An extra week off chemo

Laura gets an extra week off chemo!  Laura met with Dr Garreau and Dr Raish on Wednesday.  She had to meet with her surgical oncologist, Dr Garreau, because she developed a very bad infection last week around one of her implants.  Dr Garreau's office perscriped her  strong anti biotics a week ago Friday and needed to check in with her.  The infection has completely gone away now and today, Friday the 12th, is her last day on antibiotics.

She also met with Dr Raish as her regular 4 to 6 week check ins.  Dr Raish wanted her to take an extra week off both her chemo and biological medications.  The reason is that several fingers have open cracks that won't heal, she has a lip/mouth sore that won't heal and she is loosing weight.   He is hoping that her fingers will heal and she might get her appitite back and stop the weight loss of the last couple months.  Her lip sore has already gone away as of this morning!  

All else is going well.  I am wrestling with whether or not to apply for the director position where I work.  The two major reasons not to are it would take me out of the schools and I would not have direct student contact which I love; and I would not get two months off in the summer which I adore!   My parents  and their large golden retriever have left Maine in their Subaru and are driving west to spend a couple months in Astoria!  Please wish them luck!!!

Tim is a second semester senior!   He has been admitted to Oregon institute of technology and has gotten a couple scholarships so far!  Ani is doing well in la and we are all excited to see her for her spring break on March 4th.  Hapoy year of the monkey everyone!!!

The good and the bad

EHappy New Years friends and family!  I have good new and bad news... Alway start with the good!  Our trip to Belize was wonderful!  Sun snorkeling beaches Mayan ruins birds monkeys good drink and relaxing!  Ani and Tim like that they could walk down the beach at night when the old folks went to bed and go to a bar for pina coladas or some other tropical fruity drink!  Laura did yoga by the pool every morning followed by reading by the pool.  Tim and I snorkeled a bunch: fish coral sharks moray eels turtles dolphins and such...  Just beautiful!  We relaxed and loved the little bustling island we were on!

Ani and the stray "Rosy" that adopted us.  She would be sleeping in a chair on our balcony when we came home at night!!!

Christmas dinner

Post snorkeling.  It was a wonderful trip!!

So the bad news:  Laura had scans this week and the stupid cancer is back in her brain.  She has three or four small brain mets 2 to 4 mm in size.  Two are probably left over from earlier but are growing and the other are new...  She is going to have a gamma knife radio surgery on Monday Jan 18 to get them zapped.  Basically lots (160+) gamma rays go through her head and converge on one tiny spot to zap the heck out of it.since the gamma rays are vary low intensity it does not do damage passing through the brain just damage to the exact spot.

There is no cancer in the body which is good!  Her doctors said this is likely to be a common occurs cr of finding small brain mets and they will continue to gamma knife them as long as they can.  Unfortunately it means that the chemo and targeted therapy she is on is not really controlling the brain mets...  Below is a short YouTube video on gamma knife procedure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8SIOaJ7lWQ

We are all sad by this but Laura is tough. The actual procedure will be from 7 am in Portland until mid or late afternoon and then she can come home with me the same day...  It's the same day Ani flights back to oxy for second semester so she will have to get up extra early!  Love you all!

Happy December

It feels like forever since I have written anything substantial on this.  Life goes on.  That is huge and sometimes I do not realise how huge that is.  Laura is well: tired a lot, nauseous occasionally, but doing well considered she is on chemo drugs.  Our next scans are in early January.  There you go, I say our next scans while it really is Laura’s scans.  At times, I find myself stepping into Laura’s mind and thinking it is both of us with cancer and both of us that are on this ugly journey of metastatic breast cancer while the cold reality is that it is very much Laura and Laura alone.  We argue, or discuss vociferously, about her treatment and treatment options.  In the end, it really is Laura’s decision since it is her body that these nasty medicines go into.

As of today, I am feeling at peace with things.  This is the down time where the medicine seem to be doing their job and I go to work and come home tired and play with the dogs and eat and watch tv before reading in bed with Laura.  While the excitement of Tim graduating in June is real, I am already starting to dread spring time.  For the past two years, in late May, we have gotten awful news about Laura’s cancer spreading and that time period just scares the dickens out of me.  But as of now, I feel ok and even hopeful.  Ani is thriving at Oxy and Tim is a little excited about the idea of college and going to Oregon Institute of Technology next year.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Ani being home for 5 days and Richard and his family coming down on the actual turkey eating day.  It was great to be with family.

In a few short weeks, Ani will be home for a month and we all travel to Belize over the holidays.  The idea of tropical snorkeling and a beachfront hotel sounds dreamy as it blows and rains at 35 degrees here on the north coast of Oregon.  So we are all excited about the trip with the exeption of the dogs…  

While the future is a haze with no clear borders, I feel pretty confident in our children which is really the most any of us can hope for.  They both have a good head on their shoulders and seem to be well.  As fall turns into winter and the holiday season is upon us, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has thought of Laura and helped us out over the past year and a half.  One day at a time.  Life goes on and remember to rout for the Portland Timbers this weekend in the league championship game!!!

Ahs girls soccer

Girls soccer at Astoria high school made tee shirts this year that says #pinkisnotacure

There is a really sweet article in the Daily Astorian about the team and tee shirts today.  I am trying to paste a link to that article but it seems harder than it should:

http://www.dailyastorian.com/local_sports/20151020/soccer-player-helps-pinkisnotacure-campaign#.Vim5cMyffK8.gmail

You might be able to read it in the pic below if you can make it bigger.

Oh on the family front: Ani is amazing and loving college which is how it should be. Can't wait till thanksgiving and I can hug my baby girl!!!  Tim has finished cross country with his last race yesterday.  He is extatic to be done with high school sports. I am melancholy.  He ran well and was third on his team in districts.  Laura saw dr rashe today and her blood panels were good.  I showered this morning so am clean and well!

Now the doggies!!!  Playing on the little beach below our house where we walk to:

All is good

Quick update:

Tim is homecoming king at Astoria high school!  Crowned at half time of a football game 

The same night Tim was crowned king Laura gave a talk at one of the brew pubs to 120 people about metastatic breast cancer. She got a standing ovation and then drove to the football game with 40 seconds left before half time!

My Aunt Sally from Maine and cousin Tim from Idaho came last weekend for a really sweet visit!

After Laura gave her talk at the brew pub she was the mentor for an Astoria high school senior who put on a "die in" for metastatic breast cancer research.  It was powerful and amazing:

Then tonight Laura gave a 5 minute talk about her cancer journey at the Astoria Column for Columbia memorial hospital breast cancer awareness month.  I met a very fine poodle!  Laura said no I can't dye Mia...

Now Laura's 3 public events are done for the month!  All is good.  She is dizzy a lot but doing very well!

Good news

 I hope most of you heard by now that Laura scans were very good yesterday. September 24, wereceive good news. There's no evidence of disease in her torso.  Only three or four very spots of cancer in her brain. Much better than 18 cancer mets last May.

I feel like I can breathe again. This road as a caretaker or cancer spouse is crazy. The ups and downs are oh so big.  I feel like we are definately on the upswing.  Hopefully Laura can tweet her medication to feel a little better.  

Tim had a cross country meet today. He got a personal best!  1844 in the 5 k or 3.1 mile race !  So proud of him.  Ani is thriving at occidental.  She loves her writing class!

Just 100 meters from the finish Tim is running well!

Pictures

Tim ran a great 5 k race at the ultimook race on Saturday. His time was 20:29 which is over a minute faster than he ran it last year!

Mud pit!

Mia was sick for a few days but is feeling much better now

Picture of Laura for her upcoming publicity.  

And finally, Tim's new van!!