Help Us Fight Blonnie’s Breast Cancer

February 13, 2019

FIGHTING CANCER CHANGES EVERYTHING.

This page has not seen an update for two and a half years? I guess when you’re desperately trying to stay above water, things like updating on ‘the cancer fight’ fall to the wayside. Because now we are not only fighting cancer, but we are fighting the sudden dive into poverty that came along with it.

It feels like we’re always busy. Chasing a client, trying hard to book a job, working against the clock to get another bill paid before some deadline or before another vehicle gets towed away from our driveway… aaah, yes that. What can I say, when you’re fighting to stay alive your priorities shift. You can live without cars. It’s a pain in the ass but you can live without them. When you fall behind on two payments you can expect the towing crew to come at night. No, really. Around 3am. When you wake up the car is just not there. I don’t know how people fight cancer for more than 2 years and not go bankrupt (and for us, the end of this cancer is never in sight.) They towed away our beloved Airstream at some point. We got that one back through sheer desperation and with the help of very generous friends. To be honest, we viewed it as an insurance policy against homelessness. If we lost everything else, at least we could live in the Airstream. That was last year around the same time. February was tough. We got the Airstream back but now, a year later we are very likely losing it again. Now we know that holding on to it is not possible any longer. We already lost the truck that was towing it because the lease was up and that was one more bill we just couldn’t afford to continue to pay. We have to face reality – keeping the Airstream is just not possible. There are months when it’s difficult to even pay the rent, not mention luxuries like the Airstream. So this is a sad goodbye, however necessary. But as I said above… PRIORITIES. REALITIES of fighting Stage IV breast cancer. Make no mistake, it changes everything.

Back to the cancer update and the most recent development in Blonnie’s treatment. There are new spots on her lungs and… they have been growing. What doctors call slow growth seems quite fast and scary to us. A few millimeters in diameter more in a few months. That’s slow? Not for the person dealing with the cancer. It’s really scary. Our doctors (many have now become friends) tell us it is manageable.  They will use radiation and this amazing machine called Cyber-Knife. That thing is something, I have to admit. It shoots low dose radiation rays throughout your body from many different angles. By itself each one causes pretty much nothing but a negligible effect on your body but… they all cross in one exact spot – where the cancer is. This way the dose of radiation is high only in that one spot where it needs to be. Smart, isn’t it? The bad news is this recent cancer growth happened while Blonnie was on this lighter version of chemo: Herceptin and Perjeta. It doesn’t mean that these drugs stopped working. They are still definitely making a difference but… they haven’t been working effectively enough to keep the cancer at bay. What this also means is that the mix of drugs will have to be aided by an additional one. The same one Blonnie has experience with from the beginning of this cancer journey. We are quite afraid of that one. It’s called Taxotere and you can find a lot about it online. Not a super nice thing to put inside your body. We went through it before so we know this – again – is not the end of the world. I mean… what’s the alternative, right? If it extends life and stops the cancer it’s definitely worth it. No woman wants to lose her hair… but Blonnie was amazing the first time, accepting it and totally rocking it as her new style for the time being. She prefers to have hair, I know, but again – she’s amazing for taking the lemons life throws and making a lemonade. The hair loss is of course, the least of the problematic side effects. Another round ahead of us.

The financial side of all this fight and another outlook of increased chemo is scarier and scarier by the day. We haven’t recovered from the previous crisis. We are far from it to be honest. Two cars taken away. Airstream leaving soon. Unpaid electricity bills and struggling to pay rent. THIS IS REALITY. Cancer changes everything. It requires enormous financial resources, it prevents you from working to keep the existing resources from quickly running out, it forces you to refocus. That means your time and energy to create new ways of making money are now also limited.

Fighting a prolonged chronic, serious disease that requires a lot of medical services on almost daily basis in America will bankrupt you. I have no idea how an average household can possibly keep up with the skyrocketing bills. I know we couldn’t. We received so much help already but it seems to have disappeared into the astronomical amount of bills that just keep coming. We feel grateful that so far we’ve been able to maintain access to Blonnie’s insurance (we had to give up mine… one of many necessary concessions). Without it there would be no treatment at all.

I am way past hiding what it’s like or… not talking about it. It used to feel very embarrassing. We’ve been told that our struggles are because we didn’t have enough insurances in place in advance. Whatever. Judge me all you want. I hope their family never has to go through something like this. Then you’ll realize for the average American – most of us do not have “enough insurances in place!”

We have not given up. If you don’t take any other action after reading this piece please just have a look at the following link. It brings ALL our current EFFORTS to STAY ON THE SURFACE in one place. This is everything we are doing right now to generate income and keep paying our bills. Please do have a look: Blonnie & David: HOW WE TRY TO MAKE MONEY

It does seem like a lot, right? Doesn’t it seem like quite a few things for a couple that’s already pre-occupied with fighting a deadly form of cancer? Make no mistake, we don’t sit around bored. Whenever we have a moment and we’re not at a shoot, client meeting, writing emails to keep in touch with existing clients, covering a wedding, shooting and editing another vlog episode – we are working hard to figure out what else we can throw into this mix. Which one of these should we focus on more? Which is the one that will eventually get us out of this bottomless hole? Maybe it’s none of them… and maybe at some point they will all start working nicely and we’ll climb out. Not afraid that a day is coming when the hospital will say “Sorry, no more treatment for you. You’re too far behind on your bills.”

When you think it’s getting better…

The thing is, your wings always get cut when you feel you were just about to leave the darkness and start seeing the light again. We’ve been working so hard for the past few years trying to figure out how to pull ourselves out of the deepening crisis. Every single day we’re telling ourselves we’re not stupid. We can do this. There has to be a way. Make more money, face the challenges, keep fighting. One day we’ll look back at this and be proud of ourselves that we did not give up. But then comes the phone call from the doctor. “We need to talk about your recent scan results.” There are of course some ways to deal with the current situation. The radiologist is very optimistic. The oncologist has more drugs left. There are some hopeful experimental treatments in development that MAY become available to us, soon. In the meantime… it’s a grim outlook and a financial mountain ahead of us that we know we CANNOT CLIMB… ALONE.

I truly, from the bottom of my heart hate saying this but… IF YOU CAN, PLEASE HELP.

Blonnie & David: HOW WE TRY TO MAKE MONEY

November 3, 2016

We are at the hospital right now. Blonnie is receiving her 5th cycle of chemo injection when I (David) write this update. She’s been very very brave throughout this entire so far ordeal, keeping her spirits and faith up as much as possible. I am so proud of her! There are days when it’s not so easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel and depression is finding it’s way through but we chase those away with a lot of smiles and another episode of our daily VLOG!

https://www.youtube.com/wearegoingsomewhere

The VLOG is very important to us, it lets us stay busy and keep our minds away from what must be the darkest cloud over our lives that we have ever encountered.

The financial side of cancer fight is absolutely devastating. We feel terrible asking for donations but we have exhausted all our means. We have launched a new way to keep ourselves alive and our projects going, please check it out and share share share this link if you can (that would help us a great deal):

https://www.patreon.com/wearegoingsomewhere

At least this way your patr(e)onage comes with a specific reward (+the daily bit of entertainment we’re providing on the vlog!) and it’s not just a pure donation (we like it better that way!). Thank you for checking in on us. To see our daily updates please watch the vlog!

August 17, 2016.
Second round of chemo done. The side effects after the first one were confined to a mild indigestion issues, a lack of sleep for literally one night, a rash that appeared about a week after the drugs were ingested (this was the most severe one, you can see some of it in this episode of our vlog: https://youtu.be/f0YbWiWzI4Q starting 3:58). It was taken care of with steroids. They literally made it go away within a couple of days. Other than this there was a little fatigue, maybe a tiny bit more need to sleep throughout the day but then Blonnie has always been a sleeper and a day time napper. Blonnie’s HGB was a little low towards the end of the first cycle (we talk about it here: https://youtu.be/nrTlH30MDaE) oh, and of course the hairloss has occured. Watch our favorite vlog episode to actually see Blonnie’s hair go away: https://youtu.be/5r40sDWbR8c). Yesterday, the second infusion went smooth and without any complications. Fingers crossed!

July 27, 2016.
First round of chemo took place yesterday. Smooth and all according to plan, no complications. Apart from a mild indigestion and some insomnia during the night following treatment Blonnie is feeling normal and not really experiencing any side effects of the drugs yet. The cocktail btw was reduced to three drugs from (as communicated to us earlier) four. Carboplatin was cut from the mix and kept for a possible later stage of needed. Right now we are going with Perjeta, Herceptin and Docetaxel. Fingers crossed everything keeps progressing in the same fashion!

July 23, 2016.

The meeting with Dr Sherman Shu-Seng Lai in Canada went extremely well. It was the single most positive development since Blonnie’s diagnosis over a month ago. It let us see clearly that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and many things that we can do to strengthen, build up and reawaken Blonnie’s natural immune system defenses that will eventually lead to getting rid of cancer and full remission. The traditional treatment will continue. In fact, it is set to begin on Tuesday the 26th. This will be the first round of chemo. We are nervous, anxious and hope Blonnie will tolerate it well. For most recent, day-to-day updates please watch our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/wearegoingsomewhere
Thank You again for all your tremendous support. Without the donations made on this page we wouldn’t be able to survive this financially! You are all our life savers and we owe you so much!

July 18, 2016. We’re on our way to Canada for the appointment we made with an alternative medicine doctor. Blonnie just received news from Christiana Center about the recent liver biopsy (done on Thursday last week). Unfortunately it confirmed cancer cells are present in the liver. All it means is that our fight against this ugly thing is going to be a little more challenging. Colorado get ready for us, we’re visiting soon!

On June 13, 2016, 5 days after she turned 35 years old, Blonnie was diagnosed with Stage 4 / HER2+ – which is an aggressive form of breast cancer.

The financial burden already incurred with all initial testing performed without adequate (basically no) insurance is going to be a difficult to overcome and the fight has only just begun. Even now with better insurance, the costs associated and loss of income associated with being an entrepreneur/small business owner can be devastating. Much money is needed to cover a large deductible, co-payments, and a host of other expenses, big and small. Every little bit helps so much more than you know!

When making your donation, please make sure to check ‘gift’ in the checkout process, so that Paypal is aware this is a gift and no additional fees will be incurred.

We will soon have a store so that you can also purchase prints of our images!

Please continue to visit our website for updates on Blonnie’s progress and watch our daily vlogs to keep up to date. Sharing the videos via Youtube also helps because we can make money through advertising via Youtube itself.

Thank you so much!