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Archives for September 2011

30
Sep 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

6196_0924_carina_s_room_displayHello all! Well yesterday was my very last chemotherapy treatment. #6 of 6 now complete. I will now spend the next 2-3 weeks recovering from this one. For many reasons I hope and pray to never have to go through chemotherapy again. The nurses yesterday gave me a graduation certificate to celebrate! I wore a purple boa to celebrate! It still hasn’t hit me yet that I am done.

After coming home yesterday from my treatment I found a welcome home party in our garage. Our house had turned into a rainbow! There were tons of balloons all lined up in rainbow colors on our porch. There were plastic cloths draped on our garage door with all the colors of the rainbow. There were the purple pinwheels and also this time tons of small rainbow pinwheels. I got to walk down the purple carpet leading to our front door that had a sign that read “Congratulations on being a chemo grad! Love, Kim’s Crew.” But the most fun of all was that party in my garage. My friends and parents were all in there waiting for me to arrive so we could celebrate! I couldn’t believe it but my kids got out of school early to attend my celebration. Needless to say they were very excited. Other kids were there too and my good friend Anne who moved away over the summer was in my garage celebrating right along with me. I was so touched. Mishelle made some awesome rainbow colored cupcakes! Poonam decorated the inside with a rainbow lantern and purple star. It was a really great afternoon! I have posted pics of the party in the photo gallery so you can see.

During the last 7 days so many of my friends and family spotted real rainbows in the sky. I have posted many of these today in my photo gallery. I never found my own rainbow until yesterday when I took a picture of the outside decorations and a rainbow appeared on the picture after I went back through to look through the pictures. (This picture is the first one in my photo galley.) Thank you God for the sign.

Last weekend Carina and Delany Collins organized purple day at Ansley’s Irish Dancing class. All the dancers were wearing purple in honor of celebrating my last chemo treatment. Once again I was so touched I cried. The girls made a Flower Power poster and all the Irish dancers signed it for me. Ansley will get to keep it in her room once we are done enjoying it down here.

In about a half an hour I will go get my last White Blood count booster shot. Yes! Other than that I just need to power though these next several weeks until I gain my strength back. Last treatment it took me 2.5 weeks to recover and the doctor says this one will be worse.

I am still scheduled for surgery on Thursday, October 20 to have my port catheter removed from my chest wall. They fed me the chemo drugs, iron drips, and withdrew blood from my port. I will ask my surgeon to save it for me once he removes it. It will go in my bin of momentos that I will keep.

That is it for now. Thank you all for your continued prayers and special notes. I shall be back to myself feeling a lot better in six weeks. My doctor says the fatigue from radiation will be nothing campared to what I have experienced with the chemotherapy. I start radiation on Monday, Oct 24.

Love,

Kim

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Filed Under: Kim's Blog

22
Sep 2011

Thursday, September 22, 2011

In exactly one week I will be done with all six of my chemotherapy treatments. I cannot believe the time is almost here. I am so thankful that I am almost done. This last round (#5) was a tough one and I am still recovering from it. The fatigue is worse with this one and for some reason this week I am experiencing nausea. I have to eat every three hours to not feel bad. I save my nausea meds for the really bad week because if I take them now I cannot drive a car because they tend to make me a little spacey. Other issues that have gotten enhanced as time has gone on is that my eyes water and sometimes twitch and are in general more sensitive, my left foot has been acting up and gets a burning sensation every so often, and I have been experiencing hot flashes. My tongue and throat haven’t recovered yet so things aren’t tasting as they should and my sense of smell is completely heightened. The skunk on the side of the road the other day and filling up my car with gas was almost unbearable. The fatigue has been the toughest though because I can battle through all the other junk but the fatigue hits me like a brick wall. Yesterday I did school pick up and then ran an errand and that completely wore me out. I am grateful for the times of day when I have enough energy to feel somewhat normal. Our couch has become my friend. 🙂

Okay, so with all this yucky stuff there is a wonderful positive… my hair has started to grow back!!!!! A few days ago I noticed a very small layer of very light, fine, soft tiny hairs all over my head. You would have thought someone told me we were going to Disney World with how I felt inside when I saw it and touched it to see if it was actually hair. I was sooooooo excited! I don’t know if it will continue to grow as I go through my last treatment but this gives me great hope to know that it will be soon enough for that part of me to come back.

My Mom leaves tomorrow and returns once again next Wednesday evening with my Dad. Mom thinks she might not be able to go home in October as this will be a busy month: I will be recovering from my last chemo treatment, I will have surgery to have my port removed, and I will be preparing for and starting radiation. For me, October really is Breast Cancer Awareness month. 🙂 I hope next October I can feel a little less aware. Still aware, but just less.

My prayer for this week is that I continue to remain healthy and not catch any viruses. After the last 10 days of helping to nurse Ansley back to health (from a distance) from her having Pneumonia I am hoping the virus fairy has removed every bit of germ from our house. Good riddance!

Until next time…

Love,
Kim

Filed Under: Kim's Blog

14
Sep 2011

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

It has been 6 days since my last chemo treatment. I have a few more days until the upswing will begin. Nothing is new with this treatment. My side effects happen almost exactly to the day as they have in the past few treatments and since I stay on top of all my medications I am able to control the effects. The only thing that is new this time around is that Ansley, my 6 year old, has been keeping me company during the day as she has been sick since Monday night with a fever, cough, and sore throat. As a Mom I just want to give her everything she needs to make her feel better and give her snuggles. But unforuntatly I cannot do any of that because my immune system would not like this right now. She has her couch and I have mine. She understands that she and I need to keep our distance. In another six weeks I plan to give my kids so many hugs and kisses they will have had enough. Here’s hoping that no one else in our household gets sick including me!!

I am counting down the hours until Allen comes home tomorrow night from his business trip!!

Thank you Mom and Dad for taking care of me (and Ansley) this week!

Love,
Kim

Filed Under: Kim's Blog

8
Sep 2011

Thursday, September 8, 2011

57862_0908_Chemo__5_displayToday was chemo #5 of 6. All went great. I did not get my usual room but got another room with a view of the flowers and putting green and it was a private room with a door so that was great. Maybe at my last treatment I will get “my room.” Today for the most part I have felt pretty good. I am on top of my meds so that is helping me so much already. My friends and family helped me celebrate today. I came home after my treatment today and found the purple pinwheels lining our driveway, purple lanterns by the lights, and two huge purple flowers made out of purple and yellow balloons on our front porch. Amazing! And then, I walked into the house and was completely blown away. There was a huge paper quilt hanging from our fireplace. It was made of squares that a lot of you decorated and wrote special messages to me. I cried when I saw this. It took my breath away. I think I cry when I come home from every chemo day because I am so touched by all of the thoughtful things that are done for me. You guys are amazing!!!! I want to personally thank each and every one of you but know I won’t have the energy to do that right now so this is to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Many of you wrote me beautiful quotes and enouraging words. I had many favorites. In fact, they were all my favorite! I posted a picture of the quilt in my photo gallery for you to see.

I go back to the cancer center tomorrow afternoon for my white blood enhancer shot so I have the painkiller prescription already filled so I will be ready to manage the pains. My red blood count was the same as it was two weeks ago 10.3. (normal is 12-16.) I don’t really feel the side effects at this number but this coming week the red count will drop and then pick back up a week from Saturday. I am ready for it! I have my sleeves rolled up and am ready to tackle it head on! My doctor today saw my fingernails and told me how good they looked because at this point many people have discovered streaks in their nails and 10% of people have their nails completely fall off. So, go Kim’s nails! Way to hang on strong!

The center today was crowded. I saw a woman about 60 years old that got dropped off and picked up from her daughter who had a small baby with her. I could tell it was this woman’s first chemo visit because I overheard them telling her how in two weeks she will lose her hair and how the skin around her port looked a little swollen so she must have just had the port put in. Then, the social worker walked into her room and talked to her. That’s what the social worker does. She visits you on your first chemo visit. I felt bad for the woman because she was alone today and I made sure I smiled at her every time I walked by her room to visit the restroom. Finally on my last walk by she finally looked at me and smiled back and I waved a hello. She has the road ahead of her. I have the road almost behind me. It makes me mad that another person has to go through this. It is not fun and is scary. I feel so blessed to be where I am and only have one left. I have it so much better than others do and I know that. I pray for others going through breast or any other cancer. Seeing that lady today just really impacted me. I wanted to tell her that it would be okay but didn’t want to intrude either so I am hoping my smiles and a wave hello made her feel even a tiny bit better.

I will see and talk to you all soon.

Love,

Kim

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Filed Under: Kim's Blog

5
Sep 2011

Monday, September 5, 2011

Happy Labor Day everyone! Here in the Chicago area the weather has finally turned cooler. For some this means pulling out the jeans and long sleeve shirts. For me this means wearing my wigs and hats without sweat dripping down my face and feeling overheated. I welcome the cooler temps! You can’t even imagine how happy I am that summer is over and that fall is pretty much here. To me no more summer means that I am that much closer to the finish line.

My #5 chemo is this coming Thursday which means Wednesday night Mom and Dad arrive back into Chicago and I get to start with my premed steroids. I have had a good 10 days after chemo #4 and have been feeling better and better by day. It has been so great to have the stamina to do the normal things again. I am so blessed to have had this time. Chemo #2 and #3 I didn’t have a lot of this happy time because I was severely anemic. After this chemo round I am still anemic but I don’t have any crazy side effects from it right now. Yeah!

My last chemo #6 is scheduled for Sept 29. So, I can officially say I will be done with ALL of my six chemo treatments in just 24 days. WOW!!!!!! This means by October 15 I should be feeling better.

I have already scheduled my outpatient surgery to have my Port Catheter removed. This surgery is scheduled for Thursday, Oct 20 (3 weeks to the day from my last chemo treatment.) I have loved having the port for ease of getting fed the drugs but to be honest I can feel the port almost everyday. Each time I drive a car the seat belt rubs on the port and gets irritated. When I lay on my left side the port gets squished and is irritated. It will be so great to have that foreign object removed from my body next month.

The plan is I will start my six weeks of radiation on Monday, Oct 24. I saw on the calendar that this is National Breast Cancer Awareness Day. I can’t think of a better day to start my radiation. I think the feeling would be similar to flying your American Flag on the 4th of July, Memorial Day, 9/11, etc… Instead it will be me going to start my radiation on the National Awareness Day. According to the current schedule I could be done with everything by Dec 2. This is earlier than I had anticipated. Yay!

I am still amazed how so many of you out there continue to help me through this in so many ways. I promise I won’t need dinners forever. 🙂 All of the dinners continue to be so greatly appreciated. The cards and gifts continue to roll in weekly. The flowers I received this past week from several friends uplifted me so much. Talking to friends at Jacob’s soccer tournament this weekend that I hadn’t seen or spoken to in a while was so great. Visiting with Allen’s Mom this weekend was so very nice.

I will close with a song that Martina McBride just came out with called “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” and it is a song about helping someone get through Breast Cancer. I loaded this song on my Kim’s Crew iPod song mix. When I listen to this song I always insert “two” instead of “three” for the number of kids. And the part about wanting to feel like a woman again isn’t because of my breasts but for me it is the losing the hair and wanting to feel like a woman again without having to wear wigs and hats. But the rest is right on. I dedicate this song to all of you who continue to help me get through this.

Love,
Kim

“I’m Gonna Love You Through It” by Martina McBride

She dropped the phone and burst into tears
The doctor just confirmed her fears
Her husband held it in and held her tight
Cancer don’t discriminate or care if you’re just 38
With three kids who need you in their lives
He said, “I know that you’re afraid and I am, too
But you’ll never be alone I promise you.

When you’re weak, I’ll be strong
When you let go, I’ll hold on
When you need to cry, I swear that I’lll be there to dry your eyes
When you feel lost and scared to death,
Like you can’t take one more step
Just take my hand, together we can do it
I’m gonna love you through it.

She made it through the surgery fine
They said they caught it just in time
But they had to take more than they had plannned
Now it’s forced smiles and baggy shirts
To hide what the cancer took from her
But she just wants to feel like a woman again
She said, “I don’t think I can do this anymore”
He took her in his arms and said “That’s what my love is for”

When you’re weak, I’ll be strong
When you let go, I’ll hold on
When you need to cry, I swear that I’ll be there to dry your eyes
When you feel lost and scared to death,
Like you can’t take one more step
Just take my hand, together we can do it
I’m gonna love you through it.

And when this road gets too long
I’ll be the rock you lean on
Just take my hand, together we can do it
I’m gonna love you through it.
I’m gonna love you though it.

Filed Under: Kim's Blog

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