"After All...Tomorrow is Another Day" - Scarlett O'Hara

Although I was quite frustrated yesterday, it turns out all I needed was a little rest, food, attention from my husband, and an opportunity to vent. This morning I awoke fresh and ready to greet whatever comes next. So glad today is Saturday, I got to sleep in a little, do some reading, have a big breakfast, text some friends, and shower at 2:00 PM. Everyone needs a little downtime once in a while. Although MD Anderson is a wonderful place, they keep us very busy. It's as if they think our entire purpose for being in Houston is to take care of my cancer or something. Don't they know that they are constantly interrupting our brain tumor vacation? 

Today has been mostly learning more about the diet. When Julie Guidry-Moulard, my colleague from Lousiana Tech, was here she gave me a book called Keto Clarity. I've been reading it in conjunction with other studies specifically about GBM and diet. I'm learning so much about the little details that I need to attend to. Everyone is obviously different in how they metabolize glucose, how they process proteins, etc., and this book is helping to me to understand my body better. I did test myself again and I'm still in ketosis so I am doing something right, I guess. This book, another Julie gave me, and the cookbooks that another colleague, Ginny Kidwell, sent earlier in this process are allowing me to feel more confident in this diet, allowing me to be more creative in my meal planning, and helping me feel a lot of hope in this method of treatment. As the nutritionist at MDA stated, "There is no guarantee that this diet will have any affect, but in the research it's the diet that has been shown to make the most difference." I've read mice studies and human studies. In the mice studies the effect of ketosis on GBM is extraordinary. The rate of tumor growth is slowed to 12% of the growth of the non-ketosis diets. In the human studies typically they put GBM patients on the diet for treatment. They show low growth and in some cases, the tumors shrink. Once the treatment is over, the patients go back to high carb diets and the tumors are back within weeks or months. The only possible explanation for not staying on this diet indefinitely is that it's just very difficult to understand and/or stick to. However, I don't think either of those things is a barrier for me. I'm pretty stubborn and determined- I once stayed mad at Jason for five years.

Another reality is that there could be something about me or my tumor that doesn't react to this diet. This is to be revealed at a later date and not something I need to worry about right now because it's not something I can control. What I can do right now is to learn and follow this diet each day as if my life depends on it because, actually, it does.

Brief update on how I'm feeling about the insurance situation. I did some searching yesterday and found a provision in the Affordable Care Act that states that employers cannot offer different benefit coverage to different employees. This is rooted in the idea that employers who offer third party insurance cannot give higher paid executives different benefits than lower level employees. I'm pretty sure that this is up for interpretation in my case as well, however, the spirit of this law is clearly anti-discrimination and these words are actually used in the language. The state of Texas considers certain universities to be "elite" universities and others to be "second tier." This is clearly documented and would be easy to demonstrate based on basic things like funding and priority admissions for the top 10% of high school seniors. Therefore, the failure to offer faculty and staff at Texas Tech the same coverage as faculty and staff at the "elite" Texas universities is discriminatory and against the spirit of the ACA anti-discriminatory provisions. I'm ready to take this as far as possible. Not only is this affecting me, this affects all Texas employees in this situation. They obviously don't understand what a bleeding heart I am. Did I mention I'm stubborn and determined?