Here For Hutch: Happy New Year!!

Hi All,

Hope everyone is having a nice start to the New Year. I am so sorry it has taken me so long to update the blog, and now I have so major catching up to do. Because I haven't blogged since February 2011, I am going to start with highlights of the summer and stuff going on now with many pictures, as always.

Highlights of the Summer

For several months at the end of last school year, I had been in contact with Dad's doctor, Dr. George Fisher, about helping out at the Stanford Cancer Center over the summer. I was still 14 years old, but with Dr. Fisher's help and a lot of paperwork, I was able to work 3 days a week at Stanford from June 17-August 19. I spent 4 weeks in the Cancer Center and then had the privledge to spend my last 3ish weeks in the Lokey Stem Cell Research Building. At the Cancer Center I did things like, sitting in on Tumor Board meetings, filing papers, creating a brochure of services to cope with chemotherapy and even went to a few patient meetings with Dr. Fisher when appropriate. I would have to say my favorite thing was the Tumor Board Meetings where medical school students presented their patient's situation and as a group the other students, doctors, radiologists, surgeons, etc. decided on the best way to treat this patient. Dr. Fisher led the meetings. Whether it is radiation, chemotherapy or another option, I thought it was really interesting how they chose the type of treatment based on the patient's background, type of cancer, age, weight, etc.

In the Stem Cell Lab I worked with Dr. Piero Dalerba from Italy. I looked at relationships between genes in normal breast tissue and cancer breast tissue using microscopes and computers. Since I wasn't 16, my jobs were limited because I wasn't allowed inside the Lab. I worked in a separate office and used lab tools under assistance of Dr. Dalerba when needed. I also looked at relationships of genes in colon cancer tissue and non-colon cancer tissue. Dr. Dalerba recently submitted our findings this summer to the New England Journal of Medicine. Currently, the paper is under review and hopefully will be accepted soon. This was an AMAZING experience and I hope to back back next summer.

Emily and I played on travel softball teams as usual. Our mom went with Emily and her team to San Diego for the California State Games while my team played in a tournament in San Maria. Meanwhile, Gavin stayed in San Carlos with Grandma Jackie.

We took our annual trip to Yosemite at the end on July and this time our cousins Connor and Elizabeth and Aunt Tracy and Uncle Barry came too. Barry is the youngest in our Dad's family and we loved having them come to visit! (From left to right: Connor, Uncle Barry, Elizabeth and Aunt Tracy).

We also celebrated Grandma Jackie's 80th birthday, multiple times. First we took her up to Sonoma. We stayed at the Kondo family's house for 4 days in June and grandma loved it.
Then we hosted a few of her friends over to our house for a birthday luncheon and Gavin, Emily and I made her a garden cake that she loved. In the picture our Gandma is in the green sweater.

Lastly, on her real birthday, August 27th, we took her to a Giants game that was giving out Tim Lincecum bobbleheads to the first 25,000 fans. We stood in line for a couple hours and everyone got a booblehead, including Gavin.

We all started school the last week of August. Gavin 1st grade, Emily 7th grade and I started 10th grade (sophmore) in high school. Labor Day weekend we went back to Pittsburgh, PA to visit our Dad's side of the family. We had a great time catching up with everyone and especially seeing our grandma JoJo again. We stayed with our uncle Tim and aunt Carolyn and cousins Maggie, Katie and Julie.

In late October, we got a visit from our Dad's roommate from Notre Dame, Tals and his wife, Gretchen. They came a few days before Halloween and Tals helped Gavin harvest the carrots in his garden. We were able to eat his carrots in a salad that night, and they weren't half bad.
The Present

Sports. Emily is playing basketball for her school, I am playing on the varsity soccer team at my high school and Gavin is joining a basketball team through the San Carlos Youth Center. He continuously comes home with new sayings he learns from his 1st grade teacher. He says thinks like, "you're as lazy as a bump on a pickle" and "if you mess with the bull, you get the horns".

We are all doing really well in school and having a good time. Our mom is looking into tuning up her bike and getting back in shape to do a biking event this year.

I just finished an online driver's ed course and am waiting for my certificate of completion to come in the mail. Then I have to go to the DMV and take the learner's permit test. Then driver with a permit for 6 months before I can get my drivers license!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and has a nice start to the new year :)

-Jackie Hutch

Comments

Well done Jack Jack! Your dad would be so proud you are keeping up the blog. I like these summaries of the year gone by and your plans for the new year - reminds me of your dads New Year resolution lists!

love you guys!

Posted by: Nancy Yamahiro | January 02, 2012 at 06:10 PM