kuoparis.com

A week of good news

Dear friends and family,

Thank you once again for all your love, prayers and encouragement since our last post. This week we have received some great news. 

1) No Growth!
We got word that the MRI showed that the tumor inside of Joey hasn't grown in the last 3 months. This is good news. Granted we would prefer shrinkage or it to disappear completely, but no growth means no need for additional treatment right now. We are grateful!

2) More Chinese school?
This week Joey started kindergarten and an after school Chinese program.  This has caused us as a family to start going to bed a bit earlier so we can deliver our big guy to school by 8 am. What is amazing is that when Jane went to pick him up yesterday he complained that she came to early. She came at 5:30!  I think he wanted he was anticipating the free play that would start at 6 but, whatever the case, our little socialite seems to be doing well. We will see how well he picks up Mandarin.

3) Amazing Race
This past week I took my boys on a 30 mile bike ride (30.22 mile to be precise) as part of a fundraiser for New Day For Children an organization that help young girls who have been the victims of commercial sexual exploitation.  While the cause we were supporting is pretty intense the ride was surprisingly easy. This old man and his two little guys not only completed the ride but we came in first place! To be fair, our friend Johann could have beat us but waited for us at the top of a number of hills, the stronger riders were doing a longer route and, well, it wasn't not meant to be a race....  Still,  I will brag whenever I get a chance!

4) Milestone accomplished and good press all around
Talking about bragging, our company Todoroo has had some good news worth mentioning.  Yesterday, Astrid Tasks received its one millionth download from the Android Market! On Monday we were also listed by lifehacker.com as one of the best apps for Android.  Check out the quote at http://t.co/vRriekd.  

Overall these are good times for the Paris family.

With joy,
Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan

Family Update and MRI Today

Dear family and friends,

Our live have change fairly dramatically over the course of this last year.  About a year ago I (Jon) was finishing up my service with InterVarsity, Nathan was starting pre-school, Jane was starting to get interested in becoming a real estate tycoon and, on the more serious side, Joey was starting his second round of chemo. In these past couple months, we have started to see the fruit of these new endeavors.  Below I will share briefly about some of our recent milestones and in the Joey section share why today we invite you to join us in prayer for our son.

Nathan

As the youngest, Nathan, now two and a half, has the shortest of all our stories.   He loves his pre-school, loves biking, chatting, fighting, and picking out his cloths in the morning.  Between the last two (fighting and picking out cloths) the later is much more of a challenge us.  While he is a tough little sucker and fights dirty with his big brother the 15 minutes of trying on different outfits and his refusal to wear anything that isn’t soccer themed makes our morning routine consistently more difficult than it needs to be.  This fall he returns to his pre-school, partially potty trained, without his brother and looking for trouble.  When he does have a poopy diaper, he requests his father to do the diaper change.  Fun times!

Jon

To an outsider it might appear that my life has undergone the biggest transition in this past year as I have transitioned from a campus minister to full time entrepreneur, but I am not sure that this is true. In fact the similarities are pretty uncanny.  In both roles I have work long - non-traditional hours, pivot frequently to engage changing circumstances and do so for very little financial compensation!  In both roles I have felt a strong sense of purpose, passion and belief that what I am doing will change the world for the better.  In both roles I spend lots of time networking, casting vision and calling others to invest with their time and money.

This last month our company has achieved a number of milestones. My co-founder has joined me full-time, we have starting bringing in revenue and our main product is on the cusp of its one millionth download.  If you are eager for more company news check out our blog.todoroo.com but the quick summary is things are going pretty well.

Jane

This year Jane has also began to step out in some of her dreams especially when it comes to buying property. This summer we closed escrow on a short sale on a small investment property and we are waiting to hear back from the bank about a condo we have identified for ourselves.  While I say we, really all the credit goes to Jane.  She identified the property, acquired the financing, and has been responsible for the savings that allowed us to make the down payment.  While I tease here about all the time she spent on Redfin, I really am very proud of her and grateful for all she does for our family.

Joey

Has had a great year overall. The chemo treatment he had showed early signs of effectiveness and not to long ago he had his last treatment of this round.  Since he graduated from preschool he has been busy learning how to swim, read and ride a bike.  (We took off his training wheels last Sunday!)  Next Tuesday, marks another big milestone when Jane and I will drop him off for his first day of kindergarten!

But before we, his proud parents, drop him off at Escondido Elementary we need to take him in for a MRI at Lucile-Packard Children’s Hospital.  Once again we want to invite you all to pray and ask for a good report.  We long for the tumor to shrink and for him to continue to thrive.  We will take him in this afternoon and get the update in the next couple weeks.

Thank you for all your love, encouragement, prayers and support.

With Love,

Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan

   
Click here to download:
Family_Update_and_MRI_Today.zip (1549 KB)

No tumor growth and an exciting week

Dear friends,

We got good news today that Joey's tumor has not grown.  While we were hoping that the tumor was going to shrink more, we are glad for the result.  For an interesting video that describes how Avastin (the drug Joey is currently receiving) works visit . It also has some suggestions for how you might be able to change your diet to prevent cancer or even loose weight!

This week is busy week for us.  The next couple days I am going to Google I/O in SF where I will learn about the latest and greatest from Google and talk with some of my press connections about our applications for Android. On Thursday my co-founder and I have a meeting with a group that could potentially become a very helpful investor in Todoroo.

On Sunday we are attending the wedding of some close friends, June Park and Johann John, where I have the honor of giving the homily.  We have know June and Johann since they were students at Stanford, we attend church with them and June has been watching our kids two days a week.   We are excited for them but we will deeply miss them as they will be traveling this summer and will therefore be unavailable hangout with us and our kids.  

We are grateful for the blessings of innovative medicine, helpful technology, good partnerships, close friends and, ultimately, for the Father who is the giver of every good and perfect gift. 

Please take a moment to pray with us ... that Joey's tumor would shrink, our business would grow and gain partners, and that that Jane and the boys will be well in this full and exciting time.

With love,
Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan
online at: kuoparis.com

 

MRI today

Dear family and friends,
Joey has an MRI today.  Once again we are praying that he would come out of it safely and that it would give us a good report. Jane is with him now at the hospital.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to be the "daddy of the day" at the boys pre-school.  Here are some fun photos from the day.  In the morning they had fun cleaning up toy snakes and turtles as a way of anticipating "reptile day".  Later in the day we built a tower out of legos (pictured below). Very fun.

With love,
Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan

     
Click here to download:
MRI_today.zip (210 KB)

Joey's Port free and clear, chemo is back on

Hello all,

It looks like Jane beat me to making the announcement! Below is my
longer version from Joey's hospital room. ---

Thank you all for praying for us today. The clot in Joey's port
resolved with the last administration of tPA. The past 24 hours were a
bit stressful, since he remained accessed (a needle connected to a
line sticking into the port) over night, and the idea of a blood clot
lingering near his heart was also a bit unsettling.

Yesterday he said to me while we were chatting "people don't die at
night time, right daddy?". Committed to being honest with him, we had
another talk about mortality. I responded, "You don't need to be
afraid of dying. It is scary for us because we haven't done it before,
but we will wake
up again just like we do when we go to sleep."

Even as I am trying to prepare my son for the worst (and preaching to
my self!) I was praying like crazy, "Lord, resolve this clot, shrink
the tumor and heal my son."

I am grateful this prayer was answered and pray that the experience of
"going to sleep" will be well into the future for Joey and all my
loved ones for that matter!

After this conversation Joey asked if one of his friends from school,
Hope Van Riesen, eats the bread (referring to communion) and mentioned
some of his other friends that don't share our christian faith. He
said, referring to one these friends, "I should tell him about Jesus."
"That would be great Joey", I reply, "just remember you cannot force
anyone to believe what you believe and experience what you
experience." he said something like "OK daddy."

I love my little guy, even as he senses us worrying about him he is
thinking about others.

Thank you all for thinking about us and keeping us in your prayers today.

With love,
Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan

Sick kids, finicky port

Dear family and friends,

On the work front things have been going well for me (Jon) one of the applications we have been working on has now been downloaded over 600,000 times and has been used to help people complete nearly 4 million tasks.  It is also scheduled to be pre-installed on some upcoming phones later this year. 

We are beginning discussions with a number of investors who are interested in helping us accelerate our growth.  All of this is very exciting.

On the family front things have been a bit more challenging.  Nathan was sick and home from school most of last week.  

We had some respite over the weekend but, unfortunately, Joey woke up on Monday morning with a fever.  While Nathan is more needy and vocal when he is sick (think constant crying, wining and needing to be held) with Joey things are a bit more complicated.  Whenever he has a fever above 101 we need to take him to the hospital to make sure that there isn't an infection with his port (the device that allows his chemo to be delivered directly to his heart and from there to the rest of his body). 

When we went to the hospital yesterday they were able to flush the port (with a saline solution) but were unable to draw blood from it. 

They have put some tPA (a clot buster) into the port and he will go back tomorrow (Thursday) to see if it has been effective. If they are still unable to draw blood, they will need to do a chest x-ray to see what is wrong with and potentially draw blood with another method.  Drawing blood from the arm of a 5 year is something no one wants to do. 

Overall we have been grateful that this round of chemo has been helping shrink his tumor and that it will be over after a couple more treatments. Your continued prayers for our family is, as always, greatly appreciated.

With love,
Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan

Good News

Dear friends and family,

We have great news and reason for celebration!  The latest MRI showed that Joey's tumor is smaller. The nurse practitioner sent a quick email today saying:

"Tumor is smaller with less enhancement.

We are very happy with the study."

Jane will learn more at Joey's chemotherapy session this Thursday.

It goes without saying that we are grateful.  Grateful for the wonderful treatment Joey is receiving, for the support of friends and family like you who have been with us on this journey (families from our church have been providing meals for us  while Joey is in Chemo which has been especially nice :) and we are grateful to God for his rich mercy.

In other news, we learned that Joey wasn't selected (by lottery) for either the Mandarin or Spanish immersion programs for kindergarten.  Joey is happy since he wanted to go to a "school where they speak only English."  Jane and I both wanted to try for the immersion programs but are glad Joey will be going to our local school.  This Sunday we biked as a family to the school (Joey on his own bike!) and had a fun time playing on the play structures. The kids had fun too.

With Love,
Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan 

Joey is back home. We will probably know the results next week.

Hello all,
Thank you for all your well wishes and prayers. Joey is home and is doing fine. As always, when he comes home from a MRI he is a little bit loopy as the anesthesia wears off and his sleep schedule is a bit wonky.  Otherwise he is back to normal. 

All those involved in his treatment (oncology, ophthalmology, surgery etc) get together on Mondays to discuss the children under their care (they call it "tumor board").   We will likely check in and find out more about the results after that.  We will share when we know more.

With love,

Jon, Jane Joey and Nathan

MRI Tomorrow

Dear family and friends,

Joey's MRI has been rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon (2/23/2010). In recent days, Joey has seemed more confident and able to see when his good eye is patched.  This is one more reason for us to hope that we will get a good report from this MRI.   Would you join us in praying that we would get a good report and that the MRI would show signs that the tumor is shrinking?

Now that he has a port (a device inserted below the skin in his chest that helps facilitate the delivery of chemotherapy) the process of sedation is much less  traumatic. The main challenge for tomorrow's procedure is that he cannot eat from midnight tonight until his MRI which is scheduled at 3:00 p.m.  Even though he not a voracious eater, missing breakfast, snack and lunch is a bit of a challenge.

Thank you for your love, prayers, encouragement and your presence in our lives,

Jon, Jane Joey and Nathan 

Quick Update 2.12.2010

Dear friend and family,

I wanted to give you all a quick update on this past week. 

First of all I want to thank all of you who took time to pray for our family this past week and for all your encouraging words. We are so grateful for all of you. I am sorry I haven't been able to respond to each of your emails. Frankly I have been a bit swamped.

Both our boys came down with a flu this week and Joey was therefore unable to get his MRI.  It takes a little while to reschedule but we will let you know when it finally happens, but for now we don't have any news.  Still we are praying that the tumor would shrink and our boys would continue to grow.

We made it through this week with the help of Jane's mom and sister, who came up for the week, and with my mother coming out to help today.  I have mostly been swamped supporting Graceful Tools and and trying to bring to life more Roos for Todoroo.  Graceful Tools has started to produce a little bit of revenue which is helpful, since for the past 7 months Jane has been the sole bread winner for our family.  I have convinced her that starting a company or two is a lot cheaper that business school but I am not sure how much longer that line will work!

Todoroo, and our Android task manager (Astrid) has been getting some good press recently. We have been featured in publicity by T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon and was recently featured at www.killerstartups.com. I am not sure how much the last reference means but it was fun to be considered a killer start-up. I will continue to keep you posted on this and the various goings on of the Paris family.

Thank you for all your love and support,

Jon, Jane, Joey and Nathan