22 Down - 8 To Go

That's right folks, we're down to single digits!  We had our weekly round of Wednesday Doctors Appointments today, and they are all (well ok, both) impressed at how well Mark is doing.  His blood work levels are all normal, his energy is great - which is especially weird considering they're attacking his brain (the radiologist was shocked and even mentioned that Mark is very unusual in that regard), and he has pretty much no symptoms from pretty much anything (except for the belly from the steroids and the new hair style).

On Friday they switch the specifics of his radiation and start to go after a smaller part of his brain, so the doctor said the worst of it will be behind him them.  We are overly grateful that the 'worst of it' has been so easy.  We made a friend who has radiation just before Mark and there were days when she would come in just looking nauseous and unwell (it was really good to see her looking much better a few days later!).  We have heard from many how bad this could have been and overheard people in the office talking about horror stories.  Truly, we have been blessed!

In fact, Mark is doing so well that the radiologist it having him stop his steroids much sooner than he normally would!  He gets to go down to one pill every other day for a week and then be done.  Most people would be on them for a while still at this point.

We have taken Mark off of some of the pills that he had been taking at first.  He never really needed the nausea pills, so we stopped giving him those, as well as his sleeping pill we were doing for a while to help counter the steroids.  When he got cut down to one steroid pill a day last week, he even managed to drop one of his pill cases! (We got him separate pill cases for morning, afternoon, evening and bed time just so we could be flexible - he's down to just morning and evening now).  Pretty soon he'll get to drop all of his daily pills and just be on his antibiotic three times a week.  Yea for being almost done!!



We had a good 4th of July.  My parents flew into town and my sister and her friend, and my brother and his fiance, as well as Mark's family joined us for most of the day.  We got up early to go see the hot air balloons, only to find out they were canceled due to weather.  After munching on some donuts we had brought for the occasion, we came home and took a nap, ate lunch and then headed out to a colonial festival in town to wander through some period shops, often showing off their craft right there to show how people used to make barrels, clothing, metal works, bread/food and do things like games, chores, school, etc.  We came home from that hungry so we had dinner and then did our July 4th Declaration.   After that we went to a nearby field to watch fireworks and to let the kids enjoy running around with other excited kids doing fun and crazy stuff.  We gave up about 10 minutes before the fireworks actually started and walked home.  Once we got the baby (Annie) in bed life was much better and we watched the fireworks show from our front lawn with the three oldest kids.

Mark was able to walk all over the place with us.  Almost all of the walking was on grass (which is more of a challenge for him to balance on just because it's uneven), and there was A LOT of walking.  He was ready for bed by the end of the night, but he showed no other signs of being tired.

My mom bought all of her family in our area season passes to the nearby water park (the pass also has several other activities on it, which will be fun, especially when the water park closes for the winter).  We have gone there a few times.  Mark uses the Lazy River to walk laps.  He has even graduated from just walking to doing more challenging things, such as walking backwards, crouching while walking, walking sideways both upright and crouched, and getting some hand/arm workouts as well.  We also go into the wave pool and have him practice balancing.  We have found that if he goes out too far and can't reach the bottom his legs/feet start cramping, and then I get to see how well I can push him back to shallower water before we both drown.  That's always fun...



My pregnancy is going as well as can be expected at this point.  Thankfully all of this brain tumor stuff started just a few short weeks after the worst of my morning sickness was over, and it seems as if the majority of the radiation and treatment and side effects (if there were any to start with) will be done before the worst of my third trimester starts (you know, where I get so weak I can't move my arms or hold my head up and I have to lie down for 20-60 minutes before I can move again - that stuff).  I am grateful that this has been timed just right!  The weakness is beginning to creep it's way into my life already, but it's been minimal so far - only happening a few times a week - so that's good.  And Mark is functional enough that he can help cover for me when that happens.  (Not to mention that my sister is living with us to help out, so neither one of us is over burdened with too much, and my Mom is in town for a few weeks, so we are really well taken care of at the moment!)  I'm just excited that it looks like life will be mostly ok and normal for us once everyone moves on to their own lives again.

I'm hopeful that with Mark getting off the steroids he will be able to lose some of the weight soon, which will help him be able to be more physical and get moving again and back into shape.  He still hasn't tried running yet, and he's a bit gun shy about going down water slides and things like that in case he knocks his head (this is a good thing - but eventually he should be able to gain some confidence in his ability to go down a slide without falling).  Bending is still not easy for him, but that's to be expected with the belly he's sporting :)

Overall, life is still good!