Help Take the "ILL" out of GIL

Hi. My name is Bonnie and if you know me, you know that Gil is the love of my life. Our favorite expression is "forever and a day" and we say it as often as possible.

A couple days before Halloween (2015),  Gil was diagnosed with Stage-IV Renal Cancer (also in his lungs and lymph). We were told that his version of 'forever' was drastically reduced to 2-3 years... with a slim possibility of making it to 5 years.   

Gil has a huge heart and is a tremendously generous soul. He easily lights up any room with his twinkling eyes and sharp sense of humor.  My Gildie (as I call him) is also a rebel and a bit of a gambler. He really wanted to use alternative treatments to totally remove the cancer from his body without ever having surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. 

However, as soon as he chose the alternative protocol he thought was best, Gil started to have breathing problems. I took him to the Emergency Room where new scans revealed that in less than 10 weeks, his lung tumors had increased 60-70% and the large tumor in his kidney had not only grown, but had also developed a blood clot. 

Seventy-two hours later, a surgeon removed Gil's right kidney. That brings us right up to the present where Gil is now home from the hospital and recuperating. 

I am not going to mince words here - Gil is very, very weak. He has lost over 90 pounds and most of his muscular build, his voice no longer commands a room, and he can barely walk down the hallway without getting winded. It's no wonder he is also depressed.  

Seeing him like this makes me sad beyond words and I can barely see the monitor screen through the tears that have been flowing ever since I started writing his story. Our story, really, The one that was supposed to last for forever and a day, 

We are now awaiting the kidney tumor pathology report (a week) which will be followed by a visit to the oncologist where Gil will be prescribed a course of immunotherapy drugs. Hopefully with these strong pharmaceuticals and the mother-tumor gone, there will be enough time left to stop the fast-growing lung tumors.  

With cancer, waiting is the hardest part. So every morning when I go to work - even though Gil begs me daily to quit so we can spend whatever time he has left together - I leave him a litany of exercises to build his strength and improve his breathing and a list of tasks to get him moving a bit.  

Today, even amid the torturous wait, Gil truly smiled when I walked in the door from work. And this evening I noticed that his humor is starting to creep back in. I am profoundly grateful for each of these baby steps. 

While on immunotherapy Gil would also like to follow a program called the Cellect-Budwig Protocol. It involves a huge commitment in terms of daily intake of supplements and enzymes; a regimented, mostly-raw diet; detoxifying enemas (maybe that's TMI, but if I have to live with it, the least you can do is try to avoid imagining it); a large intake of a fairly expensive nutritional powder called Cellect; the purchase of a high-frequency generator that works to revert cancer cells back to being regular cells; and many other supporting and supportive materials. If you want to read more, I have found this site to be the most accessible: http://www.cancertutor.com/cellect_budwig/.  Please share it with anyone you think might also benefit. 

It's very hard for me to ask for financial support when I have spent much of my adult life focused more on creative endeavors than on a big-income career. But I do know that through my writing workshops and books I have helped tens of thousands of people express themselves. I am doing my best to see this Go Fund Me request as a pay-it-forward kind of arrangement.  

I have put my creative work aside and have been working a gazillion hours to pay for as many of Gil's needs as possible - as well as our regular bills. And, short of my board game collection, we lead a very frugal existence. But no matter how many hours I put in, the bank account required to cover our mounting expenses falls way short. We have been told that Gil will not be able to work during the treatments because he will be too weak. 

So, with tears in my eyes, and a feeling of shame that I am trying to overcome, I am now asking each of you if you could help take the ILL out of GIL and give us hope that 'forever and a day' is a possibility.  

With a huge group hug and a thank you for loving us, 

Bonnie