Thank you list:

Sven Larson, Stevens Pass Ski School (RIP)
Mackie Quinn
Pam Deluca
Cara Fitzpatrick
Mike Thomas
Dave and Cindy Mounts
Tara Miller
Coach Pat A
Daryl West
Pat Corelli
Kevin Porterfield
Ryan Garvey
Steve Hall
Brandon Highland
Marten and Janet Haigg, and family
My mother Karan Serchen
My grandmother Dorothy Serchen (she is a huge inspiration to me lately).
Katie Ruppel
Donnie Harrington
The Sam’s Place crew
SoGnar TV
Amy and Taylor
Stacy Thomas and her wonderful family in Washington.
Lael Gregory
Michelle Massey
Megan Bailey
Kennedy
Terren Gomez
Kevin Garnica
Brian and Sally in Kuai, I’ll be there soon!

Jeff Lavin

Dan Minor-Nordstrom

I am sure this list will grow with time!

I’m not gonna lie, this is all about me.  In fact, it’s always been all about me.  I was an only child with a pretty dysfunctional family.  My parents divorced when I was 7, I bounced back and forth until moving out of my mother’s house after my senior year.  I was 2 credits short of graduating.  I moved into the living room of an apartment in Madison, WI.  There I worked 2 jobs, and went to night school at Madison East where I got my diploma.  By then I had been a DJ for many years, and I was interested in a broadcasting school in Madison.  I learned about Brown Institute in Minneapolis from a local radio personality.  I visited the “campus” and bit.  By the time I was 16 months into the 18-month program, I needed a break.  I took a semester off, and hitchhiked, and rode freight trains west to Seattle.  I lived there for a month, that’s a story in and of itself.
I returned back to Brown for my last 2 semesters.  I was definitely not into school at that time, but I wanted to finish for myself and my parents who were doing what they could to help me pay for school.  Once I had graduated, I packed my things in an $800.00 1982 Ford e150 van.  My girlfriend, and my dog and I headed west with the idea of heading south at Seattle, down through Northern California, and back to Minneapolis.  We had some trouble with the radiator overheating from leaking coolant in Bozeman, MT.  We squatted downtown at the park for about a week while I replaced the radiator with the help of a local named David, he was an archeologist.  We met a girl named Aurora who was like 14.  She had relatives in Tacoma, and wanted to catch a ride with us.  So after meeting her mom, and getting the ok, we were headed out.  About 15 miles out of Bozeman, the van over heated again, and I had to replace the thermostat.  I burned my face with coolant; it hurt like hell.

The first night in Seattle was hectic, I ran the van into the corner of a wall, and we got lost, and got into a huge fight.  There I sold glass pipes, lived in a van, made African drums, got a 2nd dog, and quit a promising job at a design firm to work at Mt. Hood Meadows. That was 98/99, the days of Los and Arch, and Josh King, and Pat Steinmetz, and Lael Gregory, Mike Estes, Chief and Cort (RIP) that’s also where I met Rusty White. I love the Northwest, and would like to spend more time there with friends, especially Stacy Thomas, Kennedy, and Bailey, and Schmidt’s.

For 9 years I was on rotation, spending fall and winter in Skykomish, WA or Park City, Utah, spring in Santa Cruz, and 6 summers at Mt. Hood.  I used to work at the Ratskellar, I worked there the night there were riots, a bus burned, and people were racing up and down Gov’t Camp Loop in gokarts from Ski Bowl, nearly getting run over by Larry the Fireman in town.  Snowboarding was my life; I got my foot into the industry in 98 when I connected with the Ride rep.  I had worked for him, and the next 2 Ride reps. I was also helping the Vans rep Steve Ogden.  I love to ride Stevens Pass, Mt Baker, The Canyons, Snow Basin, and Jackson Hole.   After getting fired from Windell’s, I lived in Portland for a while, then got a job offer in Orange County for a company I had dome some work for in the past.  I worked there exactly a year when I quit.  I had 2 months left on my lease of a beach house on 35th and Seashore in Newport Beach.  I shared the house with 4 girls, college students at UCI.  I was working the floor at the Stag Bar, now the District Lounge at the Newport Pier.  I had a great girlfriend named Dottie, and things were great, I was surfing everyday.  After my lease was up, I moved to Huntington Beach, and got a job painting decorative finishes in very nice Laguna Beach houses.  My boss and co-worker, was amazing, it seemed like he had done everything.  As I started my business he became my mentor, and a great friend.  With his best wishes he let me take on more and more work for myself until I had to cease working with him.  While making that transition, I started to experience stomach cramping.  I went to my General Practitioner (I had insurance for the first time in my life, thanks to the encouragement of Dottie.  My GP thought the pain was an ulcer, he prescribed me Prilosec and left it at that.  He checked me out again, and recommended I see a GI doctor.  His first impression was Diverticulitis.  He scheduled a CT Scan, which revealed Ascities (fluid collecting in the abdomen, commonly due to liver or kidney failure, A symptom of alcohol abuse, or IV drug use).  Diverticulitis was not present.  I had several paracentesis, where they “tap” your stomach and drain liters of fluid; one time I drained 4 liters, 2 large coke bottles.  They constantly tested the fluid for cancer cells, and found nothing.  By then I had started getting my care at UCI Medical Canter, for the most part the Doctors are great.  I had been spending a lot of time there, once I drove myself to the ER, and passed out in the waiting room, I’ve spent a couple weeks there.  After a while the Paracentesis Doc recommended exploratory surgery.  I had never had surgery.  I went on the Master Cleanse for 10 days hoping that it was just something digestive.  I reluctantly agreed to the surgery, I had them knock me out, I vaguely remember the attending slap me in the face to wake me up.  The surgery was simple, 2 small incisions for the camera, that’s it.  Meanwhile my business was booming, I was making more money than ever, I had something to be proud of, I had built a business from the ground up.

The diagnosis was cancer, stage 4, which means it has metastasized or spread from the original tumor, which they never found but are treating as colon cancer.  After having to pull the plug on my biggest job yet, and let my business fail, I went into pretty bad depression.  My business failing affected me more than the news that I had cancer.  I had failed a job, and felt amazing guilt.  I am not the kind of guy to not finish what I start.  I was living in Huntington Beach, a great place and barely leaving the house.  I was down to 128 pounds; I am 6’1”, and 175 average.  Old men in walkers could walk from the parking lot to the grocery store doors faster than me.  My mom came out from Jacksonville, and lived with me for 3 months, after 6 weeks of IV nutrition in a bag, and cases of ensure I was back up to my optimum weight.  I was able to do some traveling, and my mom moved back to Florida.  A few months later after a breakfast meeting with a friend, I decided to move to South Lake Tahoe for the winter, I thought I was regrouping, when all I was trying to do was ignore the cancer, go through the motions, and have a great winter.  What happened was the opposite.  I had set up cancer care at a place based out of Carson with an office in Stateline, NV open every Thursday.  I was adamant about not changing anything, since my current treatment was working so well.  This place took it upon themselves to change a bunch of the pre meds, and even some of the actual treatment drugs.  I imagine it was due to special deals they had worked out with pharmaceutical companies.  They were clearly a business, not a place with the goal of curing your cancer.  They were charging me co-pay for every visit, and most of time my visit was 5 minutes without even seeing the Doc.  They decided to “discharge” me based on the fact that I said I was in the process of making other medical arrangements.
Surprise, I go to Carson for treatment, and they won’t treat me.  I fast-tracked the transition to UC Davis; There I met with a Doc that told me to take a short break from chemo.  I was healthy for a while then again, I started to lose weight.  I urged the Doc to get me back on Chemo, I was informed that there was a nationwide shortage of the major drug I needed, called Leukovorin.  They prescribed me oral chemo, which were 8 pills a day for 2 weeks straight with a week off in between, my insurance company wouldn’t approve the prescription.  A month later, and 10 pounds lighter, they tried the prescription  again and it finally got approved.  I was able to handle it for 10 days.  The effects were massive vomiting and exhaustion.  I couldn’t move from the bathroom.  After 10 days, I stopped taking the pills, and finally got the approval for Leukovorin.

After 3 months of being on the proper treatment, and hoping for results, I am finally starting to gain weight, just this week I was able to gain 5 pounds, so I am up to 145 with 30 more to go!  I had to go buy new clothes twice because I got so skinny.  None of my pants or shorts were small enough, and me in my wetsuit looks hilarious.  It’s about 2 sizes too big for me, and flushes everytime I go under water.

I came to my senses, I split from Tahoe, and moved in a great house with longtime friends in San Rafael.  I am finally admitting that I have cancer, and that there is hope.  I moved here with the sole purpose of defeating cancer.  I have heard so many success stories based on diet and lifestyle changes.  For now as I am putting on weight, I plan on going to yoga 2 days a week, and to the gym 2/3 days a week.  I would also like to surf as much as possible, while working on fundraising, and developing this site which will hopefully have a positive impact on a lot of people and levels.

Contributions are appreciated, and the proceeds from purchasing items available on the website or your local retailers go to freeing my time to volunteer, and work on fundraising projects like the “Gone Til November” winter movie series in South Lake Tahoe.  I threw it together last minute, and got a great response from local businesses.  Together we raised $1,500 for Boarding for Breast Cancer.  This year I hope to raise $10,000.00.  Like I said at the top, I’m not gonna lie, some of the money raised on this sight through contributions and purchases is going toward achieving some of the adventures on my lifes to do list.  I will also accept air miles, and credit card points as contributions, as they can get me to business meetings outside of my locale, or to a nice left hand point break in Costa Rica.

Thank you for your help, contributions, and suggestions.

Sincerely, with hope for life and adventure for everyone.

Scott Serchen
Scottserchen.org
Hivedistribution.com
Hiveprojects.net