Laura is out of surgery. Ani and Laura are going to get Thai food now. She is tired and sad and soar but ok. Thanks for all the positive energy. They ended up zapping 22 spots in her brain.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Gamma knife today
Laura is currently in getting tumors gamma knifed. Unfortunately the Number of tumors has increased from 4 to 21 that they will zap today. She will be in for over five hours getting the gamma knife procedure. The large increase is likely due to both the MRI this morning has a finer resolution as well as a fast growing cancer. I will try to update this blog later today when she gets out of the gamma knife procedure.
Saturday, June 11, 2016
The good and the bad
Ani is home for the summer and will take a year off of college. She wants to be closer to mom and is burnt out of school but she will go back- don't you worry east coast family!
Laura: while she has clean scans in the middle of April, was feeling bad and dizzy and vertigo last weekend so she demanded an MRI. She has 4 new tumors in her brain. She will get them gamma knife zapped this Wednesday June 15. Her dr feels confident that he can zap them. He reiterated that the brain tumors will continue to be chronic issues and everyone is different on how many gamma knife radiations they can handle.
This is the third year in a row that Laura has gotten shitty cancer news the week before graduation... I am totally dreading this time of year. Before Ani's graduation Lu was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer where it spread to her liver lungs and lymph nodes. Last year she has her first brain tumors- 18 requiring whole brain radiation. And now more brain mets... One step at a time
Tomorrow, Sunday, we have a big grad party for our boy! Party on! It's more for us parents and am excited. Four close friends came over today and scrubbed our house.... We have good friends. My mom and dad are here watching and helping with the festivities. Love you all! Sorry I don't post more...
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Short and sweet
Laura had her quarterly MRI and ct scans yesterday. No brain mets!! Her brain looks good which she was really worried about! The last three brain MRIs have shown mets so that is great. There is a 9 by 14 by 8 mm spot in her left lung that could be just conjestion or cancer. More tests in two weeks to determine what that is but the rest looks good. We are happy.
Friday, February 12, 2016
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!!!
Saturday, January 9, 2016
The good and the bad
Ani and the stray "Rosy" that adopted us. She would be sleeping in a chair on our balcony when we came home at night!!!
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:
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!
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
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!!!
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