August/September 2006	Near the end of August, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. For the next month, I was in and out of the hospital 3 times. During this time I was told that radiation therapy had a good chance of relieving some of my symptoms, but that no treatment had much chance of significantly extending my life. After a bit of consideration, I decided that indeed, I would only have the radiation treatments and nothing else. During the treatment, I remained well enough to participate in the Terry Fox Run as I had been doing for 15 years already. After the treatments were complete, my thoughts turned to what I still wanted to accomplish while I was still in decent health. The biggest thing I wanted was to travel back to New Brunswick (from Manitoba) to visit some of my family that I hadn't seen for several years. While I was considering the possibilities as to what would be an economic way of accomplishing this goal, my aunt in Alberta was ambitiously at work. She spoke to some people at Greyhound Lines of Canada who, after hearing my story were generous enough to provide 2 discovery passes so that my Mom and I could make the trip. With these passes, not only would we be able to visit those of our family who lived in New Brunswick, but we could also make a few side trips to visit family in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. After my third hospital stay, we began to consider what date we wanted to leave Winnipeg. As of the end of September, the plan is to leave late on October 9.
October 2006	Much planning, packing, and phone calling to be done before the trip. In addition to all the arrangements for the trip itself, I need to talk to my doctors and find out if they think I'm fit to travel such a long distance (I think I am, I hope they do). I'll be packing my digital camera so I can take lots of pictures on the trip (I'll post some here for everyone to see).
October 11, 2006	Well, we're finally on the road. The trip started a few days late because we weren't quite ready, but now we're on our way. We should be in Thunder Bay tomorrow morning, then in Toronto by Friday afternoon.
October 14, 2006	What a trip! We're finally in Toronto, 14 hours behind schedule. When we got to White River we found out that the highway was closed. We spent all night sitting on the bus, waiting for the highway to open. After it finally did open mid-morning, we continued only to find it closed farther along. We lost another 2 hours there, and a few hours in Sudbury when our replacement driver wasn't ready. Finally in the early morning hours of Saturday, we arrived in Toronto. We'll now be staying one night with my cousin (instead of the originally planned 2 nights), then 2 nights with my aunt and uncle.
October 18, 2006	I should have seen this coming... we've had tons of bad luck on this trip so I should have realized it wasn't meant to be. On Monday my aunt and uncle told me that the smells caused by my cancer were getting quite noticable (I have never had a sense of smell so I have to rely on others for such information). They worried that bus drivers and motel operators may turn me away because of the smell, and as a result, it was determined that it would probably be best to return to Winnipeg before the smell increased any further. We waited one more day to see if I could take steps to control the smell, but Tuesday morning brought a new problem. Although I was feeling rather well aside from a cough that had worsened during the trip, my Mom noticed that I had a fever. This, combined with a slightly weak immune system because of the radiation treatments, was a sign I should visit the local hospital. At the hospital, the cough and fever were dismissed as a simple viral infection and I was given antibiotics. They also did a blood test, and the results showed that the iron content in my blood was much too low. These doctors were surprised that my doctors in Winnipeg had ok'd the trip, and advised a few days rest, then a prompt return to Winnipeg.
October 21, 2006	We're in Thunder Bay again. My aunt and uncle drove us to Sault Ste. Marie yesterday, and a friend from Winnipeg who has offered a lot of support since I found out I had cancer came to pick us up. We've seen a lot in these past 2 days of driving, and we're now just one day from home.
October 2006