or it gets the rash again….

I’m taking this post to the NEXT LEVEL… of inappropriate and crass (this is your final warning).

This face rash is soooo SEX-Y!! I  saw my Dermatologist yesterday morning though, so I’m hopeful my new regimen will tone this $hit down. And… more good news, I can no longer “whip my hair back and forth”. Now I stand in the shower singing “Nothing Compares To You” all day, like Sinead O’Connor. Or Prince (don’t hate), she would probably actually like this Pope; I saw he just made the first papal visit to Ireland in forever, go Francis!! He may have been going there to hide from his most recent accusations of knowledge, ruh roh.

I think you can click on this IMG_4249 on desktop to see a little clip… may not work on a phone… sorry.

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Looking back, it seems absolutely amazing that the content above could ever be contained in one of my blog posts-FOCUS-POCUS!

My second round was far less exciting than the first one. No infections or bacterial infection death threats this time. I was a little tired for a few days, very little nausea (easily managed with pills). It’s more like hangover nausea or hunger, like when you are craving a freaking SLINGER or some other 3000 calorie meal, consisting of 110% carbs. I try to mix it up. With hot carbs and cold carbs. Ice cream is still a staple. I pepper in foods high in Magnesium (as Vectibix depletes your Mg stores). I “salt in” lots of high protein foods and drinks too, don’t worry. I hope this is making you hungry or pregnant…

I’ve had my third round of this FOLFIRI w/ Vectibix yesterday. All good so far. I’ll skate through this one and have another treatment on September 11th, then I’ll have a scan at the end of the month. Hopefully, things will look good. In my “expert” opinion, I think I’m better. I honestly do feel better, for the real record. My blood work looks pretty good. My CEA has gone down below 1 again, mine never gets very high, but still… I got to the gym twice a week over the last few weeks  (I have to be honest, the Friday after chemo I mostly did lay down exercises, but still…. FYI-Katie McCrary at Nutriformance is AWESOME!!! I can say that on days when I get to lay down, on other days… I think she is the devil…)

Time to play… who wore it best?

Me vs. Liz (my sister-in-law and fellow cancer survivor)

I was kind enough to donate my “strands” to City of Kirkwood: Sewer Lateral & she probably did the right thing, donating to  Locks of Love. If there were a Lack of Locks of Love I could have done that. My pony tail wasn’t even as thick as one of those braids. That Liz, always showing off…

Filmed on location at The Hair Lab (this place is beautiful inside, by the way). Hair and style by the amazing Emily Struckhoff. Videography by You’re Kimming Me Salls and MLE. And lastly, and most importantly, edited by the very talented CHARLIE CAREL (or Chuck Struck)!!!

For your viewing pleasure, presenting: GI JILL…

Making gastrointestinal  (GI) cancers fun since 2015… ENJOY!!! Puntastic.

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I will NEVER “Ring the bell”… For two reasons: I’ll never give up or quit and I’m pretty much shafted with chemo for life… HA!

Here are a few of the styles we tried out before “taking it down to the bone” as my dad says:

Descriptions: 1. A little off the sides, 2. the Kim Salls, 3.the waterfall gentle mullet, 4. mustache bangs with a twist, 5. Wiese showing us why Emily wears the clippers in the family, 6. the straight across the back (above the hairline-a BIG no no in the hair industry), and a few more along the way…. We were very sad to not incorporate the “Friar Tuck” as that was our ONE that we had both been wanting to do, but that would have required taking it down to the brain (seen below, sported by Take a Knee Tebow):

And for the record, my hair did not all come out at once. It just started thinning rapidly, unfortunately near the front, so… off it went… involuntary mullet action be gone.

PROS and CONS of being BALDeep in Cancer (just to name a few):

Lack of hair PROS-money saved, I’ll finally finish the shampoo bottle before the conditioner, time saver, shaving a head is fun, it doesn’t get cause in the propellers of drones, Steve no longer plays with my hair strings at night.

Lack of hair CONS-shaving a head by yourself is hard (please ignore the extraneous hairs-learning curve: I suck and Kim is blind), Steve now licks my head, gonna be cold in the winter, I’ll probably be called “sir” more than Lovett.

On a serious note: Life is hard. It is unfair at times. I’m a firm believer in getting knocked down 10 times, getting up 11 (even if only on one knee). I’ve probably said it on here before (chemo brain). I’ve met so many amazing people since being diagnosed. I have so many great friends and a loving family. I’m also so lucky to have Kim in my corner… in my actual corner at chemo (I put baby in the corner when we’re there-corner seats rule). Thank you to her for always being there for me, I know it’s not always easy to do this (any of this), but she does it. So thank you Kimballs.

It’s hard to lose someone and very difficult to watch the ones you love suffer. Losing someone can be stretched out over time or it can happen in an instant. Don’t take things for granted. Enjoy each day and when you can’t, do your best to get back on track quickly. Don’t stay in a dark place, look for light, it hides around every corner. Life literally goes on without you. Be kind to everyone, you never know what they are going through.

Thanks, as always, for your support and kind posts and words. I can’t reply on your comments on the actual blog site, but I read every single one, so thank you from the top and bottom of my heart.

IMODB

Been enjoying my summer, and missing my Summer 😉

For anyone curious about our “inspiration” for the video (it’s only mimicking the first 45 seconds-Charlie really did a great job with what we gave him):

Sorry for such a long one, I just don’t have much to say when I’m on boring maintenance chemo I guess.

Cheers!!

I got a fever of a hundred and three…

LIT-ER-AL-LY!!   (SING IT!!!)

So my first round of the “new” chemo went… well… interestingly.

I had my “dose” on a Tuesday. No major issues to report. All seemed to be going really well, until I woke up that Saturday morning really early with a bit of a fever. I tried taking some ibuprofen. The fever went up over 101. I took some more ibuprofen mid morning. The fever went up over 102. I went into the Cancer Care Clinic to get checked over, they thought it was maybe associated with my treatment. While there I had some blood cultures drawn to check for infection. They sent me home as my fever went down a little.

Within an hour of being home my fever returned over 103 and I was HOT BLOODED. I was pretty out of it but I ended up getting admitted to the hospital for four days. It took time to figure out what was causing the fever, since I had no other symptoms. They drew more blood each day. I was admitted Saturday and started some pretty heavy antibiotics. I think I found out Monday I had a pretty bad bacterial blood infection. I got to go home Tuesday afternoon with some oral antibiotics. Had to take it easy the rest of the week. I guess a blood poisoning like that takes a little or a lot out of you. Good times… ha.

So I had to finish two weeks of antibiotics and that pushed my next round of chemo off for a week. I was kind of happy about that. Secretly…

But now, I’m back at it. I had my second round of chemo yesterday. It seemed to go pretty good. Better than last time it seemed. I felt better afterward than last time, so that’s good. I feel fine today. I’ve got my little take home pump for 46 hours, oh it’s glorious. Especially with the new cat in town. Steve thinks he should chew on all cords, wires and chemo lines… kind of a pain. I blame Kim.

So, hopefully this week goes better than last time. It sounds like that infection may have been an isolated incident. A perfect storm created by a multitude of possibilities given my recent knee surgery and stent procedure. Who knows. Something could have been floating around and then when your immune system is hit with the chemo it can’t control everything. I’m not too worried about it happening again.

The room I stayed in at Barnes was pretty swank. In the new build area, private room, big screen tv (that Kim couldn’t hear ever). It wasn’t bad once I started feeling better. I really had no idea what was going on Saturday or Sunday until pretty late at night. That high of a fever kind of makes a girl crazy.

The plan now is to get through four treatments, then I can have a scan and we’ll see how things are going. So I think the scan falls around the end of September. Fingers crossed, stay tuned. Kim and I have a vacation planned early October, so there’s just basically no other option other than for things to work and everything to be fine.

Oh and I nearly forgot… Strangely, I still have my hair. Not sure if this next treatment will shoot it out, but we’ll see.  So I can still go down this aisle in Walgreens:

I’m still envious of Baby Changko on instagram:

My only other issue I’ve noticed, besides the near death blood infection sepsis, is my sweet, sweet baby face skin… is no more. I have about one million bumps on my face. It’s very romantic. It’s very common when getting Vectibix. You want the rash, it  means the drug is working… you want the rash. I keep telling myself that. Jill, you want the rash. Kim says it doesn’t look that bad, but she’s also blind. I don’t think her trifocals can pick up all of the little acne bumps.

Oh well, so is life. Thanks for all of your kind comments and words of encouragement going into this new treatment and what not. It is always very uplifting, I can’t ever say enough thank yous…

Cheers!!