team kai honoring nancy sakakura & jaimee yamaoka

Please join us ; )

Subject: Team Kai - Light the Night Walk!

Hi everyone!

So sorry for the delay!

We will be having our Team Kai walk on Saturday, September 26th at 11am in
Huntington Beach. We will be off of PCH and Beach - look for the big EZ Ups and
red and white balloons! We will be sending a flyer to everyone regarding food
assignments... this is a BIG potluck!
Please remember to bring your own drinks, too! Marsha Hamamoto will be our
chairperson in charge of food.

Cost of parking in HB is $15/car - so you might want to consider carpooling. We
won't be doing an actual "walk" this year, since it is a bit crowded on the
beach.

We're trying to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, so any money
that you can donate or have collected this year is GREATLY appreciated! Thanks
for helping to find a cure! We will be selling Team Kai t-shirts again this
year for $10/each... there will be a different design this year and all proceeds
will be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you would like to
purchase a t-shirt, please send me an email with the sizes you would like.
Thanks in advance for your support!

Don't forget that we will be honoring our two honored heroes for the walk -
Jaimee Yamaoka and Nancy Sakakura! Both survivors and both Jaimee and Nancy are
a HUGE inspiration to us all!

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions... I will be in touch
again as the walk gets closer.

Thanks again for all your support!
Kai, Gen & Daigo and
Gary & Staci
714-227-0248
email: thefujitas@yahoo.com
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camp-mak-a-dream

helloo everyone...its jaimee...I'm soooooo sorry that its been awhile since i have updated this with my mom...anyways...i had the greatest time at camp! At first i was nervous because i was going to MONTANA and i had no idea what to expect because you never here about anything in Montana. I was also nervous because i kept on having dreams about going there and not getting along with the people. Usually the dream was that my sister and I went there and I got stuck with weird people and tay got stuck with all of the fun outgoing people...haha...i guess shouldn't have worried at all because I'm a big weirdo so it shouldn't have mattered :D when i got to the Missula airport in Montana it was a tiny little thing! I saw a bunch of people around my age sitting on the ground and was too scared to just go up to them so i walked around for a little and found a counselor wearing a camp-mak-a dream shirt and i went up and introduced myself and she told me that i was going to be in her cabin and then we walked to where all of the other people were sitting. Everyone was sectioned off into groups and that made me worried because I didn't want it to be like that at camp. My cabin leader, Jen, introduced me to some people and then left me alone all by myself in the middle of all of the groups! haha i was kind of panicking on the inside because I am not the kind of person who would just go up to random people and make friends with them but it was time for me to break out of my little mold and go talk to some people...so there was this other girl sitting by herself and i decided to go talk to her...it helped alot that she was wearing a cute knee length skirt with leg warmers and flats...i have never seen anyone dress like that and it totally worked for her (its so much easier for me to talk to people if i can find something to complement them about haha) we ended up sitting on the bus together for the one hour ride to camp. Her name is Jolene Pollard and she is from Canada and she wants to become a singer. When she told me that i thought it was cool but didn't think anything about it but then she played a few of her songs for us at one of the camp fires and at the talent show and she was AMAZING!!!! if you like folk/pop music you should check her out on myspace http://www.myspace.com/jolenepollard

my cabin. beartooth.

the camp is BEAUTIFUL!! It looks like a resort, not a camp. To keep the place nice they don't allow anyone to walk on the grass so you have to go WAY out of the way to get to any place that you want...it was really annoying but at least I got extra exercise.


There were a lot of things to do at the camp. There was the art barn where they had pottery, painting, beads, and basically any supplies for whatever artsy thing you want to do. There was a climbing wall, archery, a small mini golf course, a volleyball court on sand, a basketball court, a pool and jacuzzi, a rec room (pool table, Foosball table, ping pong table, and a two player basketball game)

Tener, he is training for the special olypics to do archery!!! he is amazing!!

art barn



tie dye and screen printing in the art barn

Jordy and Me Climbing the wall...hes on the difficult side. He climbed that wall sooo many times and fast too

the high ropes course

wet, freezing, and dirdy after the high ropes. When my group went up on the course it was raining really hard and it was also really windy. It was misrable but soooooo fun!

!!



When we didn't have free time there were scheduled workshops or field trips. How to start up a non-profit organization was one of the workshops and Christine baze was the guest speaker who started up the yellow umbrella organization. She plays concerts all around the country and donates all of the money to cervical cancer awareness. A local theater group came by and they taught us some improv games. There were a lot of workshops where you do icebreakers and get to know everyone. there were a lot more but i cant remember them all. Oh and all of the workshops were optional. We went on two field trips. One was to Missula and the other was to philipsburg. In Missula we went to farmers and peoples markets and it was really cool because missula is a little hippy town in the middle of the conservative Montana. It was really neat how there were a whole lot of booths where people sell crafts that they hand made. Philispburg is an extremely small town and we got to mine for sapphires there. There were also cute shops there.


some of the people at camp, in Missula

Philipsburg


One night there was a carnival where we would play games for tickets and exchange them for prizes. At the carnival they had a mini shooting range with pellet guns and that was fun. Another night we had a karaoke dance party which was really fun...the camp lent out costumes for everyone to wear if you wanted. The last night there was a talent show. I didn't do anything but it was really fun watching everyone haha
One thing that was really weird was how much of a California accent I have!! Most of the people that went to the camp were from the South or the East Coast and from being around all of those different accents I sounded like an idiot with a valleyish accent!! I'm not even from the valley!! haha anyways, I had sooooooooo much fun at this camp. I met amazing people and I cant wait to go back!!

my friend shooting at the mini range

karaoke...

...dance party! jolene dancing w/ tener

brownie bake off! my team won!!!

last day of chemo/camp mak-a-dream

last friday was jaimee's last chemotherapy appointment, what a relief...

all the nurses in the clinic sang zip-a-dee-doo-dah to her and gave her target gift cards for her last day of infusions...we are so happy she's finally done...wooohooo

today we will be getting a blood test to see how her counts are doing, if everything is ok we come back on the 29th to do a pet scan, pulminary function test, and echo cardiogram...hopefully jaimee won't have to do another bone marrow test...cross your fingers...

if jaimee still has lumps we will test them to see if it's live cancer cells if so they will do more tests and maybe limited radiation...hopefully they're all gone...we're hoping for the best...

jaimee was granted a scholarship to camp mak-a-dream in montana...she's very excited to meet other young adults with cancer and participate in all the activities they have to offer...she's already a happy camper knowing that she was accepted...
thank you debbie toomey for the application ; )

http://www.campdream.org/young_adult_conf.html

we will update you again when we have the results of her tests...

have a great memorial day weekend...

still no chemo : (

jaimee has been resting at home trying not to get sick...
her white cell count has been to low to administer her chemo...hopefully when we go on friday her counts will be high enough to start again...

jaimee was sad she couldn't watch the superstarzz play in the FOR tournament this past weekend...she misses them a lot...

update

today was supposed to be jaimee's last long day of chemo but unfortunately jaimee's white blood cell count was to low to proceed...
jaimee was more than happy to come home and eat eggplant with miso sauce since she didn't have to be on her diet...yummmm
jaimee will have her regular blood and pulmonary test on friday and if everything is okay she'll have her second to last round of chemo...
we're almost there...wooohooo ; )

update

jaimee and i have been seeing this cute 3 year old boy (tammer siam) and his dad in clinic every tuedsay and friday but now he is having his awful hospital treatments...he broke out with a itchy rash all over his little body and doesn't want to eat, poor guy...we wish him well through all of his treatments...

jaimee's counts are still low but the dr's think jaimee should be fine and will be checked again on tuesday...hopefully no blood transfusion...
jaimee's last treatment made her feel yucky and nauseous for three days...she finally felt better yestarday and hung out with friends last night...
jaimee's next long day of chemo will be april 28th and then the following tuesday will be her last treatment...wooohooo...we can't wait...

we wish everyone a happy easter...

past due update

hi everyone...
sorry for the late update...no news is good news...
the chemo that jaimee is getting is much easier for her than the first half of treatments...she loves sleeping and eating at her own house rather than the hospital ; )
jaimee plans to go back to college in the fall and looking forward to the working world...she wants to work at disneyland but dr a. said not until she's done with bactrum in december ; (
Tuesday starts jaimee's 7th month of chemo...we can't believe she's almost done...what a relief...