Obituary

Karin (Dubreuil) Diamond, 31 of Tariffville, CT, passed away in the comfort of her home on September 21, 2013, surrounded by her husband, family, and friends after a courageous four-and-a-half year fight with Hodgkin Lymphoma. Karin inspired others through her love of life, her respect for everyone, and her gift of words. She was passionate about people, wellness, learning, and living with intention. Karin enjoyed being active and connecting with her many friends from all around the world. Karin was beautiful, gentle, compassionate, smart, outgoing, and she radiated love.

She took great pride in crafting her writing that she posted on her website EyesPeeledAlways.com. Her work was featured in The Huffington Post, The Hartford Courant, Hartford Magazine, Cure Magazine, and other publications. Karin was a graduate of Torrington High School (2000) and the University of New Hampshire (2004), then worked in the Greater Hartford area in editing, marketing, writing, public relations, and communications.

Karin is survived by her husband Craig Diamond and her Sammy-dog of Tariffville, CT; her parents Paul and Laura Dubreuil of Torrington, CT; her sister Kristen Dubreuil of Denver, CO; her brother Michael Dubreuil and wife Rachel Pianta of Westbrook, CT; her brother and sister-in-law Eric and Rachel Diamond, nephew and niece Jake and Anna of Norfolk, MA; Uncle Kevin Brothwell; Uncle Mark Brothwell and his wife Roberta; and countless others who loved her.

A Celebration of Life gathering will be held on Saturday, October 5th, 2013 from 2:00 - 5:00 PM at SummerWind Performing Arts Center, 40 Griffin Road North, Windsor, CT. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Karin’s memory to First Descents, which provides outdoor adventures for young adult cancer survivors, or Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Visible Ink writing program.

Funeral Home Book of Memories

A Crowdsourcing Special Project

UPDATE: Thank you for the amazing and selfless work that Karin's readers have done to review her entire blog over the past 2 days. I've changed the status of the Google Doc and it is no longer active at this time. Your help is much appreciated and this project would make Karin so proud. I cannot wait to share the final quote book project with her readers! 

Karin took so much pride in expertly crafting each word of each sentence that you have been following in this blog. She was working hard to publish a book, but sadly her time was cut short. To help preserve some of the best parts of her writing, I have started a special project to collect and print quotes from her blogs in a printed keepsake for those that loved her. Karin wrote over 350 blog entries since 2009, so this is a huge project. That’s where you come in. Let’s crowdsource her hundreds of pages of writing by each taking a small portion. I’m soliciting support to read through all entries and cut and paste the best lines into a shared Google Doc. These quotes will be organized into a printed collection so Karin’s words will be preserved in printed form.

If you want to contribute to this project by reading through 1 or 2 entries (or however many you want), here are the directions:

Please first open the shared Google Doc from the link below. Scan through the Doc “Quotes from Karin Diamond” and find a blog date and title that has not already been reviewed. Add your name to the last column (Reader’s Name) so that others do not duplicate your efforts. Use the blog archive from the right side of eyespeeledalways.com to select the year, month, and blog(s) that you are going to review. If the blog includes any sentence(s) that are particularly poignant, special, funny, or awe inspiring, please copy and paste it into the shared Google Doc in the appropriate space, add quotation marks, and put -KD on the same line at the end of the quote. If Karin included a quote from someone else in her blogs, please include it in the Google Doc. Attribute the author’s name when you paste that quote. Please include the best lines only from Karin’s writing. Some entries will have more than others and there will be many that don’t have any quotes to preserve. That’s fine and to be expected. Record “None” in the Quotes to Preserve text field to indicate that the blog entry has been read and reviewed. Please read and review as many entries as you’d like but just be sure to finish an entry when you start it. Let’s avoid having multiple people review an individual blog entry until all have all have been reviewed by at least one person. When you paste in the Quotes to Preserve text field, please keep a consistent text size and style. Insert 1 line space between multiple quotes from same entry.

NO LONGER ACTIVE LINK - Link to the shared Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rx-pbYy9MBSYTK91QMdkQ1yTaAQNwtvgLVXfMqAFTA8/edit?usp=sharing

Of course your participation in this project is optional and not for everyone. If you are uncomfortable using a Google Doc, you may want to pass up participation in this project to ensure that the document does not accidently get messed.

Thank you to all who have read and supported Karin and me. Many thanks to everyone who will help with this project. I hope for Karin’s Quotes to Preserve to be ready to have as a keepsake at her Celebration of Life Memorial Service (details to follow). Contact Craig Diamond with ideas or if you’re experiencing problems with the shared Doc, but please understand if a quick reply is not possible at this time.

-Craig

Goodbye for Now 6/29/82 - 9/21/13

By my side along with friends and family, Karin passed out of this world today, peacefully and calmly.

It's been a most difficult week. The cancer metastasized to her liver and toxins quickly built up. But not before many many more wonderful moments together. Karin maintained her poise, warmth, and beauty throughout her entire life, and her written words are a legacy that will keep her memory alive and well. Her writing has helped us all in different ways and will continue to benefit all who take the time to read, listen, and think.

Karin was able to maintain such an incredible outlook because of the people around her, especially those in her blog community who shared so much of their own lives with her. From the bottom of my heart, than you for your support and love that you've shown to both of us.

The energy that she has left behind for all of us is palpable. We must promise never to lose sight of the valuable lessons we learned from her. Embrace one another, share, learn, stretch yourself, embrace your passion, listen, love, and keep your eyes peeled.

I will love you forever, Karin Diamond. Goodbye for now.

-Craig

Memorial Service details will follow. 

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

I desperately miss writing and apologize for not giving any updates and being so way behind on getting back to emails and messages. Things have been very difficult. I was in the hospital for 5 days last week. Extreme pain and the need for more blood products brought me in. I had severe pain over Labor Day weekend in my knees and my ankles, so bad that I could not walk. The nights were awful. Poor Craig had to deal with my screaming, crying anxiety attacks as I tried to handle the pain. I’d have Craig get me heat, then ice, then stack my legs on pillows, try to straighten them in front of me. Nothing worked.

While in the hospital, the goal was to titrate the pain medicine so that we had a good balance between the woozy side effects of the pain meds and keeping the pain under control. I’m home now and we’re not there yet. Today was very difficult. I felt sloshed and so weak. I puked last night after trying to get together my nighttime routine, then puked up a decent amount of OJ this morning after all the exertion of bringing my laptop, foods, and meds out onto the porch so I could enjoy some sun.

Everyone is very worried about me and wants me to accept more help and keep in better touch, but honestly, to send a text message or answer a phone call is so much work. I fall asleep and drop my phone while trying to reply all the time. I can spend extended amounts of time just staring into space and I hate it so much. I need to find some clarity. Obviously this amount of pain medication is too much but I’m so afraid of the level of pain if I come down.

My family and friends have been incredible whether it’s taking me to the hospital, visiting me in the hospital, or Craig and my mom being right there to get me whatever I need and make sure that I am comfortable.

My platelets are still very low, hanging around 10,000. Because of this, I am not able to continue on CEP oral chemo right now. I need to be at least 75,000 to take it. However, I am still able to take the Rituxan as it is a targeted antibody vs. traditional chemo and should not affect my blood counts. I got my second transfusion on Friday. I’m putting a lot of hope in this drug as I don’t know where else to turn.  Again, thank you for the supportive emails and comments. I look forward to when my head is clear again and I can get back to the craft that brings me so much happiness. Right now however, it takes me 20 minutes to write a short text message, so there won’t be any eloquent prose coming from this girl. In fact, I’m dictating this to Craig right now.