Lil Blue Boo

A friend sent us a gift card for dinner…..so Mr. LBB went last night to pick up some food I thought I might be able to eat. As he was leaving he left money for an older couple that was eating nearby to pay the gesture forward.

This morning we went out for breakfast at our favorite place called Keedy’s. We sat next to a nice man at the counter. He left before us. When we were getting ready to pay, our server Debbie said: the man sitting next to you already paid your check……he asked me if I knew the family sitting next to him at the bar and I told him yes, that you come in here all the time, and he said he wanted to take care of your breakfast.

We were floored. So, we left money with Debbie to pay for the next person who sat in our seats. Maybe they’ll pass it along too.

I’m feeling a little better today…..not 100%….but I was able to eat pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast! I’ve slept more in the last 3 days than I have in a long, long time.

Happy Saturday!

A new series!

For previous tutorial roundups click here!

Just a quick check-in because I’m not feeling so hot today. Yesterday was a long chemo day 8:45am to 5:30pm:

Cisplatin…..yuck. During the entire drip I kept feeling heart palpatations…..about 4 hours through my chest started hurting…..so I mentioned it and immediately there was a swarm of nurses. They stopped the drip and took my blood pressure, oxygen levels, etc and injected stuff in my IV….they said the left side of my body was splotchy and I was having a reaction. Dr. L said I needed the entire dose of Cisplatin though so they turned the drip up faster to get it over with.

Earlier in the day I begged to be “let out” haha. The first nurse said no……but the head nurse said yes. I told her I’d find a way to escape. So she opened up the back door for me and let me into freedom!  I sat in the sun for a while and got some Vitamin D. I snapped a pic with me and my trailing IVs outside……I think I look like I have cancer in this photo….or a cyborg from the future. Sallow and dark undercircles….that’s why I was outside with my IV getting a tan!

So I’m stuck in my big, comfy bed this morning…..feeling like I got hit by a truck…..but it’s worth it…..my father-in-law called this morning after checking for my blood test from yesterday. My tumor markers had been holding at 8…..and yesterday they registered at 2. Thank you God! He saw Dr. L during rounds at the hospital this morning and the first thing Dr. L said was “looks like the Cisplatin is working.” So I’ll just pray for another drop next week! My father-in-law is a cardiologist and thinks the heart stuff is because my potassium is low….so how do I add potassium to donuts?

This photo has nothing to do with anything except I thought it was cute. Diesel asleep under the ear of this big stuffed dog as I left for chemo yesterday:

I woke up this morning to a new t-shirt that my friend Stephanie designed for Team Ashley….I think it’s the coolest ever. You can read about it here.

Please bear with me the next few days…..I’m really behind on replying to messages and emails. Lisa has collected them all for me into a folder so they don’t get lost. Have a great day!

XOXO,

Ash

Yesterday was Boo’s actual birthday and Mr. LBB and I took pizza to her classroom for lunch. Boo gave me her crown to wear…..and I loved hearing all the little kids talk about my head.

It was Boo’s share day too…..and she wanted to bring a book that a sweet reader sent to us called Promises. We bookmarked the page with the mommy in bed with an IV so she could show her class. Boo said it looked just like us….she teared up as we read the story for the first time:

Boo had a great birthday night with just Me, Mr. LBB, her Mimi and Papa and cousin Jordan:

Some of my hair is growing back in places…..so I had to have Mr. LBB shave my head a little because…..I look like a chia pet!

Me: I look like a cancer patient!
Lisa: You are a cancer patient.
Me: Oh yeah……

So I met with Dr. L this afternoon. He just wanted to see me before I go into another round of the Cisplatinum chemo so soon. My blood counts are really good though….just platelets are slowing down a little. So tomorrow is a go! I’ll be there for another 8 hour drip. And they’ll do more blood work. My body seems to be handling it really well. My white blood cells have yet to be under 4,000 despite 15 straight weeks of chemotherapy. My kidneys did great through the first cycle. That’s an answer to prayer. I joke with my family that maybe I’m a part of some secret government research project and they are giving me the placebo. Maybe those big bags are just sugar water! Dr. L is just being really careful because we have to be really aggressive but there’s a fine line…..and if we cross it he’d have to delay chemo for a few weeks and we know my type of cancer takes breaks as an opportunity to rapidly spread.

So…Dr. L dictates while he’s still in the room with patients….which I think is AWESOME. I get to hear EXACTLY what he thinks about what’s going on…….honestly. If he says something out of the ordinary I can ask him about it. The only thing that kind of gets old is hearing:

1st line chemotherapy Methotrexate: ineffective
2nd line chemotherapy EMA-CO: mixed response
3rd line chemotherapy EP-EMA: still to be determined

I asked him “um, how many more lines ARE there?” His response: basically one…..where I’ll get EP-EMA in smaller doses five days in a row. My blood work tomorrow should tell us if the current regimen is doing anything. My gut feeling is that results will be good. My pelvis isn’t hurting as bad…..so maybe the tumors are shrinking! Dr. L says I’m not his typical patient…..I never seem worried, or scared or sad. So he always asks “I know YOU are doing okay, but how is your husband. How is your family?”

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My aunt Sharon recently sent me a package with some things that were my great grandmother’s…..including the photo below.  It’s been sitting on my desk for a week or so and tonight it reminded me of something I wrote in one of my old journals that I’ll share below.

First, I’m so grateful for this photo because I always imagined such a painful picture of my great grandmother…and I love that she looks so joyful and carefree. Second, I’m grateful for this story even though it’s a sad one: My great grandmother Mabel was married when she was only 16 years old and had one child: my grandmother Marjorie (Marge). As Marge was growing up, Mabel would spend most of her time confined to a bed suffering from debilitating headaches. Mabel had many hospital stays and everyone assumes she most likely underwent electroshock therapy. There was no treatment that was able to alleviate these headaches. After prolonged spells, Mabel’s eyes would be black and bruised and her hair would literally fall out in chunks. There was one day when my grandmother Marge was getting a permanent at the salon and tried to call home to Mabel to check in. There was no answer. Marge panicked and quickly had the rods taken out of her freshly rolled hair and nervously rode the bus all the way home. After what was probably the longest bus trip of her life…..Marge hurried into the house to check on her mother, I’m sure expecting the worst. My grandmother Marge could see up to her parent’s bedroom from the base of the steps……and she caught a glimpse of her mother putting away a gun under the bed. It wasn’t to be that day….but my great-grandmother Mabel eventually did end her life. It was the morning after Christmas….and Mabel was supposed to be admitted to the hospital for treatment. She said “I will never go to the hospital again” and she meant it. My great grandfather George found her……she had put her head into the gas oven to asphyxiate herself by carbon monoxide poisoning. I can’t imagine the pain Mabel was in to have to resort to that.

Sylvia Plath had electroshock therapy, she tried to take her life in 1953 with sleeping pills and she eventually put her head into an oven too. There are many parallels so I’ve always had this fascination with Sylvia Plath…..thinking maybe I’d learn more about Mable that way. I’ve read every single one of SP’s unabridged journals and I’ve filled my own journals with snippets here and there.  I’m sure Sylvia never imagined in a million years that I’d be reading her journals and requoting them in my own. Here’s a page from one of my journals (not dated, but around 2003):

It says:

Write about your own experience. By that experience someone else may be a bit richer some day. Read widely of others’ experiences in thought and action – stretch to others even thought it hurts and strains and would be more comfortable to snuggle back into the comforting cotton-wool of blissful ignorance. Hurl yourself at goals above your head and bear the lacerations that come when you slip and make a fool of yourself. Try always as long as you have breath in your body to take the hard way, the Spartan way – and work, work, work to build yourself into a rich continually evolving entity.
- Sylvia Plath

I love that I can read SP’s experience…..it’s the next best alternative to being able to read about my great grandmother’s. I think I can relate a little about the chunks of hair falling out too. It’s also why I document my own experience….for my daughter and her daughter……or for anyone else who might want to read it some day. Think about journaling….or even recording stories onto CD…..you might make someone else a bit richer some day.

Phew, that was a tangent……but I just wanted to check in today! I have a long day tomorrow at chemo….and hopefully the wifi is working well   Maybe they’ll let me take my IV outside in the sun for a while.

XOXO,

Ash

Oh, P.S. Choose Joy!

We are so overwhelmed by the response for the Choose Joy Necklace by The Vintage Pearl for Lil Blue Boo. Thank you all so much!

The first round of orders have shipped out and we have started to receive comments on the facebook page that they are starting to arrive, yay!

Pre-orders that were taken last week will begin shipping in about a week. We are happy to announce that pre-orders are available again!  If you do not get one this round, please do not worry. We will try and list them periodically

The Vintage Pearl is doing us the ultimate kindness by making these necklaces! These girls are rock stars! We love this post on The Vintage Pearl blog by Whitney: how God speaks, a stamper’s testimony.  Whitney is just one of Erin’s AMAZING stampers.

Thank you to The Vintage Pearl and to all of YOU for the support you have shown Ashley!

You can get your Choose Joy Necklace by the The Vintage Pearl in our shop HERE.

Hugs,

Lisa

P.S. We have received emails about alternate chain lengths for the necklaces. We only have one length available but The Vintage Pearl does have an a la carte page where you can shop for different chains. Thank you for your understanding!

Note: This is a sponsored post by Silhouette America.

So….I’ve been meaning to try out the Silhouette for rhinestones….and I finally got around to it.  I used the Silhouette Rhinestone Starter Kit……it comes with everything you need but I’d order extra rhinestones…..I just barely made it with the packs included. It also comes with some simple template downloads…..BUT, I’m picky and I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for in the store…..and wanted to make my own template.

Below is an animation on how I made my own template for the Silhouette to cut. You can use any font or image to make a template using this method as long as it’s not TOO detailed.
1. I started out with the letter “T” that used the size rhinestone hole I needed and deleted everything but a straight line of rhinestone circles.
2. I copied and pasted that line several times, then copied and pasted the new larger lines several times……until I ended up with a large square of rhinestone circles.
3. I found a font I liked for the number “5″ and sized it over the rhinestone circle block…..and started deleting the holes that fell outside of my image.
4. I deleted the number “5″ and deleted any other holes that looked out of place……and the image was ready to cut!

Note: MAKE sure not to resize any holes! The holes are specific to the size rhinestones you are using!

Once the image was ready, send it to the Silhouette machine to cut the holes into the rhinestone template material:

Next peel off the template material.

A VERY HELPFUL NOTE: if the holes don’t come out when you pull the template material off, turn over the backing you just peeled it off from and stick the template material to it. Then carefully peel it off again. The holes stick better to the revers side!

Stick the template material to the backing board that comes in the rhinestone starter kit:

Put the template into a box to contain your rhinestones…..and pour your rhinestones on top:

Using the paintbrush that comes in the kit, gently brush the rhinestones in a CIRCULAR motion until all or at least most of the holes are filled:

Fill in any missing rhinestones. The Silhouette Pick Me Up tool is the bomb….seriously. I’ll never use tweezers again. It has this thick goo material that picks up each rhinestone and includes a little tool to quickly remove the rhinestone or anything else you pick up. Whoever invented this thing….genius.

The Pick Me Up tool in action:

Once all your rhinestones are in place and you’ve removed any excess…..place the clear transfer tape on top of the design and press to adhere all the rhinestones:

Carefully remove the transfer tape and the rhinestones will come off the template:

Rhinestones ready to be ironed on!