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Shannon Rinaldo - Journal

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Posted 2018-02-23T22:57:00Z

We're not getting LITT just yet

Well, we met with the LITT expert on Wednesday, although he was adamant that he is a neurosurgeon, not the "LITT guy." So, of course, from here on out that's how I will refer to him. He's now "Dr. LITT." Clearly no one warned him about me. He wasn't my favorite doctor ever but it actually doesn't matter because he said I'm not a good candidate for the procedure. Basically, my little spots are too close to vascular structures and ventricles. These structures are full of blood or cerebral spinal fluid, which will cool down the laser. Since the laser uses heat to kill the problematic cells, if the heat is cooled by these structures, the procedure becomes less effective. [...]

Posted 2018-02-21T01:23:25Z

The path is always changing

The past 48 hours have been full of excitement. After all, what's more exciting than the unfolding saga of Shannon's GBM journey?! Yesterday Lois and I were at the Neuro-ophthalmologist's office for four hours, although it felt like longer. The office was in a nice mid-rise and had a fabulous view of Houston from all angles.The doctor was a force to be reckoned with. She was evaluating me while simultaneously teaching her students. At one point she asked her student a question and demanded the answer. When the student didn't answer, she said, "If you know the answer, tell me. If you don't know the answer, go find out." When the student hesitated, the doctor said, "If you don't know the answer, go right now, find out, and come back to tell me the answer!" I was so impressed with how quickly the student scurried out of the room that I started to wonder if this method would work with marketing graduate students. I can hear me now, "What does it mean that this statistic is non-significant? What does it tell us about our hypothesis? What other statistics could we use to bolster our stated findings? If you don't know, go figure it out!"[...]

Posted 2018-02-04T19:54:33Z

Schedule changes, More platelets needed, and crime show ideas.

Since my last post, I've done a lot and yet there is really nothing to update. After I was told that I didn't need to platelet transfusion, I settled in and started taking care of business in Houston. There were many things to do around the house. Jason was supposed to come on Monday for my checkup and scan plus I continued to go over to give them more and more blood until I'm pretty sure they'd counted every platelet in there. On Monday morning the care team called and said, of course, they needed more blood AND since my platelets were not expected to come up enough for chemo by the following Wednesday, they wanted to put off the scan and check up for 2 more weeks. In my experience, they like to keep the scans on schedule with the chemo dosage and vice versa but don't like to go more than 8 weeks without a scan. These people are so predictable! What was not predictable is that when I called Jason to tell him my check up was canceled, he admitted that he was already on his way. He was trying to surprise me, which never works out for him. Apparently every time he tries to surprise me with something, I either go out and buy/plan/etc. the thing for myself or something else happens to mess up his surprise. I'm pretty sure he's suspicious that I paid off my care team to cancel my appointments just to thwart him once again. First off, I don't think my care team would take a bribe. Nor would they need the money. Secondly, I didn't know that he was already on his way. I didn't even suspect it because usually work takes precedent over just about everything else. If there's no emergency, he will work until the very last minute. Leaving in a non-emergency shows real growth in his workaholic-ism therapy![...]