Update

Oh man... we survived October you guys!!!

This was one of the roughest months of my life.

At the beginning of October my dad got admitted to the ICU from the regular Chemo Ward and I found out through a social worker face timing me and showing me my dad hooked up to an oxygen machine and him being too weak to even say hello.

It immediately threw me back to when his little sister, my auntie D, was in the ICU, for the same damn cancer and we had to take her off of life support and say our forever goodbye.

I couldn’t even hear what the social worker was saying, I was so scared.

It broke my heart not being able to be there in person for him.

To everyone’s surprise he started getting so much better that 10 days later they released him - which was both absolutely amazing and also chaotic because my cousin and I had came up with this elaborate plan of moving my stuff and my dog Badu to Denver from Chicago and now I had to catch a last minute flight a week early and zoom over to Denver.

Which I did of course and fuck man.

I thought last time chemo was bad.

But this time... it just completely destroyed my dad.

I mean, obliterated his body and it took such a huge mental toll.

My dad is always the dad cracking jokes with everyone, bringing the doctors and nurses peaches and flowers and always cheers everyone up.

This time he’s just the shadow of a man, shrunken away in his bed.

I heard him apologize to one of the nurses at one of our many clinic visits that he was sorry he couldn’t be his chipper self.

That broke my soul all over again.

None the less he’s still everyone’s favorite at the hospital and clinic. We’re there multiple times a week and you can hear the nurses fighting over who gets to see him and then there’s always 8 doctors/nutritionists/nurses and so on that pile in the room to see my dad.

He took his trombone with him for his hospital stay this time and for the first week of chemo he still played for them every day.

They loved it and it really cheered the other patients up.

That’s what happens when your dad is a professional jazz musician I guess :)

After my first week in Denver it was time to fly back to Chicago to get Badu and my stuff but the night before my flight my friend - that was supposed to drive Badu and I to Iowa where I’d then transfer to the car my cousin rented for the trip - told me her car wasn’t starting at all.

So we had to scrap that plan, I canceled my flight and got in my dads’ car and by myself drove from 10pm Friday night to 11am Saturday morning, took a two hour nap at my cousins’ house in Iowa (with his cat on top of me as you can see in the photo) and then he made me breakfast to go and I got back on the road to Chicago - got home around 7pm I think ... packed up the car once I got to Chicago, took another nap and drove back to Iowa - scooped up my cousin - his wife took off of work so he could come with (he’s a stay at home dad extraordinaire) and then we drove to Denver and got there Monday morning around 5am.

What. A. Fucking. Trip.

But hey, I got to hang out with my favorite cousin and speculate about Aliens and talk about all kinds of wild things and we even found a rest stop somewhere along the way at 2am that had heated seats!

My cousin stayed until Tuesday night and we had a good time (aka hung out in the hospital half the time for clinic visit lol)

But my dad and my cousin are super close so I know it was really healing for them to see each other.

My auntie D is my cousins’ mom and October is rough for all of us because that is the month she passed in.

I miss her so much.

*sigh*

A couple days after that my dad had to be re-admitted to the hospital - turns out it wasn’t because his kidneys were failing, it was because they messed up his meds for almost two weeks and so his counts were all out of whack because they didn’t realize he was taking the wrong meds smh.

Fun times.

So then that scare was over and we jumped right into the next nightmare -

It’s 11pm and I’m doing my regular wipe down of the house (since he had a stem cell transplant everything needs to be sterile so I have to disinfect every single light switch, knob, surface, anything anyone touches every night) and I hear a weird dripping noise... turns out a pipe in the kitchen burst in two places and flooded the basement - pieces of the ceiling were falling down when I went downstairs - just an all around disaster.

Got that semi under control with a plumber the next day who was really sweet and gave a nice discount because his mom also has cancer and he understood the stress.

All of this moth I also have been dealing with being sick with some shit I’ve had since I was 12 that comes and goes but came back in a big way mid September and is still wrecking me.

On October 6th I had a burlesque performance at Vaudezilla and I kept telling myself I should cancel but I toughed it out and performed - but I felt miserable and then sure enough as we were leaving the theater after the show I fainted.

Luckily two of my friends and the Stage manager caught me mid faint so I didn’t hurt myself.

I’m hoping that I start getting better soon, so I can shoot again because I’ve not been able to all month.

In good news - we got a call from the clinic today that my dads’ biopsy results came back and it looks like the transplant cells are starting to go to work!

So that’s fucking phenomenal!

And my little photography studio is starting to come together!

Aaaand my Daddy and Badu are starting to be friends!

She lets him pet her head, which is very rare for her.

I declare that November is going to be magical!

I’m putting out positive energy for everyone that’s dealing with something and I’m sending you big hugs and lots of love.

Thank you for being here ❤️

Carina