A "Great" Scan & End of Rest Month

Friends and family,

The past month of healing, since the end of Eden's radiation therapy, has been good. Eden slowly has regained her energy level and has kept up her physical activity - running, walking, yoga, and pilates - about 4 days per week. She looks great, feels great, and you wouldn't know anything was wrong if she wasn't missing some hair on her head.

The biggest, and best news, is that just the other day we had a "baseline MRI scan". The purpose, you guessed it, is to establish a baseline image of her brain post-radiation and pre-chemotherapy, which will be a comparison point going forward as she is scanned every few months over the years ahead. Going into the MRI, which we have known about for a long time, I'll admit we were both nervous. We felt nervous because the last MRI we saw was hours after her surgery on July 21st. At that point, the surgical site in her brain was lit up on the scan because of the trauma of the wound. This new baseline scan would actually show us what the cavity left behind really looks like, and what the edges of the cavity look like. We just weren't quite sure what we'd see.

I'll cut the suspense - which is already in the title of this post - the doc said it was a "great scan." What does that mean?  Well, it means that the tumor mass was removed well. We knew that already, but he confirmed with a clean scan that it looks good. Most importantly, it showed that radiation has kept it at bay. We know, however, that brain tumors - unlike other tumors in the body - do not have clean margins. There is no way to get every malignant cell in the brain. So chemotherapy, which begins this Monday Nov 7, is designed to "mop up" as much as possible.

Mopping up the brain with chemotherapy takes a while. Eden will have 6 courses of treatment, each 6 weeks long. Her treatment, called PCV, consists of three drugs: Lomustine, Procarbazine, and Vincristine. Two of the three are taken orally, at home. The third, Vincristine, is an IV push, administered at UW Medical Center. The drugs are taken on various, specific days throughout the first 4 weeks of each 6 week cycle. Each has its own fun set of side effects which we will be doing our best to minimize. Throughout each cycle, the doctors will monitor Eden's blood counts. We know they will go down throughout treatment, but the key is to not let them go down too far as it could result in a delay before the next cycle. Brighter minds than ours will be keeping us on course as best as possible.

It's a long road ahead, but Eden has about the best attitude I can imagine. When a leading doctor from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), whom we had not met, came into the exam room the other day, he said with a smile, "yeah, we know about you. You may be the first patient we know of who completed a half marathon during radiation."

Thanks to everyone who has asked how they can help. Since we're chartering into the unknown right now, there's a bit of not knowing what we don't know. That said, at some point soon, meals and rides may be the ideal logistical help. But always, always, always, saying hello and keeping Eden happy and positive is appreciated. I'm going to be militant about hand-washing and using purel, but we definitely want visitors (provided you're not sick, of course :)

In sum, Eden rocked the surgery and recovery, blazed through radiation, and now chemo is on deck. She's stepping up to bat with the determination of her hometown Cubs.