Kim

Mama, Dog Mom, Wife. I want to be happy and healthy and save all the dogs. Fighting cancer for 10+ years. I am strong.... but I am tired.

[Kim @kiggleann]

@TheCancerSutra I'd like to go back to the beginning to learn more about long term effects of treatments. When they think you are going to die in 2-4 yrs they don't plan for impact to you beyond that. I'm grateful to have made it this long, but life is very hard dealing with side effects.

[Kim @kiggleann]

@AbbasiMuqtadir Initial Rx - high risk, Bortezomib and Dex followed by Auto Transplant, then maintenance with Len for 10+ years, now failing. Recommendation now?

[Multiple Myeloma RF @theMMRF]

It's #BloodCancerAwarenessMonth. As the largest nonprofit in the world solely focused on accelerating a cure for each & every #multiplemyeloma patient, we’re here for you. Right here, right now ❤️ Learn more about #myeloma today: https://t.co/WLUvqBX4My

[Kim @kiggleann]

😭😭😭💕💕💕

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

This is a beautiful letter from Fiona Apple explaining to her fans why she must postpone a concert date.

I am impressed at the way she was instantly able to make the decision to choose love over her career. Indeed, the world needs more of this.

Enjoy the story...

“It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying.

Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable and comforted and safe and important.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.
I'll be seeing you.

Love,
Fiona”

[Kim @kiggleann]

Never knew how much I needed this in my life 😍

[Thanks Cancer! @ThanksCancer]

A stem cell transplant is the “have you tried turning it off and then back on again?” of cancer treatments.

[NBA @NBA]

“There’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days, some days you are able to be successful, some days you are not, some days it is your turn, some days it’s not. That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win.”

Giannis comments on “failure”

[Kim @kiggleann]

@JonClar58684712 @ThanksCancer Some cancers never go away. Patients are labeled as in ‘remission’, but the reality is the cancer is still there, just not progressing in the same way. Also, so many of the chemo treatments cause secondary cancers, so if you do beat one, you usually end up with something else. 😔

[Kim @kiggleann]

@DpoidMonopod @ThanksCancer I try to be sympathetic to others problems…… but I will always remember being a week out of hospital - bald, barfing, extreme pain, weak, 95lbs, when a friend started to endlessly complain about a pimple….

Some days are just harder then others I guess 🤦🏻‍♀️

[Katie @katievscancer]

Ok I’m here to say that I was a pretty special person before cancer and I didn’t need this dx to make me who I am today. I would have been just as brilliant, kind and funny (& humble 😂) had I never known Cancer. So…let’s not say things always happen for a reason. @ThanksCancer

[Kim @kiggleann]

@LibbyMbc I’ve never hid my feelings from my daughter. It’s always been real & raw, and she has grown into an absolutely amazing human being.

That said, I don’t live in the down days for long. I force myself up and keep moving forward the best I can. 💖

[Kim @kiggleann]

@katievscancer @ThanksCancer Kim... Multiple Myeloma. Diagnosed 2011 at 33 yrs old. Chemo, stem cell transplant, oral chemo for 10+ yrs now... will be starting new therapy soon as things are getting worse. I miss my life before cancer.

[Kim @kiggleann]

@mywifehascance1 Active chemo requires double the protein intake. Still muscle wasting is common. That said ….. can’t imagine eating meat again 🤢

[Thanks Cancer! @ThanksCancer]

Just because I carry it so well does not mean it’s not heavy.

[Kim @kiggleann]

@MetastaticMom This is exactly how I think too. My daughter was 3 when I was diagnosed and given 2 yrs to live. Now she is 14! Every year is a struggle, but I am hopeful too that I can make it. All the best to you in 2023!

[Anna Kendrick @AnnaKendrick47]

It’s that time of year again, when I decide to buy a set of organizing bins, so all of my personality problems will go away

[Kim @kiggleann]

@JoJoFromJerz Not a fan of Beyoncé. Feel like I could be lynched for typing that.

[Kim @kiggleann]

@MacInto07691026 @ThanksCancer Whenever I restart my chemo after any break (even short term) my scalp goes through a burning / itching / extreme pain - even turns an angry red color. I find taking anti histamines for a few days helps mellow things a bit.

[Kim @kiggleann]

@LibbyMbc @DSampsonGannett My daughter at 3/4 yrs old would come to all my appts. Her career goals were doctor 'to fix mama' or strawberry shortcake. My onc. at the time always encouraged the strawberry shortcake career path. 😆

[Kim @kiggleann]

@JoyLoughry @ThanksCancer @bridder01 Are you sure it's water retention? That's a lot of water.

Chemo killed my thyroid and caused me to gain weight until they were able to get my thyroid levels adjusted with proper meds.