around the world in 5 months

Hi everyone!
Hope this post finds you all well. Not much exciting happening on this end... hence, no recent posting. Have just been doing normal good 'ole summer stuff when i have the energy. This past week I've also been getting ready for my trip to Guatemala. I leave mañana! It's a medical mission trip thru my hospital that will be performing outpatient surgeries. I am so excited, and I'm happy to keep my mind off my upcoming scans on August 6th. Not sure what my cancer is planning, but I'm planning on going back to work. fingers crossed

Movie night along Schuykill River

Eakins Oval with family

Well... i've always had the travel bug, and i've always wanted to travel the world. Just didn't think it would happen this way... thru my blog. I am always amazed by the power of the internet and how many people you can reach. My favorite part of my blog is logging on to see what countries it has reached (obviously... since i'm such a dork and have been keeping track of them to write in this post :o). These are the countries that have logged on to the site in order of appearance :o), and I also highlighted my top ten readers.
Lots of love... little lisa lollipop

USA 
Mexico 
Netherlands
United Kingdom
India

Bolivia
Canada
Puerto Rico
Bahamas
France
Germany
Australia
Indo-
nesia
Spain
Guate-
mala
Poland
Austria
Italy
Switzer
-land
Ecuador
Argentina
Hong Kong
Japan
China
Sweden
South Korea
Russia
Peru
Taiwan
Ireland
Malaysia
Turkey
Vietnam
Israel
Nicaragua
India
Brazil
Albania
Tanzania                            
Belgium                              Finland                                 Panama        
Serbia                                 Bolivia                                  Bahrain                        
Bangladesh                         Denmark                              Philippines
Chile                                   Bulgaria                               Cyprus
Venezuela                           Sri Lanka                             Columbia
Ukraine                               Romania                              Tunisia    
Georgia                               Croatia                                 Iceland
Slovenia                              Egypt                                   Saudi Arabia
Algeria                                Barbados                              Czech Republic
South Africa                       Thailand                               Armenia
Costa Rica                          Portugal                                Hungary  
United Arab Emirates         Norway                                Latvia
Slovakia                              Norway                                Greece
Singapore                            Bosnia & Herzegovina         Iraq
                                                           

Greetings from Ocean City, NJ!

Chia Pet head

Despicable Me 2

Hi everyone! I'm back from the beach. Just thought i would post a few pictures. The weather wasn't cooperative at times, but i had a great time with the family. As for me... my pain and nausea are pretty much gone, but i'm still waiting on the energy and fatigue to improve. My hair is starting to come in... my sister said i look like a Chia Pet :o).

Daddy's birthday

Natalie & the boys

One of our good beach days :o)

lots of love...
little lisa lollipop

Daddy's birthday cake

PAPI

I don't know what it is... I'm 38 years old, and i still call my father, 'daddy.'
When I lived in Mexico, I learned the word for daddy is papi. However, the women
will use it universally... calling their little boys papi, calling their dads papi, calling their men/husbands papi, and then, of course, there's the oooooh papi. No translation needed. Anyhows, upon returning from Mexico, I thought it would be cute to start calling my daddy papi instead.

Papi's birthday...circa 2004

Fast forward some years later... my parents and i went on a trip to the Dominican Republic. At the resort they have entertainment staff to encourage participation in events. So my papi and i decided to join the ping-pong competition. We put our names on the list... Lisa and my dad proudly said, "Papi."

The ping-pong games later began, and they called all the names including myself and Papi. Papi got to go first, so I hung back to watch and chatted with the worker. And that is when it happened... he was talking to me as if my father and i were lovers!!! And from that moment on,  I'm back to calling him daddy.

Well Papi or daddy is the smartest man i know. In fact, if i don't know something, my two thoughts are either google it or ask daddy. Happy Birthday, daddy. I love you to pieces.

lots of love... little lisa lollipop

P.S. Sorry i haven't been posting, I'm down the shore for some R&R. My internet access has also been limited. Happy belated Fourth of July!

Ring that bell!

Hi Lolly friends!

This past Thursday I completed my proton radiation treatments. Yay! So you know what that means... i got to finally ring the crap out of that ship bell :o) And it was AMAZING :o).

Ringing the bell

Wearing the bell

Glad it's over, but I'll miss the team of people who took great care of me during my proton radiation. xoxo                                              

As for me... well lately I've had more nausea/vomiting and fatigue. And now that the cumulative dose of radiation is "inside my belly," it may get worse before it gets better. With having side effects though, at least I know that the radiation is working.

At night we celebrated at the Mann Music Center and saw Pixar in the Park. It was great, but the fireworks go cancelled because of the rain :o(.
.

Next step is repeat scans on August 6th... we need to wait for all the swelling from the radiation to
resolve beforehand. And then... we'll go from there. So please keep the prayers coming. In the meantime... let's hope the bell steers me in the right direction. Fingers crossed.


lots of love...
little lisa lollipop

Nurse Lisa... in the house

Truck driver for 28 years:
Sun exposure to left side of face

Tanning beds = bad

So... speaking of sunscreen in my last blog reminded me... i've been meaning to include a post about scar care. Quick side note: the skin is the largest organ in the human body and serves many functions. So... if you haven't figured it out by now, this post is going to be more of an educational post.
It's the Nurse in me... wanting to get out.



Well... I obviously have accumulated many battle scars over the years, but I didn't learn about scar care until I was older. See... I had my thyroid removed in 2006 when I had thyroid cancer. Fortunately for me, my cousin Suzanne is an occupational therapist and gave me great advice. Now... i want to pass it on to you as well. Of course, i have to put some kind of disclaimer in here as well about consulting your doctor first :o)

SOME SCAR TIPS:

• First the scar needs to be well healed. My dermatologist always recommends applying white petroleum/ vaseline &  cover with bandaid (daily). The moisture helps with the healing. 
• SIGNS OF INFECTION: Increase in redness, swelling, tenderness, pus/ discharge, pain.
• Once the incision is well healed after about a month... meaning no scabs, sutures, staples and total closure of the the wound, you should start scar massage.
• If it is really painful, just try little things like pressing down on the scar so it blanches in color or turns white. Doing this is just helping increase blood flow to the area.
• Although it may hurt at first, it will improve with time.
• In the beginning, massage towards the scar as you do not want to stretch it out.
• Afterward, massage the scar in different directions. The pressure from the massaging fingers help to flatten the scar. Moving the scar in different directions helps it not attach firmly to the underlying skin surfaces. There's nothing worse that a stiff scar especially if it's over a joint- this could limit mobility in the future.
• Scar massage techniques can be found on the internet, they'll recommend all sorts of geometry. Circles, Xs, etcetera.
• Continue to use moisture, i.e. products with Vitamin E, cocoa butter, and don't forget to use sunscreen on scars.
• If the scar becomes red and raised, i.e. a keloid scar, you should see your dermatologist for additional treatment.
• The other thing i swear by, and i should be their spokesperson since i have been doing it for free anyhow, is the use of silicone scar gel sheets. They can be pricey, but they are worth it. I use biodermis.com. They are reusable & can be cut to size. They should be worn for 12 hours a day. They have a bunch of other products as well, but I am not familiar with them. I'm not sure why the silicone scar gel sheets work so well, but they help decrease redness and help flatten the scar. They are AWE-SOME!

I've always been told that it takes up to 2 years for a scar to heal, so I guess patience is key. I know... easier said than done sometimes. Next time I see you, i'm sure you'll be staring at my neck to check out my old scar. Kind of like when someone has a pimple on their nose... and you don't want to look at it... but you find yourself focusing on it the whole time you are talking to them :o).  I don't mind, you can stare at my neck all you want, just ignore the double chin. lol.

lots of love... Nurse little lisa lollipop :o)

P.S. I'll be ringing the bell sometime around noon tomorrow!

Here come's the sun... by the Beatles

Hi everyone!
I think I am finally recovered from my long hospital day on Thursday.
It was like a full work day. For those of you who care :o)... this is what it entailed.

07:30 am departure from home
08:00 am proton radiation... number 15 of 20, baby! Wooo Whooo
08:45 am meet with my great radiation oncology team for follow up
10:00ish CT scan of the chest
11:30ish MRI of the liver
12:30 pm arrival to last MD appointment
2:00 pm finally got into a consultation room.
I was so hungry & had ants in my pants at this point.
3:00 pm got to see my IR doctor, but as always, he was worth the wait. He's got amazing bedside manner and really explains things well to patients. So really... no complaints.
3:30 pm departure from hospital

Should my niece have been there with me, she would have been cracking up.
See... apparently based off the MRI, I had what the medical world calls hepatic infarct. But when you say infarct, it sounds like the word fart. And you know how kids and myself included sometimes find anything with poop and farts hilarious. So... a hepatic infarct is just a fancy way of saying that a lot of the left side of my liver lost blood supply causing it to die. Zoinks Scooby. But no worries... it'll recover. Well aside from hepatic infarcts :o), I'm doing well. The fevers are now gone, but the fatigue, nausea, and vomiting from the radiation are starting to kick in. But nothing i can't handle. And... bonus is I've lost a few L.B.s :o) even though my doctors don't like that, but I have to get ready for the summer. And speaking of which... HAPPY BELATED SUMMER! I'm so glad it's finally here.

Ocean City 2012

Wishing you lots of sunshine and lots of love...
little lisa lollipop

P.S. don't forget to apply sunscreen especially to your head if you're bald like me :o)

butterfly kisses

Hi everyone. I had a nice response from everyone about the latest butterfly posts; i just wanted to include share some of them in this posting. 

The following poem was given to Father Sam by his high school nun years ago. She is now in Heaven praying for us. He also mentioned that "sometimes butterflies are used to represent the Resurrection. Since Jesus went into the tomb one way and "emerged" entirely different/ glorified... something we don't fully understand, but believe this happens to us too... So, are ORANGE BUTTERFLIES the ultimate sign?!"   .... I hope so Father Sam.

My cousin Peggy also shared her own butterfly story from when her sister Mary died. (See my post from April 21st titled M.F.). "After she died, we listened to a phone conversation of her and my mom recorded about 10 years before and I remember thinking "wow they seem so carefree" and how we had not had carefree conversations like that in such a long time... since Mary became sick with cancer. A few days later I went for a walk by myself at work, when I was grieving about Mary and this butterfly would not leave me alone. It seemed to stay with me for several minutes traveling up and down my arm, practically touching me. And I thought: this butterfly is so carefree. At that moment it flew away. And I strongly believe, it was Mary letting me know that she is carefree now. Such a gift. As I shared my experience, other friends of Mary and relatives shared their own experiences with butterflies that bring peace and comfort after the death of a loved one. I don't think we are unique... we were just able to make the connection. Look for the butterflies... they are a gift."

Thanks Peggy for sharing.
We'll all be 'butterfly watching' like crazy now, and i can't wait to see more.


Keep smiling and stay strong.

lots of love... little lisa lollipop