Winter-Spring 2022 Update

Well it's that time again-my 6 month scans were done last week."Is this even possible?", "Wow!", "Amazing!"-Some responses from my family when I told them about my Feb 22nd MRI and Dr Taylor's (my oncologist) interpretation. Enough with the suspense-I'll get to it already: Dr Taylor said that this scan actually looked IMPROVED as compared to my last scan! While I had been manifesting so much positivity since my last scans-visualizing this positive trend continuing. In the back of my mind, I didn't believe that I could get this lucky twice! Dr Taylor thinks that my body has been clearing out scar tissue and dead tumor cells over the last few years. In brain cancer, remission is not a word I had ever heard. As I understand it, there can be so many other metabolic activities going on in the brain beyond tumor growth/shrinkage, it's very difficult to definitively say that there are zero tumor cells present in the brain. Since I have a hard time explaining my situation in laypersons terms, I asked Dr Taylor if she would call my case a remission based on the last few MRIs, and she said Yes, your brain seems to have "calmed down" from possible over-treatment - radiation collateral damage. 

Suffice it to say this is way better news than I could have expected, and I'm not even receiving any treatment now. This is really good. We're completely blown away!

Some other fun things I've been up to are wonderful trips over the holidays: I've been to Florida to visit family, Dan's incredible 98 year old grandma included. In Florida, Dan and his brother, David, helped me with my one-armed freestyle stroke until I was able to do a few feet on my own. I can only describe it as a not-so-pretty combination of drowning and swimming, seriously! But I did make forward progress!   I also took a last minute trip into Chicago during a major snowstorm to help my parents out while my mom was briefly hospitalized for high blood pressure. Thank you to my very very thoughtful friends for checking in on how she was doing. Fortunately, she was discharged the day after I arrived and my visit turned into a Zazove family reunion. It was a really special time with lots of laughing, and delicious food. Hugs and kisses to my dear dear childhood friend Paulette and her husband for braving the weather and picking me up from the airport.

A day after returning to Seattle, Dan and I flew to Hawaii to visit some friends renting a house in Kona. The house is situated on an avocado and macadamia nut farm. We also drove out to Volcanoes National Park to see an active volcano. In the night time rain, Dan and his friends scouted out trails to try to get me as close as possible to the views. They are rockstars! Adam and Ben, I'm talking about you! We saw smoke vents and glowing lava-it was an unbelievable sight! And seeing how many people of all ages were out there that night in the pouring rain renewed my faith in humanity's appreciation of nature.

Next month, I'm excited to restart my weekly glass fusing and slumping classes. What's slumping?It's a glass-working term that means using a mold  to shape a piece of glass, into a dish or a vase for example. Another hobby I've taken up recently is chess. Learning chess was my pandemic goal. I meet virtually with a chessmaster and I'm slowly learning the game. It's so fun to challenge my brain in that way and it keeps me busy. If you play and want an easy win, hit me up on chess.com. My username is EdenJZ.

I'm also looking forward to more travel in April! I'm headed to Chicago early in the month to see friends and family. And in late April, I'm doing a girls trip in Austin, TX. The weather should be warm there by then. 

For those of you that may wonder about our weather in Seattle, we have milder temperatures than the midwest and east coast. Instead of snow, we get a lot of rain-also referred to as showers, sprinkles, downpour, etc... If it's not raining, it's bitter cold. It's rare to see the sunin the fall and winter. Life just goes on in the rain, often without umbrellas. Seattleites manage the weather with frequent trips to REI for raingear. Many keep busy with skiing, snowshoeing, hiking. When we lived east of Seattle in Issaquah, about a 45 minute drive to the Cascades (like actual mountains), we attempted skiing as a family hobby. But we quickly realized that we might only be out on the slopes for about as long as it took us to get us and the girls bundled up, ski gear on. So it never became our family hobby. To make it through the wet grey months, we have just learned to plan a trip to somewhere warm to fuel up on sunshine and vitamin D. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a thing here. I often get asked about snow in Seattle, and yes, we do get it in the city and around the state, most often for a few days in December. We do get excited when it happens though! 

Since I've probably bored you to tears with the weather talk, I won't even get started on the winter olympics. Thanks for staying with me till the end! Stay warm and safe my loves...

xoxoxo