🙂 Dear Stacey, I don’t know if you remember me but I am one of the meditation instructors mentioned in #406. Your story captivated my heart and when I called you to see how you were doing, I felt honored that you gave me the link to your website. I visited it a couple of times before today (once to donate) and only just today found the Guestbook. I have been entranced reading your saga (backwards) for the last two and a half hours (I am about half way through!!) and am thrilled to know how far you have come. I have thought of you many, many times since meeting you. Your story is SO inspiring and I wish you a smooth road and a long life and many happy climbs from here on in. And I hope you are at or near the day when candles can return to your life. Love and Blessings, Peg Pathways to Self-Healing Palo Alto, CA PS I am in Boulder for the summer and will be back in Palo Alto in September. 🙂 🙂 🙂 Peg Powell, from Palo Alto and Boulder
Note from Stacey
I have been on some little adventures lately. Saturday, I went for a bike ride with Dave at Crystal Springs, and Sunday I took a little “climbing road trip” to Cragmont Park, in Berkeley. The bike ride was beautiful but humbling. Dave can walk as fast as I ride right now. In fact, as I was riding, I was passed up by quite a few joggers. (Well, if I cannot take pride in my pace, at least the view was pretty, with the hills and water nearby.) Today, I went with Mark, Sandy and Heather Ostrau to climb at Cragmont Park. Cragmont is the perfect low-key place to climb. There is no hike, and it is easy to set up anchors for the ropes. Heather was on my youth team and I have not seen her climb for a long time. I was so impressed with Heather and Mark. The climbs were slabs, which means that in order to climb them, we had to look for footholds and balance–as opposed to pulling ourselves up by the handholds. We all worked on a 5.8 and a 5.10a. I got up the climbs okay, slipping just once on the harder one. I was glad the drugs I am taking for my transplant do not seem to affect my balance too much. While we were climbing, Carrie called me with an update from the USA Nationals in Boston. Her son Joshua re-captured his title as the Boys 11-under National Champion in Difficulty by doing a 5.12b climb in the final round. He also won the Speed title for his third year in a row! I was honored that they called me to give the news right away! Joshua’s younger brother, Yuri, also competed and took 18th in Speed. Not bad for an 8-year-old rookie! Stacey, from Belmont
Note from Stacey
On Wednesday, I had a blood draw and the nurse just called to let me know that the test results showed that everything is going fine. Kidney function and cyclosporine levels are all normal. After the blood draw, I went to visit Gwen and David, who were staying on the ground floor. They are both getting a little bit better, but life in the hospital is still hard. Lack of sleep is a big problem. Lately, I have been climbing a lot, and really feel my strength coming back. I’m still having trouble with the reaches because my lack of strength does not allow me to climb as dynamically as I used to, but things are really improving. I’m planning my first outdoor trip this Sunday with the Ostrau family. I talked to Carrie, Joshua Levin’s mom, this morning. They are at the National Championships for USA Climbing. Joshua has made it through the first round, flashing his route along with 10 of 33 other boys in his category. Stacey, from Belmont