Wow! It's been a while! Some good news :)

Hi Everyone,

Apparently I'm not a very good blogger considering it's been over a year and a half since my last posting. Well, I've enlisted some support this time. My wonderful sister, Dena, has offered to help me update my blog with the latest in my health news and other potentially interesting things going on :)

I'll take on this first one though...

For those of you who may not have received my recent "bad news" email, I'll give a quick recap. About 3 weeks ago, I noticed that I had some paralysis in my left ankle/foot. After seeing my neurologist and having an MRI, my oncologist broke the bad news that my tumor is growing again and that the chemo I'd been doing for the last 2 years wasn't working anymore. Needless to say, my family and I were pretty devastated. I was in a fog of tears and disbelief for a few days, but have since regained a sense of peace and have been absolutely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from my friends and family. It seems kinda strange to say, but the last few days, seeing and talking to people who I haven't talked to in a long time, have been some of the happiest days I've had in a long time. I've definitely isolated myself in the last couple years, and it's taken this bad news for me to see what I've been missing :)

Onto the better news! My doctor at Kaiser was a total rockstar and was able to get approval from Kaiser for me to see a brain cancer specialist at UCSF and get all my records sent to them in just a couple days. Then UCSF kicked ass and got me an appointment for this afternoon. My parents and I went into the appointment with tissues, expecting to hear that I was nearing the end of my treatment options. But we were pleasantly surprised when Dr. Prados was very optomistic and said I have several treatment options and that there has been lots of progress made in the treatment of brain tumors in the 7 years since I last saw him. He suggested that I start by trying a chemotherapy called Avastin, in which I'll have an IV drip injection every 2 weeks. He said that it is very well tolerated by most patients, I won't lose my hair and I likely won't feel any nausea. He said that he can see no reason why I can't continue to work & live on my own. I will have an MRI in 6 weeks, after 3 rounds of the chemo, and see if it is has stopped the tumor's growth. He feels pretty confident that it will. If it isn't working, he mentioned that there are a few clinical trials as well that I may be a candidate for and that he has 3 others coming up soon.

He showed us several views of the MRI and pointed out that, although the tumor had grown, it was not necessarily by as much as we had originally been told. The large area that we had seen previously included a lot of adema (sp?) which, as I understand it, is like swelling around the tumor. It is still not good to have, but it can be treated pretty well by steroids and Dr. Prados said that the chemo I'm going to do is really good at reducing adema as well.

I've been told in the past that my tumor is inoperable, but he went into more specifics about why and what other options we have. Apparently it is right on or very close to my motor cortex. This means that any damage done to surrounding healthy tissue could lead to permanent paralysis. I know a lot of you have talked to me about gamma knife radiation and he talked about that too. It also is not a very good option due to my tumor's location. He said that, though gamma knife is state-of-the-art radiation and very effective in treating cancer, it also can cause swelling in surrounding tissue and would leave necrotic (dead) tissue around the tumor which has a 20% to 30% chance of causing paralysis. He said it's an option down the line, but certainly not a good one right now.

Well, it is way past my bedtime and I have to work in the morning (yay! & boo!). I want to thank everyone who has wished me well and have said prayers for me and cried with/for me. I want you all to know that I've had 8 years to prepare for really bad news and, to the credit of my awesome doctors and medical progress and all of your love and support, I've been spoiled with more years than I ever expected, when I first got my diagnosis, to enjoy with you all. It appears that they've hopefully pulled a rabbit out of the hat again.

I or Dena will post again once I start chemo and let you know how it's going.

Big hugs & kisses,
Laurie