Meet My Healing Squad

Last August Tim received an opportunity to move closer to home. Boy oh boy if we knew what was in store for us when we said “yes.”

Luckily for us, moving to Austin and closer to family and friends has been a game changer for this journey we are currently on. We are about 1 hour and 10 minutes from my parents, 2 hours from Tim’s, and an hour and a half from most other friends and family spread across the Twin Cities. We were previously 6 hours away in Illinois so this definitely feels like just driving down the block to us!

In this post, I will be sharing about the amazing people who have gone out of their way to spend time with me during my healing sessions. The hospital is no fun place to be, but having a friend there is so good for the soul. Plus, my hands and feet are in ice packs for one hour of the treatment - so I definitely need some help!

Tim Bortner

Husband

During the first two weeks of treatment Tim was by my side. I’m very glad he was because in the first two treatments, I had a severe reaction to the intravenous Benadryl that they give as a preventative pre-med. I full-on tripped out, hallucinated, and felt like I was floating. This was followed by intense gagging almost as if I was about to vomit and then chills and body shakes for 30 minutes. Let’s just say, Benadryl and I - not friends. I have taken it orally before and had no issues but when it goes in intravenously it hits your body instantly and it didn’t fair well. Luckily, I advocated for myself after my first two bad experiences and got that med taken off my list!

I’m so happy Tim was able to be there for the first two healing sessions so I could get familiar and comfortable with the process. Going into your first treatment there are a lot of unknowns and it all seems so scary. He helped ease my nerves and always came immediately home and made me Annie’s Mac and Cheese, the way to a girl’s heart! <3

Shawna Gavin

Friend from UW-Eau Claire & Studying Abroad

My friend Shawna came with me to my third session. Shawna is one of my soul sisters that I met studying abroad in Australia. Not only did I meet her there, she was my roommate there. We grew so very close that we got matching tattoos and shared so many memories traveling the world together since then. She is a nurse currently living in Eau Claire and made the trek down to be with my during a stretch of days off! After my session we took naps on my couch and watched Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix.

After my healing session I was feeling good enough to go out and go watch one of Tim’s softball games, and Shawna came with! We got Mexican food beforehand and had tons of fun watching the hooligans at Tim’s softball games and playing with Mochi! I’m grateful for the days that I have energy after treatment and of course it was fun to get out.

Shawna, thanks for driving two and a half hours to spend MORE time in your place of work (and with me your lovely friend of course!)

Mama cook

Self-Explanatory Title, She Birthed Me

Tim was traveling for work so Mama Cook came down for the whole week. As you would expect, she kept herself and me busy!

Pulling weeds in the garden, trimming my house plants, and giving me lots of projects and crafts to work on. We prayed a lot for all of the other people that we know currently experiencing bad cells. I swear, my mom knows someone with every type of bad cell right now, but also knows of many, many people in remission as well.

We spent our week together cooking, going on walks, and counting our blessings! She even brought me tons of healthy meals from a chef near her that was super nice. And of course she made one of my favorite meals, chicken and dressing.

It’s always good to have Mama Cook in town and it was good for her to see firsthand what the treatment process is like! She knows I’m in good hands at the Mayo Clinic here in Austin.

Mollie Bortner

Sister-in-Law

My lovely sister-in-law and her dog, Gunner (Mochi’s best friend), came to visit me for my fourth healing session! This week I was feeling a little more run down and had just downloaded the game Animal Crossing on my Nintendo Switch.

Since she works remotely, she is able to come visit us for days at a time. So while she worked away (someone’s gotta pay the bills) I sat in the bed behind her eating Flavor Blasted Goldfish and played Animal Crossing (as evidenced by the photo - I just HAD to share the dogs and I being total loads in bed). We went to the State Park with our dogs and as always, we made tons of good recipes.

I’ve been letting my taste buds guide my meals lately so every day I fly by the seat of my pants. We ended up having sushi one night that she brought from The Cities, we made chicken cesar wraps, turkey and veggie hibachi bowls, and we went out and got local birria tacos one night. We always make and get the best food when we are together, it’s part of our love language.

Mollie was there when I had my first severe drug reaction to Carboplatin. I, of course didn’t know it at the time. But a few hours after this treatment I started getting really achy, got the chills, and started crying. After covering myself in heated blankets and warm clothes I started to overheat and that’s when I called her from my bed and asked her to bring me my thermometer. Yup, I had a fever of 102.9. So we packed up our things and headed to my first ER visit in Austin.

Mollie was SUCH a trooper and sat in the ER with me for HOURS until I ultimately got admitted. She visited me in the hospital the next day a few times until Tim could get there and took care of our dogs. I’m so grateful Mollie was there and I wasn’t alone that week. Mollie, you’re a lifesaver and I owe ya big time :)

Manda Kimrey

Dance Friend from UW-Eau Claire

Oh, Manda! Manda is a lovely dance friend from Eau Claire. We met my freshmen year on the Concert Dance Company. She is someone who has always believed in me. She was the President of the Company the year before I took the reigns from her and always vouched to have me in her dances and part of her choreography. For that I’ll always be grateful. Plus, we just love to laugh and giggle together. Manda and I didn’t get a picture together when she came to visit - so this picture of of us hiking at Glacier National Park will have to do :)

Manda came down the week we were supposed to be going on a girls trip to Rapid City, SD during her MEA break. Because of the events the week prior we ultimately decided it would be best to cancel the trip in case it happened again (spoiler alert: it does). But, Manda used her day off from school to be with me for my healing session and I couldn’t be more grateful!

I, of course, was more hesitant going into this session, especially after my last treatment went south and I ended up in the ER and admitted to the hospital for three nights. Because of some scheduling issues, this healing session also ended up being in Albert Lea which was a new adventure for the both of us and kinda got my mind off of things to be in a new setting with new nurses. Usually I get my treatments done in Austin which is only 8 minutes from my house. Albert Lea is 25 minutes which makes the cold capping process a little bit more tricky - but we made it work!

When Manda and I go on road trips together, she always eats Cheez-Its. So when she asked me what type of snacks she should bring, I said it would only be fitting if she brought Cheez-Its to the healing session, and that she did!

After the session we went back to my house, Tim brought us buffalo chicken wraps for lunch, and then we watched Harry Potter in my basement movie theatre! It was a lovely evening, up until Manda left to go home. After that, I started to spiral downhill and ended up back in the ER with Tim. I won’t bore you with the details because you can read all about that fiasco in another blog post, see “A Glimpse Into My Healing Sessions” for the full story.

Thanks for coming to my session with me Manda and bringing me all smiles and Cheez-Its :)

Britta nye

Best Friend & Neighbor Growing Up

Britta is my sister friend, my long time friend of over 20 years. Isn’t that crazy!? What started off as a rivalry between the tomboy down the street and the girl with the ugly highlights from up the hill, ended up turning into a beautiful friendship. So beautiful that she came with me to my 7th healing session!

This was my first healing session back after deciding to drop the drug, Carboplatin, that was causing super adverse reactions that put me in a sepsis-like state and sent me to the ER twice. So I was super happy going into this treatment, and hopeful that I would feel better just getting the Paclitaxel this time.

Ever since 6th grade Britta and I have had the tradition of playing Sims and eating Ramen Noodles. So what else better to do after my healing session while I was still cold capping at home? We may have had to delete a lot of files on our computers to download Sims, but that’s beside the point… and so worth it.

Britta also knows the way to my heart by bringing down a lot of goodies from Trader Joe’s in the cities where she currently lives. Britta is a nurse that works in the cardiac ICU and I can tell you, she is the best of friends to have through life’s ups and downs. She’s been there with me in the darkest days of my life. She is the friend I call when I cannot seem to see the light in all this darkness. She always tells me to find one thing that brings me joy that day and just grasp onto it. And it always helps.

After cold capping was done we went on a quick walk with Mochi and ended up watching a movie in bed together.

Love you long time sista friend 🙂

This is not my final healing squad, as I write this I still have 9 healing sessions left to go! So I’ll definitely make a new post as any new faces arise in my future healing sessions.

A special thank you goes out to each and every one of these people, including Judy my cold caper, who are there with me during these really tough days. You make this process lighter and more fun!

Here is to healing!

Xo, Breanna