I'm pretty sure that, for anyone who's followed this blog for longer a few months, it comes as no surprise that I am totally inconsistent in keeping it up. I know if you look back through the dates, it looks like I was pretty good (at least until about 1 year before Mark's tumor), but most of those were done over a weekend and I would do 3-6 months or so at a time and cheat on the dates.... This most recent stretch has been the most consistent I've been in years about it. Go me! Too bad I've failed miserably over the last few weeks...
So, now I'll update several weeks in one shot and hope this makes up for my slacking off.
Mark finished his last radiation treatment on Monday (the 22nd). That Thursday we were back in the office again with Mark complaining of things not tasting good. Turns out he managed to get thrush in his mouth. Apparently it's caused by a fungus (yeast) that most of us have on our bodies naturally anyways. Usually our immune system will help keep its abnormal growth in check, but since Mark's immune system is anything but normal at the moment, the fungus (yeast) got out of control and now he has thrush (and subsequently can't eat too much of anything solid without getting sick)
We have tried a couple of different things to get rid of it. He was on an oral pill for a while, but that didn't even seem to make a dent. After a few slightly frustrating phone calls to the doctors offices (yes, two of them), we were basically told they had no idea what to do about it since that didn't work. On a spur of the moment trip to a women's cancer survivor support group at the radiation office, the nurse there was surprised that who ever I talked to didn't have an answer, and she had me bring Mark back in to see the doctor the next day. Mark got a new prescription for an oral wash. He does not love that stuff (it is so nasty! - I made the mistake of trying just a tiny drop of it - just so I knew what it was I was pushing Mark to do when he didn't want to swish the meds in his mouth - yea, I'm not doing that again...) We thought it was making a difference, and it might be, but it's not enough. He still can't eat. We're coming up on 3 weeks soon.
On a positive note, he's lost a lot of the extra weight the steroids put on him! Somehow I'm sure that not eating for the last few weeks has helped with that...
-------------
Over the last weekend in July we went on our Annual Gardner Campout. Technically, it was the first year, but we're pretending we've been doing this for as long as we can remember... :) We went to Flaming Gorge and had a blast. Mark still couldn't eat, my brother had a rather severe reaction to a bite (bite on his back - face and lips swollen... yea, it was pretty bad), Emily got lost hiking, everyone was filthy - the youngest of us got that the worst, it rained two of the nights, and we brought way too much food with us that we had to sort through to find what we were cooking for any given meal.
Actually, that makes it sound bad, but it really was fun to get to see everyone and most of us have camping gear that rarely gets used, so it was fun to break that out. We even got to see some old friends that we haven't seen in years. Greg and Paula heard of our camping trip and came and spent a night with us. It was fun to see them again and spend some time catching up and playing games. We all got to go to the Dinosaur museum in Vernal (where we randomly ran into friends that Mark knew growing up and that we had gone to church with for a while before we moved). We also got to go the water at Flaming Gorge and played there for a while, some swimming, some toe dipping, some skipping rocks. We made s'mores and wump-ums, roasted starbursts and sour gummy worms (not sure I recommend that last one - it was an experiment for my Dad, but he didn't seem impressed and apparently it was hard to get them to stay on the stick...), we got an astronomy lesson with a laser pointer (on the first night before the clouds started taking over the evenings) and the kids stayed up late and went on many hikes with aunts, uncles, dads, and grandparents (no, I did not go with them, I'm a horrible mother - and I'm many months pregnant - hiking is not currently my thing... I'm just glad that other people were willing to take that part over for me :) )
After all is said done, we're looking forward to next year!
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
What Now?
So, yesterday I had my last radiation treatment. I’m all done with radiation! We’re still trying to figure out exactly what that means beyond having our weekday mornings available again. Ironically, that means more time to blog, but less to blog about.
-Mark
-Mark
Monday, July 22, 2013
Last Day!!
Today was the last day of radiation!!!
We went out to celebrate. First Mark had a fasting blood draw. After that Mark and I went out to breakfast. Then we met his family at the office for his last radiation treatment! My mom and sister had come with our kids on Friday, but Mark's parents were out of town, so they came today. It was pretty much the last chance we had to let people see what was going on. I usually wait in the lobby and work on a puzzle or read a book or watch TV, as do pretty much all of the guests of the patients while they're in treatment, so they're not used to having visitors back in the radiation area. The nurses were very patient with us invading their work area.
Then we came home and promptly took a nap! :)
After feeling a little more refreshed, we continued to tackle our shed. When we moved in we had a ton of boxes that had just moved with us from place to place and had never really been gone through. While moving might sound like a great time to go through stuff, it's actually rather full of lots of other stress, so we just ignored the already packed boxes one more time. Our shed was so full you could barely open the door. There was stuff in there from who knows how long ago, and stuff that really did not need to be saved and not all of it was well organized at all. There was also lots of stuff that we had shoved in there intending to go through it later - that hadn't happened yet.
So, while my mom was in town, we commissioned her assistance to help go through it. She has some strange un-earthly amount of energy. I have no idea where she gets it from, but I occasionally find it useful to take advantage of.
The shed has been a project that's been going on for a week or two now, and we are finally almost to the end. Going through the kids' clothes took several days. Mom and Katie were troopers and went through most of the new clothes for me (I had already gone through, organized and bagged TONS of clothes a year of so ago, but we had acquired several bags/boxes of new clothes since then that needed to be sorted). They also boxed everything up (not in bags anymore!) and put it back in the shed in an organized manner. No more bags of clothes everywhere, ripping every time we move it to see what's behind it to find the right size! Exciting!
We have made 3 trips to donate stuff, have quite a large pile of stuff for the trash that might take more than one week to get rid of, emptied and broken down more boxes than will fit in our recycle bin, emptied more boxes that still need to be broken down, and we now have quite a bit of empty shelf space in the shed! There is still some stuff in the house that needs to be organized and re-packed and put back in the shed, but as of tonight, all of the boxes have been gone through!
So, anyways, we had started to make a bit more progress on the rest of the stuff in the shed early this afternoon, but then got a call from some old friends that required us to stop what we were doing and go visit them! Who passes up a chance to visit old friends? Not us! Mark stayed with the kids while Mom, Katie and I went to met them at a nearby restaurant and chatted all afternoon and finally decided we needed to leave when we noticed we were about to be late for our dinner plans.
Last night, as we were realizing that we needed to do something to celebrate Mark being done with radiation, we could not come up with anything to do. It did not help that it was late at night and everyone was exhausted. Finally, in our exhausted, not wanting to put much energy into anything, barely thinking state, we decided we could go out to dinner! (yeah, super original, I know - but we were tired, and let's be honest - letting someone else cook and clean up is always on the menu!) We were on a bit of a time crunch with various schedules that needed to be considered, so we pulled ourselves away from a fun time talking and catching up at one restaurant and moved onto the next one for the day.
And that's about it. I can tell that it's late and my brain is not functioning at full capacity. I'm pretty sure I told that story backwards, starting with the middle and working my way to the beginning, with random trips to the end on the way... I hope you still get the idea:
Mark is done with radiation!! :D
Because he's technically in a study (he's the control group, so he's just getting standard treatment, but he's part of the study anyways) he will have an MRI in 4 weeks. The doctors are fairly certain that this MRI will not be overly helpful. If it were up to them, they'd wait and do a 3 month MRI. His brain should still have swelling from radiation after only 4 weeks so they likely won't be able to determine much. The good news is that we already know what the doctors will say. The test will come back inconclusive due to swelling. :)
The study wants an MRI every 2 months for the first year and every 4 months for the second year and every 6 months after that, so we have our marching orders for the next while. That will be the plan unless things change with his tumor.
Mark has been doing super well! Most people who see him at church and other places are amazed at how well he's doing. Aside from being a tiny bit slower physically (and I really mean a tiny bit) and having a rather large scar on his head, it would be hard to guess that he had brain surgery less than 3 months ago. He has been working one shift a week at his old job (just one shift, it's not what he used to work, but it's good for him to be working, even if it's just a little bit right now) and he is back to school and getting going with an (unpaid...) internship again.
He is also picking up a lot of the slack that I can't do anymore. (Gotta love my pregnancies! Just a few more months until I can fully function again. Yea!! Too bad it will get worse before it gets better. October sounds so far away still...) Mark is amazing with the kids, does more cooking than I do, does bed time more often than me, and willingly does both big and small errands for me, just so I don't have to - and I think because it's helping get his body used to doing stuff again and using muscles that have been dormant for a while.
Mark even ran for the first time since his surgery! We were at Cabella's looking at tents for my parents for our upcoming camping trip. While waiting outside for all the kids to finish with (annoyingly uncoordinated!) bathroom trips, he decided to race the kids to the end of the store. Turns out he can't outrun them yet... But it was so fun to see him running again! He only made one trip up and back willingly. I came out of a second (or third) bathroom trip with some child at the tail end of his run, and was so sad that I missed it! I wanted to see this new skill, so I convinced him that I needed a picture for memories' sake. He did it again just for me, but that was as much as his body could handle for one adventure.
And now, I am going to see if sleep will help this headache I've been fighting all day. Good night! I am very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow with no treatment to go to in the morning!
We went out to celebrate. First Mark had a fasting blood draw. After that Mark and I went out to breakfast. Then we met his family at the office for his last radiation treatment! My mom and sister had come with our kids on Friday, but Mark's parents were out of town, so they came today. It was pretty much the last chance we had to let people see what was going on. I usually wait in the lobby and work on a puzzle or read a book or watch TV, as do pretty much all of the guests of the patients while they're in treatment, so they're not used to having visitors back in the radiation area. The nurses were very patient with us invading their work area.
Then we came home and promptly took a nap! :)
After feeling a little more refreshed, we continued to tackle our shed. When we moved in we had a ton of boxes that had just moved with us from place to place and had never really been gone through. While moving might sound like a great time to go through stuff, it's actually rather full of lots of other stress, so we just ignored the already packed boxes one more time. Our shed was so full you could barely open the door. There was stuff in there from who knows how long ago, and stuff that really did not need to be saved and not all of it was well organized at all. There was also lots of stuff that we had shoved in there intending to go through it later - that hadn't happened yet.
So, while my mom was in town, we commissioned her assistance to help go through it. She has some strange un-earthly amount of energy. I have no idea where she gets it from, but I occasionally find it useful to take advantage of.
The shed has been a project that's been going on for a week or two now, and we are finally almost to the end. Going through the kids' clothes took several days. Mom and Katie were troopers and went through most of the new clothes for me (I had already gone through, organized and bagged TONS of clothes a year of so ago, but we had acquired several bags/boxes of new clothes since then that needed to be sorted). They also boxed everything up (not in bags anymore!) and put it back in the shed in an organized manner. No more bags of clothes everywhere, ripping every time we move it to see what's behind it to find the right size! Exciting!
We have made 3 trips to donate stuff, have quite a large pile of stuff for the trash that might take more than one week to get rid of, emptied and broken down more boxes than will fit in our recycle bin, emptied more boxes that still need to be broken down, and we now have quite a bit of empty shelf space in the shed! There is still some stuff in the house that needs to be organized and re-packed and put back in the shed, but as of tonight, all of the boxes have been gone through!
So, anyways, we had started to make a bit more progress on the rest of the stuff in the shed early this afternoon, but then got a call from some old friends that required us to stop what we were doing and go visit them! Who passes up a chance to visit old friends? Not us! Mark stayed with the kids while Mom, Katie and I went to met them at a nearby restaurant and chatted all afternoon and finally decided we needed to leave when we noticed we were about to be late for our dinner plans.
Last night, as we were realizing that we needed to do something to celebrate Mark being done with radiation, we could not come up with anything to do. It did not help that it was late at night and everyone was exhausted. Finally, in our exhausted, not wanting to put much energy into anything, barely thinking state, we decided we could go out to dinner! (yeah, super original, I know - but we were tired, and let's be honest - letting someone else cook and clean up is always on the menu!) We were on a bit of a time crunch with various schedules that needed to be considered, so we pulled ourselves away from a fun time talking and catching up at one restaurant and moved onto the next one for the day.
And that's about it. I can tell that it's late and my brain is not functioning at full capacity. I'm pretty sure I told that story backwards, starting with the middle and working my way to the beginning, with random trips to the end on the way... I hope you still get the idea:
Mark is done with radiation!! :D
Because he's technically in a study (he's the control group, so he's just getting standard treatment, but he's part of the study anyways) he will have an MRI in 4 weeks. The doctors are fairly certain that this MRI will not be overly helpful. If it were up to them, they'd wait and do a 3 month MRI. His brain should still have swelling from radiation after only 4 weeks so they likely won't be able to determine much. The good news is that we already know what the doctors will say. The test will come back inconclusive due to swelling. :)
The study wants an MRI every 2 months for the first year and every 4 months for the second year and every 6 months after that, so we have our marching orders for the next while. That will be the plan unless things change with his tumor.
Mark has been doing super well! Most people who see him at church and other places are amazed at how well he's doing. Aside from being a tiny bit slower physically (and I really mean a tiny bit) and having a rather large scar on his head, it would be hard to guess that he had brain surgery less than 3 months ago. He has been working one shift a week at his old job (just one shift, it's not what he used to work, but it's good for him to be working, even if it's just a little bit right now) and he is back to school and getting going with an (unpaid...) internship again.
He is also picking up a lot of the slack that I can't do anymore. (Gotta love my pregnancies! Just a few more months until I can fully function again. Yea!! Too bad it will get worse before it gets better. October sounds so far away still...) Mark is amazing with the kids, does more cooking than I do, does bed time more often than me, and willingly does both big and small errands for me, just so I don't have to - and I think because it's helping get his body used to doing stuff again and using muscles that have been dormant for a while.
Mark even ran for the first time since his surgery! We were at Cabella's looking at tents for my parents for our upcoming camping trip. While waiting outside for all the kids to finish with (annoyingly uncoordinated!) bathroom trips, he decided to race the kids to the end of the store. Turns out he can't outrun them yet... But it was so fun to see him running again! He only made one trip up and back willingly. I came out of a second (or third) bathroom trip with some child at the tail end of his run, and was so sad that I missed it! I wanted to see this new skill, so I convinced him that I needed a picture for memories' sake. He did it again just for me, but that was as much as his body could handle for one adventure.
And now, I am going to see if sleep will help this headache I've been fighting all day. Good night! I am very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow with no treatment to go to in the morning!
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
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!
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!
Monday, July 8, 2013
More Random Thoughts
Yesterday Rachel and I decided to visit our old ward in Lakeview, so we packed the kids up in the morning and headed down there for all three hours of church, it was a lot of fun to see some familiar faces and get caught up with a few old friends, there were plenty that we missed, however, so a return trip will probably be in the works in coming weeks. I feel inclined to mention just how blessed I have felt through this whole ordeal with cancer. From the very beginning there have been many things that have gone just right that have led to this experience being one that I have not only survived, but life has even been pretty good the last couple of months, not all good, by any stretch of the imagination, but good when it could have been bad, very bad. I’m grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that saw fit to send blessings along with this trial. Most of those blessings were put into place long before we became aware that this trial happening and the blessings would be needed. Which is my way of saying that you and others like you are those blessings I’m talking about, the way that we have been supported has been amazing! I always knew that I had a large and strong support network, but I had no idea what that would mean when it finally became needed; I feel bad for people who face these kinds of situations without such a network... that would be really hard! Not to say that this has been easy, but realizing how much harder it could be makes me glad things have turned out the way they have. I’m not to the point yet that I can say I’m glad I got cancer or would choose to have it if given a choice, but things really could have been much worse without even trying very hard. Today we took the kids to Seven Peaks to have some fun in the sun and water, and we all had a good time and are all very tired, especially Rachel. (ssshhhh, she’s napping, and so is Emily) We don’t have plans yet for the rest of the day except to return some dishes to people who delivered food, it will be nice to get that out of the way. Now that I mention it I remember that we were going to make some cookies to go with the dishes, I better go get started on that while Rachel gets some rest.
-Mark
-Mark
Sunday, June 30, 2013
More milestones
Along withbeing half-way through treatment, Friday also marked my first day back at work! And by day I mean night, because I'm keeping to grave shifts until I'm more physically back up to speed. Work went well, I didn't have any problems staying awake the whole shift, although I know I'm definitely not ready to go back to my old double-shift, that would take way more energy than I currently produce in a sixteen hour period. But I'm glad to be back to work and feeling like a productive, actual person again! Pretty soon I might even start to adjust to being functional and not feel out of place in everything I do... well, I can hope, right?
-Mark
-Mark
Saturday, June 29, 2013
milestones
I am realizing I forgot to mention that yesterday was my half-way through radiation point. I am finished with three of the six weeks that I will be getting radiation. So, hurray, half-way done!! Now the rest should be easy, unless that fatigue decides to sneak into the picture somewhere along the way. Until then I'm counting down the days until July 22 when I get to have my very last radiation treatment and then start the countdown until my next MRI to see if treatment worked or if I need to start all over from the very beginning. That is what we are most hoping to avoid. Well that and death, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, the tumor growing back could easily lead to death in a short period of time, so I'm going out on a limb and betting that the tumor doesn't even come back, but all this chemo and radiation have wiped out the last remnants of that misguided mass of rapidly replicating cells. I seriously hope to soon, in a few months or more, be able to say, like Rachel's awesome cousin Laurie, "I am cancer free!" I even got to talk to Laurie this morning, it was as much of a treat as the biscuits and gravy we had for breakfast. Those of you on the Gardner/Ball side of the family may know Laurie, but for everyone else let me just sum up that she is an inspiring survivor of cancer and has shared much of her experience with us and the world through her blog, which was a major inspiration for the documentation of our journey through cancer-land on this blog. So someday I want to be just like Laurie, or more specifically, just like Laurie is right now, without cancer. I would also like to be as good of a writer as she is and as talented at finding delicious recipes and foods. That woman seriously has good taste. But enough about my ambitions, Let the half-way celebration continue. I think I'm going to take Rachel out to dinner to celebrate. She is very tired from chasing children all day, but I think I might be able to rouse her with a promise of delicious Indian Food... We'll have to see! I'll let you know tomorrow how our celebration works out.
-Mark
-Mark
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