RIP Gary Thomas Zullo

Post written by Samantha Zullo (Gary’s wife):

At 7:10am on Friday January 1st, Gary Zullo left us. He ended up in the hospital on Christmas day because he was very dellusional and wasn’t peeing much. Turns out he somehow had pneumonia, sepsis, kidney failure, a bacterial infection in his blood and to top it off a fungal infection in his lungs which according to the doctors is almost always fatal for someone with a compromised immune system. He fought long and he fought HARD to stay alive but ultimately he couldn’t fight any longer and his heart gave up.

Gary has touched sooooooooo many lives in his short 33 years on this earth. He will be missed dearly by so many, but most of all by those that he left behind, his mom, his 2 year old son (Michael), and his wife (Samantha).

Thank you all for following Gary’s blog. He loved writing blog posts because it was his outlet against the thing he hated most, Cancer. Gary always kept things real even with his salty language (as he’d call it). Thanks again for following him throughout his journey.

Love,
Samantha and Michael

Setbacks

Firstly, I hope everyone is gearing up for a fantastic holiday! Nah, scratch that. I hope everyone is gearing up for a Merry Christmas! I am not sure when all the PC retards decided that only the word “holiday’ was acceptable but I am going back to saying Christmas. Don’t like it? TOUGH!

Anywho I hope everyone is in good spirits

I have been on a steady incline to feeling better, until…

About a week or two ago I was beginning to get ridiculous side effects from the remainder of the maintenance doses of Depocyt that I was receiving in my Ommaya port. I had a particularly bad day and did not think I was going to make it through two more doses of the stuff. That’s where my wife stepped in as she always does and called both my doc locally and the NIH. I was having dizzy spells and tunnel vision and lots and lots of neuropathy-related shaking. All of which were leading to falls, low blood pressure and lightheadedness. Fucked up. I got good at anticipating the episodes (as we’re calling them) to the point where I’d get a few days up to maybe a week (if I were lucky) where he actually feels pretty good and then he gets hit by another dose. His local doc prescribed more pills of a steroid (dexamethasone) that he has to take for the first 5 days once he gets a new dose. They usually do not like you taking this med for more than 5 days because it can have nasty side effects, one of which is a stroke (there are many more purely unpleasant side effects). So I’ll be taking that like this:

2 days @ 3 / day
3 days @ 2 / day
3 days @ 1 / day

I had a Depocyt dose on 12/01/09 (my last) and have been having a very VERY difficult time with it. It almost seems like each time I goes through this the symptoms get worse, kinda like they are compounding. We were pretty sure the symptoms were caused by Depocyt treatments and now we are positive (either that and/or neuropathy)

Well, I got a call around 11:45am today from the team up at the NIH. All of the bigwigs were conferenced in just as if I were at my very own doctor’s appointment. We all decided as a group to stop the maintenance chemo which makes last month’s dose my last dose. I will FINALLY get to recover for good!!! Obviously there is risk involved with me stopping it 7 weeks early, but since they are dealing with his brain they just can’t chance things anymore with the severity of his symptoms. Plus my CNS is negative, it won’t be getting any MORE negative; just maintaining 0.

So, long story short … I am still dealing with the symptoms of neuropathy (it’s like I have Parkinson’s now) and the dizziness. Some days it’s worse than others. Today is rough I have NO ENERGY.

To quote my wife’s blog on the same subject, “So I’m so happy to finally announce after a LONG 7 months of this nightmare that my wonderful husband, that has been SUCH a fabulous fighter, is finally done with chemo. May he never need any of that nasty stuff ever again!”

Cancer Reward

Wow! Now that I am done with treatment it seems like I don’t have time for this blogging shit anymore. I am just kidding, but it has been a busy time. I’ve been getting used to not being in treatment, growing hair and dealing with arachnoiditis (because of the depocyt). I decided that as a gift to myself for having survived treatment and cancer that I would buy myself a Gibson Les Paul guitar. I just so happen to play guitar so this would not be a wasted purchase. Were I to buy a purse … that would be a waste

I thought I would post some pics of it (rather tan of me for a change). Please enjoy. FYI, I also bought a Boss GT-10 effects board and a Peavey Vyper-30 amplifier. Now, how’s that for a reward!? Fingerprints courtesy of my son Michael. He likey guitars (or ‘atar as he calls it) Comment dammit!

Fuck you blood!

Well, I just received a call from the lead doctor investigator dude from my treatment protocol. He called with the results of my blood flow cytometry. Everything else is clean and/or negative but my blood still shows signs of malignant cells. This sucks.

His consolation? Before we started the treatment we were at 66%. After 4 rounds of chemotherapy I got down to 30%. Now, I am at 8%. He seems to think that when my immune system is back at full strength (in about 3-6 MONTHS) it may very well irradiate the rest of that 8%. If not, then I wait for the numbers to go back up and start another treatment.

This is never going to end for me I fear

Sorry. Been Busy…

I know it’s been quite awhile since I blogged but I have a good reason I swear…

I’ve been busy trying to recover and live life a little. I’ve been stuck in a cancer/chemotherapy rut for almost 6 months. It has sucked a royal dick; trust me. I cannot remember too many good experiences from my treatment. Let’s just say that in my case, at least, the treatment was FAR worse on my body than the disease itself. However, I’m a stubborn sonofabitch and my will to live is too strong to be taken out by some pussy-assed disease. So, here I be… post-chemo and on the rebound.

I’ve been cleared to return to work which actually makes me VERY happy. I need something constructive to do. Sitting around the house was fun for about 5 days. Now it’s driving me crazy. I need something to do; even if it’s only for a few hours a day for awhile. I need it. You understand? Also, I’ve been trying to get back to ‘normal’ which for me means chores and taking care of my son. While I can’t yet claim that I am back 100% I can tell you that I am actually doing stuff which makes my wife happy I am sure. She’s tired of doing my shit … I would be.