Holidays

I've got a bit of catching up to do so let's get right to it.

About three weeks ago Cristina was pretty underweight at about 53kg (approx. 116lbs.) Her hip bones were very visible and it wasn't the greatest of sights. On top of this it was time for her to start fasting again because her chemotherapy was coming up. It wasn't nice to see but after seeing her lack of side effects from the chemo I'm inclined to believe her when she says fasting is what's doing that (you can read some benefits of fasting while on chemo here.)

A day before her chemo I we woke up at three in the morning because Cristina needed to go to the bathroom. I was drowsy so I got up and let her go. It was a short while later when I heard her yelling from the bathroom. When I rushed in I found that she had briefly fainted while on the toilet. Because she was starting her new raw vegan diet while fasting at the same time she had lost a lot of energy. At this point Cristina was very spaced out and barely conscious. Her mom woke up and we decided it would be best to take her to the hospital a day early to get her checked out. We got dressed, called Ricardo to pick us up, and fed Cristina a pear to help her get some much needed energy back. When Ricardo arrived we walked her out to the car and took off to the hospital.

She stayed at the hospital from that point until the end of the round of chemotherapy. Afterwards I made her eat. I made her eat until she couldn't eat anymore. That event frightened me and I don't want a repeat. By now she's back at a normal weight and is doing fine so I'm happy with that.

I mentioned to some that I was going to detail what exactly Cristina's doing to help combat her cancer, because when you have a life-threatening disease you can't help but try out everything, no matter how silly it sounds.

So here it is! This is Cris's entire regimen. From left to right we have scorpion venom, graviola, spirulina, sida cordifolia, the little rectangle pill there is T4 Bago for her thyroid condition, bach flower drops, cymbalta (perscribed by her psychiatrist,) and quetidin which was also perscribed by her psychiatrist and she's been taking it for years to help her sleep. She takes all of what you see in the morning (aside from the quetidin of course.) Other than this as I've mention before she has taken up raw veganism and fasts before chemotherapy.

Whether or not any of this works we don't know but taking plant pills doesn't hurt so why not try? Soon Cris will try taking cannabis oil as well which actually has been proven to help some cancer cases, so I'm pretty excited to see how that turns out.

Moving on. For the past two days we've been celebrating one of Chile's national holidays. The 18th of September represents when the first meetings took place to help Chile gain its independence from Spain 203 years ago. To celebrate we visited two houses for barbeques. The first were family friends who had a beautiful house and an adorable cocker spaniel that Cris absolutely fell in love with named Albert.

The next house was her godparents home, which we visited both days of the holiday.

That's about it! Things have been going pretty decent here. We still need to wait for Cris to get another scanner done to see if this second chemo is working on her body, but we're remaining optimistic. We appreciate all of the well-wishes everyone's been giving us.

Birthday!

The last time I posted was about a week ago when Cristina was in the hospital because of a fever. That was a pretty normal thing and was to be expected around that time. She was there for about three days because her white and red blood cells were low. She had a blood transfusion, her counts normalized, and she was good to go.

The day she was discharged her cousin, Angela was celebrating her birthday. Cristina was feeling good enough to go so we went over for lunch and cake. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and Cuca were there and we all had a fun time. They decided to celebrate both her Angela and Cristina's birthdays together so there were two cakes.

After that day things were pretty calm for awhile. I finally put together my bike and rode it for a bit. We went to the park a couple times, and today we celebrated Cristina's birthday again but this time with just her parents, Cuca, and Angela.

Here's the picture you wanted so badly, mom.

It was nice. We had Schnitzel and papas fritas (french fries) for the meal, followed by cake with fruits and gelatin on the top, and then we had ice cream and cookies (the way Cuca shows you she loves you is with food.)

Bad Movies, the Zar, and No White Blood Cells

There hasn't been a whole lot to post about lately so I've been waiting and letting things to write about accumulate so I can make a normal-sized post.

A couple days ago we went to return Cristina's Lufthansa plane ticket since the Germany trip is put on hold until she goes into remission. After the ticket was refunded we decided to head over to the Costanera Center mall and walk around for a bit. I didn't take any photos this time but I'll will the next. It's a pretty large mall with over five floors. The first has a Jumbo which is pretty much your average supermarket like Wal-Mart or Meijers, along with a bunch of other stores from that level until the fifth which only consists of just restaurants. The sixth has a cinema which we went to to watch The Last Exorcism 2, which was a terrible movie. We went in expecting that too and because of that we had a bunch of laughs in the theater. By the way, in case you're wondering, certain movies are played in English with Spanish subtitles, that's the version of the film we went to.

On our way home we decided to stop by El Zar since it was on the way. I've mentioned the place to a few people and tried to explain how great the sandwiches are there but finally I have a photo of...

The Gran Zar. This monster of a sandwich contains avacado, pickles, onions, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, and your choice of meat from three different cuts of beef, fillet, bird, and more. Last time I chose the fillet, this time around I got bird. It was absolutely scrumptious.

Yesterday Cristina woke up feeling a fever, I'm assuming she got it from our trip to the mall but it could have been caused by many things. We took her to the hospital to get some exams done to see what's the matter and it turns out her white blood cell count is low, which is a side effect of the chemo and is completely normal. At the moment she's in her penthouse in the hospital accompanied by us and some IVs while her counts return to normal.

Oh, we went to Cuca's a couple times as well and her cousin Marcello was there.

He's funny.

We're Outta Here!

I've been waiting a bit to post until things wrapped up at the hospital. A couple nights ago Cristina's cousins stopped by her room to check in on her and say hello. I wish I could have taken a photo but I didn't have my camera handy at the time. Yesterday Cristina had the tube that was draining the water from her heart removed, and there was quite a bit that was in there. Today they were wrapping everything up, making sure she was feeling fit enough to be discharge and to perform an exam to make sure that all the water was gone.

The experience has been pretty tiresome and annoying. What was supposed to be a typical three-day visit turned into an entire week. Understandably though considering the issue with her heart. They never did move her to a separate room like they usually do but that was only because they needed to have a doctor nearby who could check on her heart. Other than that the chemo went wonderfully and Cristina isn't feeling any side effects, she's just hungry and is complaining about the smell of bad cooking (or at least it's bad to her.)

Her dad was at the hospital all day yesterday and for the most of this morning. He's really just a child at heart and for most of the morning he was playing with a small balloon attached to a stick that they were handing out for Children's Day.

Unfortunately he put the balloon away before I could whip out my camera.

For most of the time Cristina was at the hospital she was pretty drugged up and had a couple hallucinations such as an old woman in her room trying to give her three plush toys, her walking down a corridor, and me sitting in a corner drinking tea. Now that she's out I asked her if she remembers any of those things or her cousins visiting and she says she can't. She says she was "pretty fucking high."

Oh and one more thing. While there I stopped by the cafe two times and ordered this excellent sandwich. It was chicken, fillet, cheese, and guacamole all pressed between two halves of a Spanish croissant . It. Was. Delicious.

No More Schnitzel, Please

Today I woke up early with mom-in-law and we headed over to visit Cristina. She was doing a lot better than she was yesterday. She didn't seem to be having any trouble breathing and she could talk normally without having to take a breath between every two words. Last night she apparently started her new chemo and was finishing up the bag this morning.

We spent about an hour or two there with her. I gave her Ricardo's (her dad) tablet that I charged last night for her so that she could play around with it while she waits for chemo to finish, along with her "Power of Discipline" bracelet that was accidentally thrown in with our bag of Choose Joy bracelets. I looked into what it was for when I saw it and apparently it was meant to be put in an order for the American Martial Arts Association but was accidentally thrown in our order. We don't mind, and actually think it's quite funny so we're keeping it.

After visiting we went over to Cuca's for lunch where Cristina's cousin was also there to eat. We had stuffed zucchini with cheese, bell peppers, meat, and all sorts of goodies inside it. She also tried to offer us Schnitzel which I turned down because she already gave me more zucchini than I could handle. I found it funny that she offered mother-in-law schnitzel multiple times which really annoyed her, but made everyone else just laugh. As usual after the meal she kept offering us cookies to eat which as usual we couldn't finish due to the sheer number of them offered to us.

At the moment I'm back home, we'll go visit Cristina again later tonight. We figured she would have been transferred to another room today but apparently they still want to keep an eye on her heart a little longer so instead they'll be moving her tomorrow. Since the chemo finally started she should only be there for about two more days.

When I was there she asked me if I would like to go anywhere when I got home. I told her wherever she felt like going is fine with me. She asked me if I wanted to go to El Tzar, which serves excellent burgers but I had to turn it down because the restaurant is also a bar so I would prefer she not be there breathing in all the cigarette smoke. I told her we could check out this new restaurant that just opened up that serves all kinds of tea and see if it's any good, so we'll probably be doing that.

Small Setback

There's been a small setback. Yesterday Cristina was supposed to start her new chemotherapy, however because of the water they found in her heart they wanted to delay it until that was drained. We expected this to happen last night, however they delayed it until this morning because they wanted to wait for a more experienced doctor to go on duty to perform the operation. While waiting they moved Cristina to a smaller room, one floor down, in a more secure area where only one visitor is permitted to a room at a time in order to lower the risk of potentially spreading any sort of germs to the other patients. This meant that I had to go home last night and return tomorrow.

This morning we woke up early to drive over and visit her. When we arrived Cristina was already having the operation done which ended with her having most of the water drained from her heart so now she is fit for receiving her new batch of chemo. When we went back to visit her, however, she was in pain and was given some more anesthetics and some oxygen, because she was also having some trouble breathing. After about a half-hour she was getting drowsy and we told her we would go to visit her grandmother, whom we all call Cuca, and have lunch.

Lunch was great as always and as usual Cuca tried pushing enough cookies, and other treats on me to feed an entire family. I decided to gather Cristina's parents together with Cuca for a photo. 

Cristina's mom took one look at the photo and said, "I look awful." Everyone says that when they see themselves in photos.

After leaving we decided that we would head back home for an hour or two while Cristina rests for awhile, and then we'd head back to see if they moved her back to her previous, more spacious room.

Last night Cristina (Cristina's mom. I know, it can get confusing sometimes) asked me if I found it surprising how calm and collected her daughter was when going through all of this, and I said no. She's got a lot of spunk and can breakdown into tears one minute, but the next she'll be calmed down and will actually be relaxing and comforting her mom.

In a short while we'll be heading back to the hospital so I'll most likely post again sometime tomorrow to give an update. In the meantime, this Sunday will be Children's Day so I want everyone to celebrate the children that are in their lives, along with their own inner child.

New Chemo

Today's the day Cristina starts her new cocktail of chemo drugs. We're staying optimistic that it will work this time around. I woke up this morning with alarm duty which is never a good thing when it comes to Cris. While I love waking up in the morning she loathes it. No matter what I do, be it attempts to gently arise her by drawing the curtains to slowly let in some natural light to the room (which is my personal favorite,) or the standard, "Hey, time to get up." Needless to say she woke up in a grumpy mood.

After getting everything packed up and ready for a 3-day stay at the hospital we set off. Right before we arrived at the hospital we got caught in a traffic jam which was caused by a single man who decided he would just completely stop in the left lane, put on his emergency blinkers, just so he could talk on his cell-phone. Just as we got someone to let us into the right lane to pass him he finished up his call and started driving behind us.

Finding a parking place wasn't too bad this time. The last time we visited the hospital it took about 15 minutes just to find a place because the place was so busy. After checking in and waiting for them to find a room for Cristina we were escorted by a nurse upstairs to get her settled in. The room she's staying in is pretty similar to the residents' rooms over at HealthSource where I worked. Only these are a bit larger and have nicer showers.

Cristina's rocking the bald look.

 The day has consisted of a lot of waiting and smiling as nurses and doctors give me brief glances while speaking a language I only understand the profanity in. Just recently Cristina had to go have an exam taken which worried her because some time after we arrived her doctor had informed her that there were some small amounts of water in her heart which is supposed to be normal at this time. A nurse came in moments before she had to leave for her exam and eased her worries by informing her that the exam was just a routine because they found an abnormality in the scan she had recently.

It's so nice to finally have a good camera again.

Right now we're waiting in the room with her parents who showed up while I was waiting  for Cristina too finish up her exam. This time we're waiting for her to have the water removed from her heart so she can begin her new chemotherapy. She's been a real trooper through the whole experience. She worries a little from time to time but is quick to recollect herself and radiate confidence. I'll be staying the night with her and possibly the remaining time as well before heading back home with her. We'll see how staying this night goes so I'll know whether or not I can stand anymore. I do get my own fold-out bed so it shouldn't be too bad.