Birthday! Voting Day! Auction!

Today is my birthday. Hurray! I’m currently wearing new pajamas and reading Magic Below Stairs. V. nice birthday so far.

Happy Voting Day for everyone who votes regular-like and not by mail. I sort of miss the excitement of Voting Day which I think should be a national holiday, but I actually love voting by mail. It gives me time to think things through and do research, then I vote as I go, instead of having to do it all ahead of time before going to the polls. Or being surprised when I get there and voting for the woman with the coolest name (um, not that I’ve ever done that, of course).

In other exciting news, a new auction is being launched. I know I’ve said this again and again, but it bears repeating –we might not be rich in money or health (though I’m working really hard to change this), but we are rich in friends.

We are, by necessity, embarking in new and uncharted waters to kick cancer and our friends have gotten together an online auction for us. Because they are awesome. So, so, so awesome!

You can be awesome too.

Here’s info on the auction and how you can participate:

In the spirit of Bridget and Barrett’s Summer of Love, let’s keep it going with an online auction, Bridget Kicks Cancer: Season of Love and Hope. Starting now, we’re asking people to donate items to be bid on. Bidding begins Monday, November 22nd, and ends Saturday, December 4th. Here’s how it works:

Item Donation:
– To donate an item, go to http://bit.ly/bridgetkickscancer to fill out and submit the Item Donation Form.
– If you have more than one item to donate fill out a separate form for each item.
– For each item you submit, send us images to accompany the item listing. We can take up to four images per item! Please email images to: bridgetkickscancer@gmail.com.
– Get your donations in by Friday, November 19!

Items that have been popular and successful in previous auctions include:
– Author and writer services: critiques, help with social networking
– Autographed books
– Handcrafted jewelry or greeting cards
– Local services: wine tours, house rentals, consulting work
– Original Artwork: perhaps design an 8 x 10 -12 x 24 around the theme of “Season of Love” (paying homage to Bridget’s “Summer of Love”), offer to commission a piece of art, or donate an existing piece
– Gift items

The Auction:
– The auction will begin at 8:00am on Monday, November 22nd, and will conclude at 7:00pm Pacific / 9:00pm Central on Saturday, December 4th.
– To bid on items, visit the auction site at http://bit.ly/bridgetauction and follow the instructions for bidding.
– Winners will be notified by Sunday, December 5th, and will be sent instructions for payment at that time.
– As soon as payment is received, donors will ship or otherwise provide the item won to the winning bidder. Since this is around the holidays, send items as soon as possible after we notify you that payment has been received.

Questions? Email us at bridgetkickscancer@gmail.com!

Love to you all,

Bridget

The Birthday Week

Everyone should celebrate their  birthday for at least a week. Trying to put all of the birthday fun on the one day is just too much pressure on that day, plus, more fun over more days is just always a good idea.

I am very pro-birthday (and pro-celebration, clearly), but not just birthdays for the sheer joy of having a day and a week to indulge in fun. I am also pro-aging. Really, I want to win at the aging game and get really, really, really old. I have dreams of being one of those plumper old lady types who smell like cookies, wear extravagant scarves, and have whole closets filled with a gorgeous shoe collection.

I’ve worked so hard to get these last couple of years under my belt and some of these older chappies, they just seem to have racked up the years with little or no effort. How do they do it???

Some highlights over the past 5/7ths of the birthday week:

–getting my very own tail from Cyndi that is just as nice as Pumpkin’s tail, a dream of mine now realized.

–going for the optimistic haircut with Lori Ann at Halo and going from a ‘do something like this:


To a ‘do like this:

Lori Ann is a miracle worker.

–went to DiPrima Dolce, the north Portland Italian bakery, and got the best ciabatta ever.

–also went to Tienda Santa Cruz, a Mexican bakery/grocery store/restaurant in St. Johns, and got to smell the delicious baked goods and ogle them although we didn’t get any because it was super busy and I’m still avoiding crowds/potential sick people so we had to jet out pretty quick, plus it’s really confusing there. Baked goods are all over the place–on cooling racks, tables, under glass counters, and in a big glass display case. There’s one sign with five baked goods on it and thirty or more different kinds of baked goods in the store. so there is no trying to match the sign with what you see. It’s impossible to figure out what is what, but it was still a fun adventure and we will definitely be back. Maybe tomorrow for my birthday as I’m almost fairly sure that they had pan de muerto and if you are born on the Day of the Dead surely eating pan de muerto is an especially good idea.

–got to see various friends who aren’t sick (which is sadly not that huge of a number–why is everyone sick???)

The next two days are going to be frantic with last minute birthday fun before the next trip down to the cancer center on Wednesday.

Have some cake!

Love to you all,

Bridget

Update

Sadly, I have not quite lived the dream yet. It still takes a bevy of meds and herbs, hydration, and encouraging self-talk to get me out of bed in the mornings. Then, I don’t so much pop out of bed as creep carefully.
Plus, I can’t really drink tea with my insides still so messed up from chemo (one doc recently described the insides of a chemo patient’s intestinal tract as being like a skinned knee–graphic, but accurate).
But, I’m home! And it is a lovely, lovely place to be. The dream will come, I have no doubts.
With all of this hospital hooha, I’ve gotten behind on some things. Like thanking everyone who participated in The Great Clothes Swap. Madison Team Bridget, you are awesome!
Also, thanks to anyone who has sent me prezzies lately. It is very much appreciated and puts a little extra sunshine in my day. I would name you, but I’m still on painkillers and would feel awful if I forgot someone. And thanks to everyone who wrote me encouraging notes while I was in the hospital. They were so, so nice.
In other news, the Birthday Week has officially started and there are many low-key fun times on the books. I’m even optimistically getting a haircut as my hair seems to be staying put. Go hair!
I hope everyone is having lovely fall!
Love to you all,

Bridget

My Dream

I have this dream and it’s probably going to sound super lame–I’ve been confined to the same hospital room since Tuesday except for that one thrilling trip to the ct scan, surely I had time to come up with something better. Like touring the Loire valley in France and tiptoeing through fairy tale castles or going to Japan for cherry blossom season and picnicking under the falling blossom petals.

But this is what I’ve actually been dreaming about:

I pop out of bed in the morning in our new house, throw on a fuzzy robe (such vigor! Such strength!), make my way downstairs (look at how she is fully upright with no support! No sign of pain! Not a drop of weakness!) and into the kitchen. I casually stand at the counter, get the water boiling, pick out a mug and a teapot, and peruse the tea selection. I set my tea to steep (she’s STILL standing!) and wander through the house, thinking about where the art might go on the walls, which books to put in the built-in next to the fireplace. My tea finished steeping, I pour it into the mug (how is she doing this? She just keeps going!), and take it outside to my front steps and nestle in next to our Halloween pumpkin to watch the world go by.

Yes, that is my dream. Seriously. It’s what I think about as I’m drifting off to sleep.

I just found out I’m going home today.

And I’m feeling kind of mighty after being a helpless squishy piece of jello for the better part of the last two weeks.

Tomorrow, perhaps, could the dream really happen???

Stay tuned.

Love,

Bridget

The View From My Window

My hospital room window faces the west hills. They’re gorgeous early in the mornings–houses dotted among the green trees with little splashes of fall color. Smoky clouds above getting lighter with a bluer and bluer background as the sun comes up.
I have had a lot of nice views out of hospital rooms, though I’d much prefer these views were from hotel rooms where I would go sight-seeing and people watching without a care in the world.
The bruise was only stage one.
Wednesday night, symptom after symptom hit, then continued to hit for the next several days with new ones added, like the dreaded fever. I got weaker and weaker, could drink less and less, couldn’t really eat anything, was in immense pain, and couldn’t stop my symptoms.
My great primary care doc talked me into going to the ER (i hate the ER). But it was good advice and they have treated me well at Good Samaritan.
Turns out, I have febrile neutropinia (this means your immune system is super super dangerously low) and they’re trying to discover if I caught anything while my system was so low that would explain how sick I am, besides chemo side effects, of course. (chemo side effects just weren’t enough!)
They’ve been able to make me more comfortable and things had gotten so bad I didn’t say no to a single drug. I feel more stable this morning so hopefully I won’t need so many cocktails today. I’m so sensitive to drugs it’s non-stop hallucinations. The situation has to be dire to be willing to live in the carnival side of Bridget’s brain ,even briefly.
Yesterday I got blood for the first time in my life. It is really freaky watching that dark red liquid flowing down in a tube.

I’m quarantined in here and people have to wear masks to come in the room to keep me from catching anything new and lots of protective gear before they come near me. No flowers allowed even.

No answers yet, but the doc this morning tells me that  my white and red blood cell counts are creeping up and feels sure that tomorrow I will get to see people without face masks on.

I’m on the upturn.

I hope!

Love to you all,

Bridget

Masterpiece in Violet

I know it hardly seems fair to discover new talents at the ripe old age of 32—surely, I should have found all of them by now and be tapped out.

But I’ve discovered some new ones.

1) Growing hair. I am really quite good at this. Fingers crossed that my hair growing continues unimpeded by the new chemo regime. Right now there is a bounty on top of my head.

2) Creating beautiful bruises. Not just pretty or sweet or whatnot,  but truly spectacular, gorgeous bruises. The one on my hip right now is about eight or so inches across the wound site and a good four inches at its widest. It’s this deep, stunning purple—like a rich eggplant or plumy black orchid.

Poems should be wriiten, songs sung, national holidays declared for such a bruise.

What is beauty without a little pain?

Unfortunately, I have been re-reminded that there are some talents I do not have such as tolerating drugs. The slightest hint of a narcotic and I have hallucinations, nightmares, and the bodily need to purge the drug from my system. Turns out steroids can be even worse, I’d just never realized it because I had so many other distractions during previous rounds with it.

Intra-Arterial Chemotherapy is an absolutely genius idea—the chemo is directed through an artery right into the tumor so the tumor takes the brunt of things and the rest of your body suffers less side effects. And if I’d slept through the whole thing as promised maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad. But, really, that would have been too easy. Instead I had a super hyped up reaction to the steroids (given for nausea) for the whole fourteen hours I was required to lay unmoving on my back while the chemo was delivered through a rod-type thing shoved up my hepatic artery (four hours longer than expected!).

I’ve been thinking that I could teach a class on torture to bring in some extra money. I have so many interesting instances to draw from.

The Cancer Treatment Centers of America was awesome about it though—they sent in Harold Moses of The Institute of Harmonic Science to play viola for me when they found out I loved classical muic and he played my favorite musical piece of all time (adjusted for viola, of course), Bach Cello Suites. Plus, when Barrett got talked out around three in the morning at about hour ten, the nurses took turns talking to Super Hyper Bridget on Steroids.

Next time, no steroids and they’re sending in a Reiki practitioner and an acupuncturist.

CTCA is truly fantastic and as excrutiating as this procedure was, Intra-Arterial Chemotherapy is still bloody brilliant and all of the mind-body stuff is a definite bonus. Even the five days of regular chemotherapy I received at CTCA on top of the Intra-Arterial thing seemed less harrowing than the three days of chemo I used to get here. I seem to be recovering much quicker which means being more alert and less blechy to enjoy our sunshiney house and cuddly kitties.

Thanks again and again to all of our fundraisers. We couldn’t do this without you! Don’t forget The Great Clothes Swap Sunday, October 17 at 11:30 a.m. helping me to Kick Cancer (and occasionally create beautiful bruises).

Love to you all,

Bridget

New News

In some contexts comments such as, “but, wait, there’s more,” and “good lord, those are huge,” are a good thing. Like say for jewels. Or gold nuggets.

Or cookies.

Not so much for cancer. We got a good close up look at my ct scans today and yikes, not sure I wanted to know what was really going on in there. But I’m at a great place, CTCA in Phoenix, and we have all sorts of options. So we’re giving a couple of them a go and putting some others aside for a Next Plan, though, of course, we’re hoping that next time we look at the ct scan results the comments are more along the lines of, “gosh, where’d they all go?” and “damn, you’re one healthy person.”

I started a new chemo regime today which is 4 hours every day from now through Sunday–it’s supposed to be more aggressive and yet have less side effects which sounds awfully good to me. Tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. I’m doing the other part of my new regime which is some sort of direct-to-tumor chemo where they go in through the artery in your leg. Yikes! Then I have to lay still on my back for about 9-10 hours after and then spend the night in the hospital for observation. I will try not to go completely bonkers.

We’ll see how that goes.

As all of you are so fabulous, and some of you even psychic, Cailin, Kristin, and the Madison gang already have a fundraiser lined up to help us with the cost of all of these schmancy life-saving treatments. If you are able, they’d love to have you participate. Cailin is also writing up instructions for this fundraiser should anyone else be interested in putting one of these on at a different geographical location.

So awesome. We are truly blessed with great, great, great friends.

Here’s what Cailin has to say about The Great Clothes Swap: A Benefit for Bridget & Barrett:

Refresh your wardrobe for a good cause! Bring your gently used women’s and men’s clothing, shoes, and accessories to the Vintage Brewing Co. for a clothes swap. One person’s “so last season” is another person’s great new find!

Drop off your items between 11:30 and 12:00, then enjoy lunch and drinks from the Vintage before the Great Clothes Swap begins at 1:00. $10 entrance fee ($15 if you do not bring at least 5 items to swap) gets you a grocery bag to fill with new stuff! At just $5 for each additional bag, it’s a great deal, and your money will go to Bridget Zinn & Barrett Dowell to support them in their fight against Bridget’s colon cancer. (See www.bridgetzinn.com/blog for Bridget’s story.)

Items that are not taken in the swap will be donated to St Vinnie’s. Women’s formalwear will be donated to the Junior League for their “All Dressed Up” event, providing prom dresses to girls in need.

Please, feel free to invite your friends and spread the word. The more people who come, the more great finds for the rest of us – and the more money we’ll raise for Bridget & Barrett!

Time:
Sunday, October 17 · 11:00am – 3:00pm
Location:
Vintage Brewing Co.
674 S. Whitney Way
Madison, WI

Good vibes are always welcome too. Hope some of you can make it!

And, thanks again (and again, and again!), to our fab movers April, Amy, Matt, and parents as well as to our Fundraiser Team Extraordinaire.

You all rock.

Love to you all,

Bridget


I Miss My Cats, I Miss My Cats

I MISS MY CATS!

In the past 48 hours, not a single person has curled up on my lap and purred.

No one has come running to head butt me when I get up in the morning.

And absolutely no one has meowed in my face with stinky cat food breath.

*sigh*

Phoenix is going fine, although I’ve had to explain how I ended up with so many bizarre moving injuries. One doc even suggested that perhaps I could consider looking before shoving my hand in a box full of unknown items. How was I to know that sneaky food processor blade was lurking in there?

The hotel is lovely–especially the polka dot shower curtain. The cancer center is doing their bang up job of getting me through their complex mind/body system and telling me about new treatment options.

BUT

I miss my kitties.

They LOVE the new house. We were trying to keep them upstairs during the move for their own safety and one morning they busted the vent at the bottom of the stairs and came pouring out.

Once they got the run of the first floor, they then proceeded to:

–sniff every single thing on that floor.

–lounge nonchalantly on various stairs.

–unroll all of the toilet paper.

–taunt cats outside the window.

–taunt cats outside the door.

–play Chase That Cat with each other at top speed.

–meow at the basement door.

–pose luxuriously on the top shelves of the kitchen.

And that was just in the first hour.

Maybe we can skype with them tomorrow (with human help, of course, they are geniuses, but cannot yet type).

Love to you all,

Bridget

All Hell Has Broken Loose (In a Good Way)

So we’re moving.

Which is super awesome and all sorts of great (goodbye barely a one-bedroom, Charlie Bucket leaky chimney and rat-sized holes in the basement!).

We’re also going to Phoenix on Sunday.

Which we just found out yesterday.

Aaahhhhh!!!!!

Friday is moving day and just as we get that last box settled on Sunday we jump on a plane. We’ve decided to try out the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (the Phoenix branch) which my acupuncturist at the Immunity Enhancement Program recommended and which sounds amazing. They have all cutting edge medical technology along with an emphasis on mind/body medicine and I’ve heard rumor there’s good food and possibly even pedicures.

I know.

What could be  more perfect?

Except, of course, our new storybook cuter-than-cute house with the window boxes and the writing room upstairs that even has a little napping nook off to the side for when I need a break and some inspiration.

I just want to pet all of the walls and say “Nice house,” for a month or so, so that it knows it’s in good hands.

But that will just have to wait until we get back.

Exciting stuff!

Love to you all,

Bridget

p.s. If you want our new address please e-mail me or message me on Facebook.

p.p.s. And if you want to help us move, definitely e-mail me!

Decisions, Decisions

It is SO difficult making decisions–you research, you sort, you try to make sense of things.

But I am to the point where, despite the inadvisability of going out into crowded public spaces with a compromised immune system, I’m tempted to march into a purveyor of women’s undergarments and say, “Please help me. I have ginormous bosom issues AND I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

Strap burn, constrictive bra band tourniquet-itis, digs, dings, and poppage. I’ve grown out of all of my current bras.

It isn’t my fault that I have enormous bosoms. It’s a combined genetics/western medicine drug issue.

If you are out there undergarment fairy, I need some advice!

I have more pressing issues to focus on. Like trying to cure cancer. The standard western medicine hoopla is beginning to outlive its usefulness and it’s time to pick up the hunt and begin wading through clinical trials and continue to weed through alternative and traditional medicine options. A person only has so many decision-making brain cells at their disposal.

Must find cute long-wearing jimmy jams, a supportive bra, AND a cure for cancer. Isn’t that too much for any one person really?

After doing all the very scientific measurements, sifting through advice, and styles, I decided to purchase a test bra online. It doesn’t exactly look like a rocket ship (you know, for boost).

Maybe Janet Jackson had the right idea. Or not.

Love to you all,

Bridget