Please join us at the Stonefire Grill (3966 Barranca - just west of Culver in the Mervyn’s/Target Center) on Tuesday, April 20. 15% of the proceeds from your dine-in or take-out order will go directly to Todd. Special thanks to Laura Yazdi, one of Todd’s former students, for organizing this fundraiser! Please put it on your calendar for next week! Many thanks and bon appétit!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Todd's Status
Todd is on the roller coaster ride of his life. Everyday brings a new set of challenges. He is out of the ICU now and back to his regular room. Yay!! His mystery bleed healed and is causing no more drama. His symptoms, though terrible, are mostly to be expected. He continues to be very nauseated and has an incredibly sore mouth. (Intubation surely added to that) If you have been trying to get in touch with him to no avail, don't feel too bad. I promise he is not screening you out. He is unable to talk most of the time and the other part is filled with nausea. I have been able only a couple of times to catch him and he was pretty groggy from his medications. We are keeping a pretty good record of all the crazy things he is saying though! ha ha
Some good news is that he is making new, healthy white blood cells. Things seem to be going according to plan.
Todd is still Todd under all of this junk, and we know he loves you and is so grateful for you and your thoughts and prayers in his behalf!
TKG!!
~Tiffany
Monday, March 22, 2010
Poker results are in...
Hello All,
I wanted to report on the outcome of the poker tournament.
We had ~35 participants who competed for nearly $2,000 in prizes. The top four “card sharks” were:
1st Place: Erik Ludovico
2nd Place: Andy Ujiie
3rd Place: Carrie Deverian
4th Place: Kim Gebrosky
It was particularly fun to watch Carrie ruthlessly knock off her husband and father over the course of the event!
Due to the extraordinary generosity of the winners (most of whom re-gifted portions of their winnings), contestants and families who directly donated, we were able to collect $2,250 for the Larsen’s! The whole event left me “royally flushed” (sorry couldn’t help myself).
Special thanks to Brad Freedman, who dreamed up this event. Erik Smith, Brad Freedman and I enjoyed putting this together and are glad everyone had so much fun!
Bentley T. Kerr
Friday, March 12, 2010
Poker Night for Todd
Host: Brad Freedman/Erik Smith/Bentley Kerr
Location: Nights of Pythas Hall (Next to The Swinging Door)
397 El Camino Real
Tustin, CA 92780 US
When: Saturday, March 20 (Starts @ 3:00 p.m.)
Phone: See Below...
Cost: $60.00 per person
This poker tournament is being held to raise money for Todd Larsen and his family.
Saturday, March 20 (Starts @ 3:00 p.m.)
Buy-in: $60.00
Buy-In Rebuy: $40.00 if knocked out in the first hour only for full rebuy!
100 chip bonus for paying by 3/12/2010!!
*** We need an accurate head count for for this tournament to plan for your food/drinks/snacks/rentals***
Checks can be sent in the name of:
Bentley Kerr
38 Harmony
Irvine, CA 92602
Included: Beer/Hot Dogs/Soda/Snacks
Not included: Taxi ride home-play it safe if you plan on drinking!!
Approximately 50% of the profits will benefit the Larsen family leaving 50% to put in your pocket. This will be an event you won't want to miss!!!
Checkin at 2:30pm and tournament will begin at 3:00pm sharp!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Golf Scramble photos
I am a bit behind in posting some of the photos from the great benefits we have had lately. Sorry. In a effort to fix this here are some photos of the golf scramble in Arizona this past December was a great success and so fun! Thank you to all who helped out, especially to the Fosbergs who brought their idea to life!!! You guys Rock!! Enjoy some of the highlights...
Click on photos to enlarge
~Tiffany
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Tomorrow is "Day 1"
To our family and friends,
Tomorrow is the beginning of a new chapter in our story. In the BMT world, the day after the transplant is known as "Day 1." To us, it means we have made it over the mountain and we are on our way down. It is the start of the journey toward healing and a life long remission. The last six months have been unbelievably difficult, yet so very blessed. Todd and I know that we have made it this far because of you. There were times when life was entirely too overwhelming, but then someone left a card on our door, brought us dinner, or helped us pay our bills. So often we were carried by the generosity of those that love us. And for that we will be eternally grateful and humbled.
Looking forward...the next few weeks are going to be tough. The nurses are doing an amazing job of keeping Todd comfortable as his body heals and accepts the stem cells. We are praying for limited graft vs host complications. Overall, he is in good spirits and is doing everything he can to stay strong and healthy. We will do our best to keep everyone posted on the recovery process.
All our love,
TKG (and Hillary too)
Transplant in progress...
Here are what stem cells look like. These are Todds!!!! Here we go...
A very grateful man!
Transplant day!
Today is the day! We are so excited. We are praying that his body will accept the transplant. Todd is soooo sick. It is amazing what he has to go through physically and mentally for this transplant to work! Please pray with us today!!!
Good luck Todd- You can do this! We love you!!!
Just some of the fluids going into Todd. Crazy!!!
~Tiffany
Monday, February 22, 2010
City of Hope: The first day
Well, blood has been drawn, temperature and weight recorded and IV's hooked up...the new leg of the journey has begun! Todd received his first radiation treatment this morning and is doing well. He will get irradiated (scary word) two more time today and eight more times over the next 3 days. Then the chemo begins. He is going to feel pretty awful, but as his tweets/FB have said, Todd is ready for a fight!
I wanted to post the address here in case anyone wanted to send a card...
Todd Larsen
c/o City of Hope
1500 E. Duarte Rd.
Duarte, CA 91010-3000
Due to his soon to be immuno-compromised status please do not send fresh flowers, fruit...basically anything that was once alive or is currently alive :)
All our love,
Todd and Kelly
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Next stop...City of Hope
I just finished a battery of pre-tests over the last three days at City of Hope and the next step is transplant. I'm being admitted this Sunday February 21 and will then undergo 4 days of full body radiation followed by a week of chemo. This is to knock my immune system down really low and wipe out my bone marrow completely. I will receive my bone marrow transplant on March 2. (My new 2nd birthday) It will be like a blood transfusion.... 3-4 hours of getting someone else's stem cells and then it's a waiting game of making sure my body and the new cells "get along". There is a risk of Graft vs. Host disease, but my doctor has ways of minimizing that and/or combating it if it happens. I am a little scared but I am in good hands. I will be watched closely by my doctors for about 100 days after transplant and then return home to finish recovering for another 6-9 months.
I am so grateful we are at this point in this battle and that someone has agreed to give of themselves and donate to me. It is literally saving my life and I don't even know who they are. Yet. I will be given that opportunity in about a year.
It is a scary thing to have a life-threatening disease. I never thought I would know what that feels like. It has changed me. I see how precious and fragile life is. My list of "what's important" has changed a bit too. All we truly have are each other and when I think about all the people who have done so much for me and my family over the last 5 months I am blown away by the love and compassion shown to us. It reaffirms that we do only have one another and those solid, loving relationships will help us through anything that we are faced with. We are all so fortunate to have such a strong community of amazing people around us. It really does take a small army to take on this thing called life and TOGETHER we will KEEP GOING!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Benefit Concert Rocked!!!
Thank you for your support at the Todd Rocks Concert! It was a great party!!!
I will post photos and video as soon as I get them!
The Garden Grove Channel 3 crew put the Todd Rocks story on YouTube- Check out this link!
~Tiffany
Monday, February 1, 2010
I have a transplant donor!
Kelly and I visited City of Hope on Thursday and my Doctor told us they have found a great donor for me. We are so excited!! The transplant process will start in mid February. While at C of H I will undergo more chemo and full body radiation right before the transplant.
I will be in the Hospital for about a month and then closely monitored on a daily basis for another 3-4 months. We will be transplanting the whole family to the Pasadena area for that time. They said it would be about a year after transplant when I can start teaching again. It takes that long for my immune system to fully recover.
We know that we are so blessed to be at this point. Thank you so much for all the prayers! We couldn't be doing this without all the help everyone has given us.
I want to thank all the kids for all the letters, home-made cards, emails, facebook wishes and tweets. They all brighten my day like you wont believe! I miss you all and I miss teaching you so much. Thank you everyone!!
Don't miss the upcoming concert at House of Blues February 1st. It's gonna be rockin'!!
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Todd Rocks Benefit Concert!!!
Click on the poster to view in full screen
Hosted by 95.5 KLOS-FM’s Uncle Joe Benson, the evening will feature special performances by Vivian Campbell, guitarist for Def Leppard and Whitesnake and Mark Schulman, the drummer for Pink, Beyonce, and Sheryl Crow; and Jon Abrams, the star of Broadway’s “Movin’ Out.”
WHEN: Monday, February 1st, 2010
TIME: 6 p.m. to Close
WHERE: House of Blues Anaheim (Downtown Disney) 1530 Disneyland Drive, Anaheim, CA Phone: (714) 778-2583
To purchase tickets, look in the right hand column of this page and pay using your PayPal account or credit card.
If you would like to donate a raffle item please contact Ms. Sandy Jones at 949.252.2046.
Thank you – We hope to see you on February 1st.
Friday, January 15, 2010
It's been so long
Yes, it's me, Todd, finally blogging once again. Sorry it's been so long but December was a cruddy month to say the least. So...Here's the latest...
I got my 4th bone marrow biopsy this past Monday the 11th and the preliminary results are back showing no leukemic activity! I'm in remission!! The next step is a bone marrow transplant at City of Hope. They are working on finding a match for me. They have located 3 domestic and one international close matches. Not perfect, but close. The Doctors are trying to figure out if any of them can be used for a successful transplant. They also have cord blood for me if I need that. Kelly and I are going to City of Hope next Thursday the 21st to meet with the transplant team and plan what comes next. Either the team will have a donor for me and we move to Pasadena for four months during transplant or I hit Hoag again for another round of chemo to stay in remission until they find a donor match. We are hoping to get the show on the road here.....but we'll know more on the 21st. Thank you for everything you are doing to help me and my family through this rough time. We could not do this without all your prayers and help. Thank you!!
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