(photo from Yahoo!)
Jessica Sanchez, Joshua Ledet and Phillip Phillips were revealed as the Final 3, and Hollie got the one way ticket home.
Tag Archives: life
Happiness
When I grow up, I want to be happy…
Just Forget
Just forget.
That’s what the girl said to me yesterday.
Forget how he made you smile without saying a word.
Forget how he pulled you close so you’d feel protected at night.
Forget how he would call and say I love you and hang up and do it again.
Forget how he took your hand and promised he’d never break your heart.
Forget how he surprised you with a dozen roses and the last one never dies.
Forget how he smells like the first time you ever met.
Forget how he walks really slowly to catch you thinking of him.
Forget how he talks and the way his voice sounds on the phone.
Forget how his simple words in a text made you get butterflies.
Forget how many nights you cried yourself to sleep thinking he’s your life.
Forget how he never did anything right, but it was always perfect.
Forget how he called you beautiful and not fine as hell.
Forget how he never leaves your mind and how he’s still in your heart.
Forget how everything that girl said was staring back at you, telling you to move on.
Just forget she said.
Im sure he has.
An update to Avery…
This is just a typical day for me (actually I’m working right now) and I stumble across Yahoo News and I was totally shock, I don’t want to open it right away because the headline is very in your face. So here’s an update. (taken from Yahoo News)
Avery Lynn Canahuati 11/11/11 – 04/30/12
Hello everyone this is Avery’s father. Avery passed away yesterday sometime around 3pm due to pulmonary complications related to SMA. In short, one of her lungs collapsed and she went into cardiac arrest. I immediately performed CPR on her and was able to bring her back to life, but only for a brief period of time before she passed away shortly after arriving at the hospital. Avery’s passing this quickly came as a complete shock to all of us, as she had just been given a thumbs up at her last doctors appointment only three days ago. While we were aware of the severity of her diagnosis, we never lost hope for Avery and even in her passing, we still have hope for our daughter and all of her friends. I’m going to share a note Avery gave me back when all of this started, but made me promise not to open until I knew the time was right…
Dear Mommy & Daddy:
If you’re reading this it’s because I’ve gone to take care of my Uncle Bryant, Nana Carolyn, Papa George, and all my great Grandparents. I love you veeeeeeeeeery much. Also, tell Nana & G-Pa I love them too. In fact, tell everyone who loved me that I love them and I appreciate them caring about me.
When I started writing my blog, I thought I’d only be speaking to my closest friends and family members. Little did I know soooooooo many people would care about me and while I’m flattered to have so many people who love me, I hope they will also take time to love and care about all of my friends out there with SMA.
You see, I’d never heard of SMA prior to being diagnosed with it, yet there’s thousands of my friends out there living with it today and millions of my future friends parents who are unknowingly carriers of the SMA gene. Without awareness and without a cure, I’m afraid more of my friends are at risk to have their lives drastically shortened by SMA.
When people think of me, I hope they’ll also think of all my friends who have been through this and who are going through this now. But what I really hope for is that when people think about me, they will not waste time sitting there feeling sorry for me, rather I hope they will STAND UP in honor of me and all of my friends (past, present, and future). And they can do so by spreading awareness and helping to fund a cure for my friends.
To all my SMAns, you followed me, now please follow all of my friends.
Mommy. Daddy. I love you every bit as much as you love me. And while I’m not here physically, I will forever live in your minds, as you will mine.
Love always,
Avery, Aviator, Aves, Scuttlebutt
Also, before Avery passed away, I made her a promise that I would continue to be an activist in raising SMA awareness, making genetic testing universally available, and in finding a cure for her friends. I will not break that promise and in the name of SMA awareness and funding a cure, I hope parents of children everywhere will look at Avery’s Bucket List and help her complete items she was unable to.
One of Avery’s newest Bucket List goals was to help raise the remaining $365,000 (out of $1mil) needed to bring Dr. Kaspar’s SMA Gene Therapy program out of the lab and into her SMA friends. Dr. Kaspar’s SMA Gene Therapy could cure Avery’s friends or at the very least offer advancements towards a cure for them.
Once that goal has been achieved, Avery asks that all monetary donations at this time be made in her name to Fight SMA (www.fightsma.org).
Here’s the last picture we ever took of Avery. It was taken approximately 15-20 minutes before her lung collapsed and she went into cardiac arrest. She was sitting on her mommy’s lap looking at me and all it took to get her to smile this big was for me to keep saying “Hi”.
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| SMA, you did not take my smile away! |
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR LOVING AVERY, SUPPORTING US, AND HOPEFULLY FOR CONTINUING TO SUPPORT AVERY’S FRIENDS WHO ARE STILL OUT THERE!!!
Items I Can Scratch Off My Bucket List:
1. Not let SMA take my smile away
2. Take one last breath, then take one more before I go to live with my Uncle Bryant, Nana Carolyn, Papa George, and all my great Grandparents (Tommy, Laura, Jim, Walter, Julia, Joseph, and Audine).
(I am not related to Avery but she has my heart) Say hi to my Grandpa and Grandma 🙂
7 Rules to a better Life
“7 Rules to a better Life : 1. Never Hate 2. Live Simply. 3. Expect a Little. 4. Give a lot. 5. Always Smile. 6. Live w/ Love. 7. Be With God”
Avery’s Bucket List
I’ve read a very touching story and I want to share this…
Where do I even begin (part 1 – Saturday/Sunday)
Each time I post an update, please share my story by updating your social networks, e-mailing all of your contacts, and talking to your friends/co-workers. And to all my girlfriends out there, tell your Ob/GYN about my story and maybe they’ll routinely start offering SMA testing. If we can help save a few of my future friends and their mommy, daddy, and loved ones from SMA, then my life, while cut short in time, will be beyond fulfilling in stature.
Before I recap my last few days, I wanted to share some information sent to me by a few of my mommy’s friends who called their separate insurance providers and asked about SMA testing. Here’s the results:Friend #1 – “We will cover the entire balance at no cost to you.”
Friend #2 – “You will be responsible for a $50 copay plus 10% of the total balance due.”
Before I recap my last few days, I wanted to share some information sent to me by a few of my mommy’s friends who called their separate insurance providers and asked about SMA testing. Here’s the results:Friend #1 – “We will cover the entire balance at no cost to you.”
Friend #2 – “You will be responsible for a $50 copay plus 10% of the total balance due.”
Quest Diagnostics offers the test for $950 when billed to insurance, so Friend #1 could be tested for FREE and Friend #2 pays $145 ($50 + $95) to find out if they are carriers of the SMA gene and stand a risk of their children being born with SMA or as SMA carriers. Ironically, and what appears to be the norm, neither of my mommy’s friends had ever been offered the SMA carrier gene test.
Daddy told me when he was much younger, there was an angry Canadian woman who wrote a song about situations like this, so I looked her up on YouTube & apparently daddy isn’t the only one who knows her.
On a somewhat positive note, daddy just got off the phone with his friends who’d just left their 23 week exam and before they could ask about SMA their Ob/GYN mentioned it to them. Their Ob/GYN knew all about me and said that SMA has become a hot topic of late and he felt compelled to start offering the test to all of his patients (new & old). My response to that is, way to go Mr. Ob/G, but why did it take 23 weeks into my daddy’s friends pregnancy to make you feel compelled to mention SMA to them, when you should have been compelled years ago?
Daddy told me when he was younger he remembers waiters used to politely ask, “would you like desssert?” But now they bring out a tray with every dessert on it, let you see it, smell it, and then they tell you every last detail about pie, cake, mousse, brownies, ice cream, and creme brulee until you submit to the guilty pleasure of every bite until there’s only one bite left…as if you’re saying to yourself, it only counts if I eat the whole thing. My first thought was to say, whatever that means, but then I realized what daddy is trying to say is if we can convince waiters to shove dessert down our throats and provide us details about each one, then we should be able to convince doctors to force in-depth details about simple blood tests to us, especially when they can determine the potential risk for life altering/threatening diseases.
Then I reminded daddy that sometimes dessert, just like SMA testing, is FREE and who says no to free dessert? Then daddy told me that if dessert wasn’t on the menu, most people wouldn’t even know they could order it and the waiters probably would forget to offer it. He also reminded me that nobody likes a whining baby so I should stop myself short of getting back on my soap box and just tell everyone about my last few days…hey I know what that means!
Soooooooo here’s a look back at my last few days since coming home 60 hours after my “less than an hour long, minor, in and out surgery” on Thursday…Saturday Evening:
After our long confusing day Thursday, an even longer day Friday, and then being told checkout was Saturday morning, we were all excited to be heading home. But then someone dropped a ball somewhere and because they fumbled, there was some confusion and mommy & daddy were told the earliest we could leave would be Sunday morning around 2-3am. It was about that time that mommy looked at daddy and said something about it was about to get ghetto up in here and she was going to throw some bows on people. I told mommy that sounds like fun, but since I have limited mobility in my arms and can’t throw anything, would it be OK if I keep my bow right where it’s at?
That’s probably why my levels went crazy and I ended up back in the hospital on Tuesday morning, but mommy & daddy seem to think it’s because they were misinformed as to how fast and how much milk they should feed me through my new Glam-Tube and it was causing major reflux issues which effected my swallowing and breathing.
After our long confusing day Thursday, an even longer day Friday, and then being told checkout was Saturday morning, we were all excited to be heading home. But then someone dropped a ball somewhere and because they fumbled, there was some confusion and mommy & daddy were told the earliest we could leave would be Sunday morning around 2-3am. It was about that time that mommy looked at daddy and said something about it was about to get ghetto up in here and she was going to throw some bows on people. I told mommy that sounds like fun, but since I have limited mobility in my arms and can’t throw anything, would it be OK if I keep my bow right where it’s at?
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| Maaaaaaaaaaaandela! |
About 30 minutes later, without any bows being thrown, a very nice doctor came in and told us they found the ball that had been dropped and we were free to leave. Daddy whispered to me, “did they say we can leave for free?” – he’s soooo silly.
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| We came, we saw, we partied like Rock Stars! |
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| Even Rock Stars have to sleep! |
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| I was stinky so mommy gave me a sponge bath when I got home. |
Sunday:
After a good night sleep in my crib, it was time to rise and shine and say hello to all of my toys, but apparently I was so out of it after coming home from the hospital last night that I didn’t even realize my room had been redecorated. Personally I liked my room better the way it was before, but don’t tell mommy & daddy because I think they spent a lot of money on the changes and I don’t want to offend them.
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| Before |
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| After |
Once I became accustomed to my new “crib”, I had to get ready for a fundraiser in my honor at Auntie Pasto’s restaurant in Bellaire, TX. As it turns out, I wasn’t able to attend, because my mommy & daddy wouldn’t let me since I’d just gotten out of surgery the day before. Mommy & daddy did tell me there were a lot of people there who were thinking of me and wanted to know how I was doing. In fact I was told the restaurant had people waiting out the door, they had to stop taking to-go orders because the kitchen couldn’t keep up, and their credit card machines & computers crashed for over an hour. When it was over, the restaurant owners said they’d never been that busy in 20+ years of being open for business and it was evident everyone wanted to be a part of my fundraiser. Thank you to everyone who helped put my fundraiser together, showed up, called orders in, and to Auntie Pasto’s for being gracious hosts!
Items I Can Scratch Off My Bucket List:
1. Make an impact on a doctor to mention SMA to his patients.
2. Wear a big bow on my head
3. Party like a Rock Star
4. Get a sponge bath
5. Redecorate my room
6. Have an SMA Awareness fundraiser thrown for me
2. Wear a big bow on my head
3. Party like a Rock Star
4. Get a sponge bath
5. Redecorate my room
6. Have an SMA Awareness fundraiser thrown for me
Where do I even begin (part 2 – Monday/Tuesday)
Each time I post an update, please share my story by updating your social networks, e-mailing all of your contacts, and talking to your friends/co-workers. And to all my girlfriends out there, tell your Ob/GYN about my story and maybe they’ll routinely start offering SMA testing. If we can help save a few of my future friends and their mommy, daddy, and loved ones from SMA, then my life, while cut short in time, will be beyond fulfilling in stature.
My mommy and daddy tell me I’m more of a morning person, because I’m always smiling when I first wake up. I never really paid much attention to it, but I suppose after seeing my morning photo compared to my mid-day photo, I would have to agree.
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| You think you’ve had bad hair days? |
This much I do know, my oxygen levels and heart bpm’s (beats per minute) are almost always lower in the early mornings, mid-day, and evenings than they are in the late morning. I think I’m going to have to give up my late morning soap opera’s, because my oxygen drops and my blood pressure rises whenever I think about the fact I’m relegated to watching All My Children re-runs. And don’t eeeeeeeeeeven get me started about how Susan Lucci only won 1 Emmy after being nominated 21 times.
That’s probably why my levels went crazy and I ended up back in the hospital on Tuesday morning, but mommy & daddy seem to think it’s because they were misinformed as to how fast and how much milk they should feed me through my new Glam-Tube and it was causing major reflux issues which effected my swallowing and breathing.Everything is OK now though because mommy & daddy are using a pump which they can set how fast and how much fluid should go into me at one time. I’m definitely happier and breathing better with my new feeding schedule (60 mL of fluid over 30mins) compared to my previously inaccurate feeding schedule (90mL over approx. 5 mins). And while I’m no math whiz, that really seems like a BIIIIIG difference (at least my body thinks so).
But hey it wasn’t all bad, because I got to ride in an ambulance with two muscular firemen who wouldn’t take their eyes off of me. If they’re reading, hi guys, thanks for the ride, and you know where I live so don’t wait for me to call you next time, just come on by and say hello! Also, I met a fan who told mommy and daddy she’s been following my story and that she met a superstar that day. I swear, if Brad & Angelina had one of their fifteen kids in the hospital at the same time as me and noooooobody told me, then I am not going to be very happy.
Anyway, when I got home from the hospital I was definitely feeling a loooooot better so mommy & daddy decided what better way to help me forget about my hospital trip than to have some fun doing things from my Bucket List!
I talked to mommy & daddy, but I was mostly talking to my sponge bob square stick.
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| I played a joke on my Aunt Claire when I told her she could ride my pinata piggy…tee hee |
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| I ate a cupcake! |
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| Mommy & I made a ball with Play-Dough! |
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| That’s a Blow Pop…mommy kept telling me to say from Charms…whatever that means. |
All in all I’d say Monday & Tuesday had their moments, but both went better than expected; hospital stay excluded. Tonight I think I’m going to record Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and re-reruns of ER so that mommy & daddy can get better acquainted with proper medical procedures in the event they are ever misinformed again.
Items I Can Scratch Off My Bucket List:
Items I Can Scratch Off My Bucket List:
1. Wake up smiling
2. Have a bad hair day
3. Ride in an ambulance
4. Get picked up by a fireman
5. Meet a fan
6. Talk to mommy & daddy
7. Eat a cupcake & a Blow Pop
8. Play with Play-Dough
9. Play a practical joke on someone
Special Weekend Getaway
April 20, 2012
Me and my partner celebrated our 4 years… woohoo! achievement =)
And my gift for her… another JanSport backpack
which I bought at The Travel Club (follow them @TravelClubPh) – No One Knows Travel Like They Do.
Afterwards…off to Mall of Asia (MOA)
And we ate at… Vikings – The Best Buffet in Manila
(some of the desserts Ü )
April 21, 2012
Off to Tagaytay…
If you’re travelling by bus (which we did for adventure sake) we rode San Agustin bus with signboard Tagaytay Olivarez from MRT Taft Station (behind McDonalds)via Coastal Road, Aguinaldo Highway to the towns of Bacoor, Imus, Dasmarinas and Silang before reaching Tagaytay. We asked the driver to drop us at Olivarez, then from Olivarez we rode jeepney going to Mendez – going to our hotel – Tagaytay Haven Hotel – Mendez.
It’s a budget hotel so do not expect anything fabulous, however their WiFi is strong, their room is clean and the location of the hotel is near some local businesses like Jollibee, Starbucks, Savemore, Bag of Beans etc.
Our first “tour” is the Paradizoo Theme Farm
Going their is just a breeze from our hotel, we walked going to Savemore and rode a jeepney – then when the driver said we need to go down, we did, rode a tricycle and boom Welcome to Paradizoo… (actually we just guessed our way going there so I can’t really explain what we did Ü )
Me at the Animal Farm (told you it’s a farm right? )
Jayne’s little pony – I think she’s pregnant or just had a great lunch…
I think she’s medidating
This camel needs a denture… lol
after seeing the pigs, deer, rabbit, horses etc we found a place where we can sit and relax and enjoy the view… Flower Farm.
This is my flower… i swear…
Trying to do cart-wheel
White Gumamela?
I missed my 2 dogs who is in doggie heaven (I miss you Nols and Doggie)
After going to Paradizoo… unfortunately I was visited by Migraine and was not able to do anything else but to sleep…
Let your past make you better not bitter.
Let your past make you be…
Good Friday
I stumbled some photos today and this one catches my attention. Ironically, today is Good Friday and as a gratitude to the Lord I am dedicating this blog post to Him.
“Thank you for sacrificing your life to us sinners”
29 Life Lesson from a 29 Year Old Kid
Hello, here’s a list of (which I think) are life lessons that I learned in my 29 years of existence. Hopefully you’ll find this very helpful.
1. Money can bring you happiness – it’s fucked up if you say you can’t buy happiness! oh yes it CAN! trust me. I’m happy when I buy clothes, shoes and especially bags. But of course, these are temporary happiness. If you want to be REALLY REALLY happy, be yourself and love your self.
2. The world does not revolve around you. Do not be overly dramatic into some situations example, you lose something, your boyfriend cheats on you or your mom won’t let you go out – there are a lot of people that has problems – like Cancer, no food, no house. Count your blessings.
3. EVen how religious you can be, we all experience bad things. Take this as a challenge. (you can do it! 😀 )
4. TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS – to be honest, I’, struggling on this part, but after 6 years, the pain feels tolerable… we are all human, we are entitled to get angry, to curse, to cry but in time, there is no other choice but to move on.
5. When I was young I want to become older – so I can go out with friends, drink, go on date, go home late, but now I want to be young again. LIVE YOUR LIFE TO THE FULLEST.
6. Communication is the key to success.
7. Don’t hate people, hate their wrong doings.
8. Stop caring about how you look. You were born that way.
9. Stop caring about the boundaries others set up. Believe in your self.
10. You should have inner peace. Living a life of honesty creates peace of mind and that is priceless.
11. Be an animal lover. I love my dogs – OMG! 🙂
12. Love mother Earth and she will love you.
13. Do what you can now. We all know that time is gold, we can’t go back to the past. Say sorry to someone you’ve hurt or say thank you to your parents.
14. Life is not easy – but hard work makes people lucky.
15. It’s okay to be insecure or get jealous. Use this as a motivation.
16. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.
17. You can’t change other people; you can only offer guidance, and lead by example.
18. Don’t take life so seriously . It isn’t permanent
19. You don’t have to settle. It’s simply a choice you make every day. If you don’t like your life, then it’s time to start making changes and better choices.
20. It’s okay to be confused. It means you have brains to think.
21. When you’re up, your friends know who you are. When you’re down, you know who your friends are.
22. Good looks attracts the eyes. Personality attracts the heart.
23. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.
24. When my boyfriend (ex) broke up with me. I flew to another country. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
25. Once is enough, twice is too much.
26. Family first before friends. No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, your family will be always there. Remember, blood is thicker that vodka.
27. If you want to succeed – focus on being productive, not being busy.
28. Start facing your problems head on. – It isn’t your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them. Problems will not disappear unless you take action. Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you’ve done.
29. Be happy not just for yourself but for eveything.
I Fly with the Dragons 