Dear Friends:

Apologies for being away from the OCF board for a few weeks but I promise, I had a good reason and was with you in spirit throughout the process. As some of you know, Dave and I are both long distance doctoral students at the University of Texas in Galveston and were working diligently (and we thought that was stressful!) on our studies before we discovered Dave had oral cancer. The experience of being with him during the process and now has been so profound for me that I have changed my original dissertation topic and will now study the effects of an oral cancer diagnosis on the caregivers/partners of those with the disease since, as we know, there is a giant toll on the survivor and those closest to him/her. In any case, I have been away briefly because I was reading lots on oral cancer and partners of cancer survivors and putting the finishing touches on the proposal and travelling to Texas to do the candidacy defense. There will be more info about the actual study appearing on the board in the next few months and I am hoping some of you will participate so we can raise awareness. More on that later...today I really want to thanks to all of you who stand by Dave and myself daily and give us faith, clarity, and a safe place to vent.

There are many twisted gifts in the cancer experience and I want to share that to me, meeting all of you and now doing meaningful doctoral work (which I hope represents our collective voice) is by far the best gift I have been given this holiday season and I am grateful.

Wishing all of you a restful and healthy holiday.

Best,

Kim

(and Dave too!)