Adjusting

Hi all,

There are times that my thoughts flow easily, and I can detail our emotions, what's been going on. These past weeks we've been blessed with folks checking on us, and asking how they can help. I can tell you a bit about what we've done to setup some funds for Nicholas, but I can't seem to find the words that answer that question "How are you? How's Nicholas? Jen? Your folks?"...

Cancer affects everyone in the patient's circle of family and friends. For the past year, we could set aside feelings of helplessness, or exhaustion, or being scared, and focus solely on Andy, on the next treatment, on other options, on living in the moment and enjoying the time that we did have. Now, its catching up. I can see, and feel in myself, the exhaustion of this fight. I see it in Jen, in my parents. There's a hole where Andy was in our lives, both in the full span of his life and in the efforts we all made this past year. Jen and I dropped a friend off at the airport on the Sunday afternoon after Andy's funeral and then drove out to Framingham. We were quiet for a bit, just letting the concrete sections of the Williams tunnel on 90W fly by. At some point either she or I asked, now what?

Now - we grieve, and we recover. We get our strength back, we find ways to support Jen and Nicholas, to remember Andy through fun events, to honor him, find ways to fight lung cancer in his name, we focus on rebuilding our lives in a way that Andy would want. Andy would want us to keep going - we may stumble a bit here and there while we catch our collective breath but we'll be okay.

Thank you to everyone who's reached out to ask what we were going to do for Nicholas. Jen and I sat down this week to discuss this, how to proceed and what would most help her and Nicholas.

Andy and Jen had setup a trust for Nicholas last fall. We've setup an account under that trust to help Jen with the costs of raising Nicholas. When Nicholas was born we setup a 529 college savings account so this would provide an opportunity to help with his college savings.

If you would like to donate to the account for the costs of raising Nicholas, please send a check made out to "Swan Family Trust" to Jen Swan at 16 Colonial Drive Framingham MA 01701. We could have it sent to the bank as well (TD Banknorth) but there's no good mechanism of learning about the donation to thank you.

If you would like to donate to Nicholas' college fund, please send a check made out to Fidelity Investment Service, with "Nicholas Swan, Account 620030805" in the memo line, again to Jen in Framingham. Same deal with the 529 - if you would like, the account can be funded directly to Fidelity Investments, but we will not know who made the donation.

Jen and I are also looking at options for donations to lung cancer specific charities. As we had noted in the obituary, contributions in his memory may be made to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Thoracic Oncology Dept., 44 Binney St., Boston 02115. Thank you to those who have done this already, DFCI will send us a letter notifying us when they receive a donation. This is the department that cared for Andy at DFCI, and I cannot say enough good things about the nurses, doctors, researchers and staff affiliated with the Thoracic Oncology program.

We're also looking at the larger Lung cancer charities that are established. We'll discuss these further and put more information out about them in the coming weeks.

Tim