2 weeks out from treatment

It's been two weeks from the end of treatment and I feel really great!!!  I've been cooking and going to the gym and packing and painting.  I haven't really been taking naps or feeling tired at all.  I praise God for my energy returning!  I'm waiting for that slump to come and it should be here soon, but for now I'll take the great days!  I haven't really been noticing any vision issues really at all, either, which is really nice.  The only symptoms I am noticing are regular short term memory loss and trouble with noise/chaos/decisions.  I can put something down and then it will take me an hour to find it.  While this sounds really benign (and it is), it is very frustrating.  I can lose my coffee 10 times each morning.  As the doctor told me before, it is hard to know which symptoms are from radiation and which ones are just normal aging.  Decision making has also been particularly hard for me.  It took me almost a month to decide on a flight and that was with asking Paul every night to review details and help me to make the decision.  With moving, traveling, summer plans, kids camps, school end of year parties, birthdays, anniversaries and more, I see nothing but blurry lines and a jumbled mess.  I am missing things I never missed before with presents, special days and just my (old) normal thoughtfulness.  I have to focus on one thing and only one thing and I can't multitask.  I apologize if you are on the (not) receiving end of this but as I was trying to explain to Paul it is as if all of these things are just floating around in my head and I can't grab them to put them in any sort of order.  I can't get to a point where I can plan for things coming up because I am trying to focus on a) where I put my coffee and b) what HAS to be done today.  Again it's a weird and challenging struggle between being completely at peace because I know that it is a great blessing to feel well and be functioning and alive and a complete panic because I simply don't have the ability to get things done. So, I figure I'll just ask for forgiveness a lot.

In other news, my  neighbor has a dear friend who has been battling brain cancer for 10 years now.  She has had 4 craniotomies and gone through multiple rounds of chemo and radiation.  Each time her tumor has regrown.  Each surgery, however, has come with side effects, some of which are irreversible.

A recent study has come out that shows that cannabis, yes, cannabis, has the power to shrink and perhaps cure brain tumors.

My neighbor's friend has been taking a medically altered form of cannabis that has the "high inducing" part removed and just uses the medicinal part.  Since using this compound she has had the longest span of no regrowth since she was diagnosed.

This is all mind-blowing (no pun intended) for goody two shoes me and I am 100% not on board yet. It is legal in Washington state and my doctors have said that there is great promise in these treatments.  We don't have any signs or evidence that my tumor has regrown yet and so this isn't even on the table as a remote possibility, but the research is really amazing.

I'll be thinking and praying about this one for a long time!

http://www.medicaldaily.com/cannabis-shrinks-brain-tumors-associated-highly-aggressive-form-cancer-310720

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/18/marijuana-brain-cancer_n_6181060.html

It seemed to start as a cold ...

Our family has been home from Seattle for the holidays. We have been staying with our good friend Kelsey while we are visiting everyone in PA. Monday night, Stephanie came home and said she started feeling a cold coming on. We went to bed, and when she woke, she said she felt worse. I got her some toast and some tea, and she stayed in bed. Around lunchtime, she asked for some more food. My mom came down to visit us, and she, the kids and I went out to run some errands and get some lunch. We left Steph home to sleep and try and feel better.  The kids were a little rammy, so on our return to the house, I had them run 10 laps around it's perimeter. On Noah's 4th lap (Maeve's 3rd), Kelsey came out and said Steph was sitting up and crying in her bed.

I went upstairs and Steph up and walking around, though speaking gibberish. I tried to talk to her, but it agitated her. She could not walk right and was falling over as well. I didn't know what was wrong but knew she needed to go to the hospital. I eventually got her into the hall, sat her down at the steps and had her slide down on her bottom to get downstairs. She was screaming and talking gibberish the entire time and continued to do so once downstairs. I thought if I could get her to the car, I could get her to the hospital myself faster than calling an ambulance. However, that's when she had her first seizure. My mom was there, which I am grateful for, as she was the calm one. I called 911 while my mom comforted Steph and placed a pillow under her head. 

The ambulance arrived, and Steph was once again fighting us and screaming. It took 3 EMTs to get her on the stretcher and tied down. I grabbed some things from the house and followed the ambulance to the hospital. On the way, it stopped on the side of the road!  I was freaking out. They started again, and then pulled over on 322. I was losing it. They eventually told me the truck was having problems and a new one was on the way to continue Steph's journey.  Once they moved her to the new truck, we were again on our way. 

I made it to the hospital and waited in the ER waiting room for them to let me in the back ....  Once there, Steph was actually talking normally and was calm, but something was off. She still thought we lived in Romansville, forgot about Seattle and generally seemed to have lost all short term memory. I also found out from the nurses that she had had another seizure while in the ambulance.  The sent her back for a CT scan, as I started contacting family about what was going on. A little while later, the the doctor told me that the scan indicated swelling on the brain, but not being a neurologist, he could not draw any more conclusions, and recommended a transfer to the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania (HUP).  After a few hours, the transfer vehicle arrived and we were on the road again. I drove myself and found a place to park. Then another place to park, and then finally on the third try, I found the correct parking garage (one would think the hospital could afford better signage for parking :-). 

The previous hospital had given me the room to go to, so I headed there to find Steph already in her bed, fast asleep. An MRI had been scheduled for the next day and the neurologist had been given the CT scan for his review. I slept in her room in the ICU that night (Tuesday).

In the morning, I met her neurologist. He said the scan showed a lesion in the spot near where the pressure was indicated, but could not fully determine what it was without the MRI. Steph continued to stabilize, and they decided to am transfer her to the step-down unit after her MRI. 

We didn't get the results of the MRI until later that day. The doctor said she likely had a 3.5cm grade 2 glioma on the right side of her brain (a tumor the size of a golf ball). He said it was at the surface, making it easier to operate on. However, he could not say exactly why it is until a biopsy was done. 

Since we don't live in PA anymore, we had a decision to make: surgery here or in Seattle. Weighing the pros and cons, and the possible risk of another seizure mid-flight, we decided to have it here. 

So, now our trip to PA has been extended slightly, and we are spending our third night in the hospital, awaiting surgery tomorrow at 7am (Friday). We are told the prep time will be about 1 to 1.5 hours, and then the surgery another 2-6 hours. After that, she will have to come down from the anesthesia. So, the whole process could take most of the day tomorrow. We will then spend the night in the ICU again, then the step-down unit again for the 2nd night after surgery. At that point, it will be up to the docs and the physical therapists to decide when and where we will be discharged. 

The tumor will be sent to pathology once removed. It will take 5-10 days for us to know exactly what the tumor is and its makeup. That will also help the team of doctors determine further course of action. 

While all of the above happened, and wonderful group of friends and family have been praying and supporting us. Thank you all so very much. Thank you for watching our children while I watched out for their mother. Thank you for he kind words of love and tenderness. And thank God for His perfect timing, allowing us to be in PA with all of you during this difficult time. 

We love you deeply!

I will post more as we move through the surgery and into recovery.