09/03/10 - Update

On Tuesday, after a month of recuperation from her early August surgery, Mom revisited the folks at Duke for an follow up MRI and checkup.

Not surprisingly, the MRI procedure itself went poorly (these are never easy for Mom to do, and if she is not sufficiently sedated, as she was not, she has a hard time being still enough). But in the end it was complete.

Not surprisingly, since Mom has been off the chemical treatment for several months now, though of course disappointingly, the tumor has resumed its growth.

As we suspected would be the case, the infection on the side of her head, while markedly better than it was and no longer an infection, has not healed to the point where mom can resume the full scale chemical treatment. As a result, Duke is putting mom on a reduced-strength Chemo program that she will take while the area on her head continues to heal. Once this has happened, all things being equal, she will resume the previous cocktail that proved effective in combating the tumor.

In the meantime, in the spirit of balancing quality of life with an aggressive fight against the tumor, mom and dad have scheduled a trip to Spain. The folks at Duke were very supportive of their doing this. It is something that mom has been focused on doing for a long time and that she is pleased to be able to do. They leave in the next week and will stay for a couple of weeks or so. Upon return, she will go to Duke, have plastic surgery to accelerate the healing of the area on her head, and then will continue the maintenance Chemo program until she is physically ready to resume the full scale assault on the tumor.

And that's about it on the "update" front. As you know, these posts are designed to keep you as up to speed as possible but have historically been designed to keep our respective opinions on her condition somewhat to ourselves, so to speak. So I'll break the mold a bit and offer some thoughts, but not too many. . .

All of you know by now it's a brutal disease with a generally dim prognosis. At the end of the day, I would say that mom's progression through this battle is pretty much in line with expectations, albeit towards the upper end (when all things are considered). On the plus side, we've learned that there is a drug combination that is effective in fighting the tumor. On the down side, however, we've also learned that that drug combination takes a very heavy toll on the rest of her system and can not be taken lightly or continuously. We've seen that she has periods where she is very engaged and sharp and periods in which she is significantly more subdued. These periods seem to be very much driven by what's going on around her and the subject on which she is focused. For me, I'm most pleased that during periods when she is engaged, it's clear that her brain is still very capable of doing many of the things she'd need to do to maintain a good quality of life. On the downside, I would have to say that her energy levels, physical strength, and motor skills are not where I'd hoped they'd be (though they have remained pretty consistent lately), had I known that she would have had a period where she had the upper hand versus the tumor (as she's had over the past few months). Unfortunately, these have significant negative impacts on her quality of life from a day to day perspective. I guess, in sum, things could of course be better, but they could also be a whole lot worse. In the end, most importantly, we are very lucky to have had, and to be able to expect to continue to have, real, high quality interaction with her.

So that's it. As conditions change or we pass through milestones, I'll continue to add posts to the blog. So, while a month between posts is a long time, keep in mind that down the road no news is more a reflection of not much change to the status quo than anything else.

Thank you all for the love and support you have and continue to provide to Mom, Dad, and all of us. I know I speak for my family when I say that we have all been amazed - truly truly amazed - at the extent to which friends and family have demonstrated their love and support.

Love to all,

Ted