pretty strictly regulated. You had to get blood work done monthly. No bloodwork? No refill. You had to be on 2 forms of birth control, because Accutane does cause birth defects. I had to sign a waiver saying I knew the risks and I wouldn’t hold my doctor or the drug maker liable if anything happened.

The US government thought that by doing all of that, they wouldn’t see any more birth defects due to Accutane. They were wrong. Unfortunately, women STILL got pregnant on the drug. I went to the March of Dimes website and learned that some of the birth defects are:

hydrocephaly (enlargement of the fluid-filled spaces in the brain)
microcephaly (small head and brain)
mental retardation; heart defects
ear and eye abnormalities
cleft lip and palate
and other facial abnormalities

The damage is done in the first few WEEKS of conception. I can’t even begin to say how serious this is….if you are on Accutane, you can’t just tell your doctor you’re using two forms of birth control…you MUST DO IT!

Due to the number of Accutane births, it is even harder to get the medication now, which is why my doctor wants me to try something else first this time around. If, after that, I choose to go on Accutane, I will be asked to register with iPledge before receiving treatment. I have to test negative to two pregnancy tests before going on the medication, and then I must have monthly tests while on the medication. I am willing to do all of it.

Are you once of those people who bounces from diet to diet, fad to fad, trying to find the best diet for yourself? You’ve tried Atkins, you’ve tried South Beach, you’ve tried eating nothing but cabbage soup. Bleah! Wouldn’t it be great if someone had a site that honestly reviewed all of the diet plans out there, and gave you the real scoop, and REAL results on how each diet worked?

Ask and ye shall receive…you can now find diet reviews for countless diet plans, all in one place! The site is new, so there’s only one review so far, but check back, because a new review will go up every week! The current review is on the Best Life Diet, developed by Bob Greene. You may recognize him from the Oprah show!

I went to the dermatologist this morning for an appointment. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve seen one, and I went to a new doctor this time since we’ve moved. The reason? Let’s see…I’m 30, I have grey hair, but my face still breaks out. And it annoys me to no end! I was on Accutane in 2003 and it worked beautifully, but for now, I’m going to try a new oral antibiotic to see if I can get things to shape up over the next 4 weeks. If I don’t see results, well, I’ll be taking the Accutane plunge once again.