06.24.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:36 pm by Bridget Zinn
It is true that your body likes to make baby white blood cells in your lower hips and rear end area. Ha! I wasn’t completely out of my mind. Of course, this time around, I’m feeling it in my shoulders too which doesn’t make any sense. Maybe they ran out of room down there?
Other good news, besides me not being crazy (at least not concerning my achy bottom), is that my tumors are, in fact, shrinking. Woo hoo! All of the throwing up etc. has not been for nought. I swore I felt cancer cells putting up a fight in there as they died off, so I’m not at all surprised. I just wish they’d go more quietly and slip away to find another incarnation as a nice flower or something.
So far, this round of the blood-boosting hulk shot has gone better — still a bit sleepy, but I’ve started going to acupuncture and, while it doesn’t get me dancing on tables or anything terribly exciting, it definitely gets me upright and moving around. Maybe dancing on tables will come after my next session.
I’ve mentioned before that we have awesome friends and they keep getting more and more awesome and I haven’t even put up pics of all of the cool stuff people have sent me like the quilt my writers group with SCBWI-WI made for me or thanked all of the people, including SCBWI-OR and lots and lots of friends and writer friends, for helping us out with the astronomical expense of trying to beat cancer. So many people have stepped in to help us. My next job, after this Staying Alive job is successful, will be as a thank you card writer.
There’s an event in Madison this week to help us out and here is the blurb from facebook that I stole from Cailin who I think stole it from Kristin:
Rummage: a benefit for Bridget & Barrett. It is a super awesome garage sale that we are having Fri Jun 26th & Sat Jun 27th from 8 am to 5 pm at 4001 Drexel Ave (near Cottage Grove Rd and Monona Dr) to help raise money so Bridget can kick the cancer without worrying about the stupid bills. All we need is for all you Madison folks to help! Donate stuff to sell (send me a message) & come buy, buy, buy!
Aren’t they fabulous?
I hope everyone is having a great week!
Bridget
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06.16.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:15 pm by Bridget Zinn
First, I have to say, I feel freaking great right now. I have no idea why this is, if it’s a belated effect from the Hulk Shot they gave me or what, but after a week of being so damn tired, I feel great. This Hulk Shot was supposed to make me mighty and invulnerable by boosting my white blood cells etc., but in reality made me so so so so sleepy, also kind of achy as the cells all seemed to grow and congregate in one particular area, namely my butt bones, which possibly defies actual medical possibility as I’m sure they are supposed to spread out to do their reproducing thing, but I know when my behind hurts and, believe me, it hurt.
The sleepy was so intense that now, even though I am only doing things like walking 18 blocks (!) instead of, say, climbing a mountain like I’d like, it is such an improvement that I cannot stop smiling.
I actually spent time last week in bed having conversations with myself about just how much effort would go into say removing my chipped nail polish — “okay, if I can just sit up, then I can move my legs to the side of the bed and stand, and then I can go into the bathroom and whew, OPEN the cupboard, and then get the nail polish remover and something to soak it in like a cotton ball or something, but I have no idea where that would be, so I’d have to look for them which would require a lot of bending etc. and then once I found all of that I’d have to take the cap of the nail polish remover, soak the cotton balll, wipe off EVERY SINGLE NAIL, then throw out the cotton, possibly even multiple cotton balls, and PUT THE CAP BACK ON THE REMOVER and honestly at this point, I might as well be building the empire state building with a broken hammer and some glue, i.e. impossible, *sigh* maybe I’ll just lie here a little longer…. but this nail polish is really driving me crazy, what all would I have to do again?” and over and over and over and then maybe on to a new impossible task until Barrett helped me get up and do whatever it was I felt I had to do.
But that was last week. So far this week, I’m much better AND my nails have been tended to.
I have pics of pre-Hulk Shot adventures and the fabulous Lucky Lab auction that I will post as soon as I get them all together. And lots and lots of thanks to give out to all of the wonderful, wonderful people who helped and participated and entertained me in the live auction and the online auction and the plant sale in Madison and the rummage sale in Madison next weekend. You all are the best!
Off to enjoy energy while it lasts~
Bridget
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05.30.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:33 am by Bridget Zinn
The in person auction was perfect. Thanks to everyone who made it so!
I’m having another good day and we’re taking advantage and going to have a picnic on the beach so I don’t have time to post more or to arm wrestle a camera away from someone to get some pics. BUT what I do have for you is a link to the fabulous Suzanne Young’s blog where she posted tons of pics.
Laurie Ann from Halo did such a good job on my hair, I honestly don’t know if it’s ever looked better (and my olden time friends know how I felt about Kenneth, but Laurie Ann, I think, has got him beat!). There was some last minute scrambling when I realized that with such delicious starlet hair I had to wear something that lived up to it and, if you’ve been following this blog, you know I got rid of almost everything I owned last year when we moved to Portland. I went from having more dresses than there are days in the month to only a couple. And somehow one of them was just perfect.
Until I saw a pic of Barrett, Matt Holm and his wife Cyndi and saw this naked girl in the background THAT WAS ME. Didn’t realize there was no back to my dress. At least the bottom half was covered.
Must go, beach and veggie burgers (with brie and mushrooms, my favorite) await!
Love to you all and good luck to all of you online bidders today!
Bridget
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05.27.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:45 pm by Bridget Zinn
I’m having a great day. A super awesome, frabjous day! I have not slain any jabberwockies sadly, but I am feeling really good and that only comes around so often lately.
I got the super cute haircut of my dreams. Triple Huzzah! I called at the last minute this morning and had never even been to the salon before. I didn’t think such a thing could happen, but Halo Salon = Best Place Ever. Laurie Ann was totally on the same page and got the Needing A Super Cute Haircut Emergency and stepped in to save the day. The beginning, I hope, of a long and lovely relationship, as I do plan to live for a very long time despite any rumors you may have heard to the contrary. I have not given up my plan of becoming very very very old and one day walking out into the woods and gently morphing into a tree or a nice plant next to a stream or something where bears and little girls meditate as sort of a break between human incarnations.
I digress. Laurie Ann was perfect and even when I went from going a million miles an hour, which happens when I’m having a good day, to pretty much zero and had to take a little nap in her chair, she just kept going and played around and made me feel pampered and lovely. Then, at the end, when I was all gushy and happy and wanting to know what she used and she wasn’t pushy about selling things but said sure she would make a list and that they did have small sizes I could try if I wanted, Gloria (who is my new mother-in-law, but I think that’s just a weird and unfortunate name and I haven’t come up with anything better yet. Other Mother kind of cracks me up but all of you Coraline fans will be picturing black button eyes) 
stepped in and said, “We’ll take the lot, it’s on me,” or something to that effect, possibly less British, but still very exciting. Since Harry Potter “took the lot” on his first ride to Hogwarts, I’ve always wanted to do that. *sigh* Such a great day.
And the appointment ended with Laurie Ann setting up an appointment to do my hair for free before the Big Event on Friday. 
The Big Event is, of course, the Silent Auction at the Lucky Lab at 6:30-9 pm this Friday, May 29th. I hope hope hope to see lots and lots of you there. If you can’t make it, I think there is still time to bid on fabulous items in the online auction. We can’t thank all of you enough for your generous donations and for bidding and just being overly wonderful. We really couldn’t get through this without you all.
My darling friend Georgia Beaverson is still working hard to get donations for Bridget’s Cancer Fund and the lovely Cailin O’Connor along with her husband Nicolai are putting together some kind of super team in Wisconsin to follow up after all of the Oregon auction-ing ends. They also started a group on facebook called I want to help Barrett & Bridget.
And totally out of left field, without our knowing anything about it at all, SCBWI-Western Washington held a raffle for us at their conference last week and raised some money for us. I meant to blog earlier, but the whole hospital stay followed by a drug-induced daze was not good for the blogging. Thank you SCBWI-Western Washington! I will get up there for a conference one of these days. Very shnazzy having it hand delivered to my hospital room with such a sweet note and treats by one of my favorite people in the world — my super agent Michael Stearns who ALSO added cupcakes to the mix.
Plus, an editor friend of mine just sent me the must delicious looking box of books I have ever seen in my entire life. All girly, all the time. I just want to spread them out and look at them for a while.
Plus Plus, my friend Emily Whitman, who has a great new book out (plus a gorgeous website designed by none other than my own tech genius/now husband Barrett) hooked me up with her Chinese doctor and I have an appointment next week. AND she made me scrumptious home-made orange flower water pudding.
Plus Plus Plus, I just got an e-mail from a neighborhood writer who is helping me get connected with a neighborhood healing center to tell me that she just picked me up some CD’s and goodies from them.
Seriously, don’t we know the nicest people ever?
I may have only had five good days out of thirty this past month, but when they’re good they’re really really good. I would settle for just not having pain or throwing up, but when they’re even BETTER than that….
I hope everyone else is having a lovely day and has had a chance to check out Steve’s fab article which I haven’t thanked him for doing such a great job with yet.
So many people to thank, so few good days. If I haven’t gotten to you yet on the thank you list, I swear, I will.
Love you all,
Bridget
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05.25.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:42 pm by Bridget Zinn
The song going through my head for the past couple of days now is that Violent Femmes song with the “too many drugs line” in it which just about sums up the past weekend. I was not eligible for chemo on Friday (white blood cell count too low) and ended up with just a fifth of the treatment that had been scheduled.
What I did go home with was a whole new posse of drugs I got from my stay at OHSU last week to try and control my myriad side effect problems. Not to knock OHSU in any way because now they’ve all read this incredibly-well-written-not-to-mention-complimentary article and may pop over to my blog and I don’t want any of the awesome staff to think that I am dissing them, especially the two fabulous nurses who tag-teamed to get me through the MRI Torture Chamber and rank as Super Awesome Nurses of All Time in my book, but I definitely went home with too many drugs.
Because I have completely lost Saturday. I mean it’s just gone. All day Sunday I kept asking my darling and company about things that happened yesterday and they kept saying, “No, that was Friday.” But something must have happened on Saturday, right? No answer. They give me hollowed-eye looks and shake a bit in horror.
How bad could it have been? When I’ve squeezed a bit out of Barrett, he told me that I would fall asleep so suddenly that my head would hit the wall, I’d start hunting for pills in the sheets that weren’t there, pop out of a deep sleep to continue a conversation we weren’t having and at one point he even caught me at the laptop WITH THE MANUSCRIPT I’M REVISING OPEN!!!!!
This does, in fact, scare me, just a bit. Hope super star agent is not reading this post.
So we’ve cut waaaayyyy down on the narcotics and I’m going back in tomorrow to try and winnow everything down as much as possible. Then my alternative medicine hunt is going to get kicked into high gear.
Because I really really really hate being sick, but also, I really really don’t want to miss out on the awesome auction at the Lucky Lab this Friday!
Hope you all are feeling healthy and spry etc.
Love,
Bridget
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