A minor milestone

Meg came home from the hospital with prescriptions for all sorts of medications. Various ones have been discontinued or refilled, but one bottle has stuck with us: the Vitamin B-12.

Tomorrow Meg will take the last pill from the bottle on the right, meaning that she will have been out of the hospital for 100 days.

She continues fit but still tires easily and unpredictably. Her sister Caryn (who was here for the surgery) is here with her youngest son on a college visit. She'll be here for several days, and kindly took this picture of the happy family.

Really encouraging news

It was with some trepidation that Meg and I went to Swedish Hospital for the MRI of her brain last week: it's the only definitive way to know what's going on in there! Dr. Jost had surgically removed ~ 95% of the tumor in December, and the carefully focused radiation treatments, with accompanying Temodar chemotherapy, had been designed to eliminate as much of the remainder as possible. Since then Meg's started the clinical trial of  infusions of Avastin/placebo every two weeks, and was about to start the first cycle of (the increased dose of) Temodar for 5 days each month: the research protocol stipulates an MRI every 2 cycles of treatment.

All our fears vanished when Dr. Jost charged into the examining room with a huge grin on her face, and asked us if we wanted to see some lovely pictures. She then showed us the MRIs on the screen, explained to us that she could see no evidence of any tumor at this time, and kindly allowed me to photograph them. Sensing that they'd finish up here, she pulled up an equivalent view from the day before surgery.  As you can see, both images are transverse sections of Meg's brain: Dr. Jost chose these views both to show the tumor at its largest, and to include the eyes (white circles at the top) to orient you. Views are as if you were standing by Meg's feet and staring up into her head, so left is on the right, and vice-versa.

You can't miss the obvious 2 inch diameter tumor on the right side of the brain in the "before" image, and you'll immediately see that there's no trace of it in the picture taken last week. Note also that the bulk of the tumor had pushed the brain center-line way over the mid-line, but that everything has returned to its proper location in last week's picture. My dentist kindly admired these pictures when I showed them to her [OK, and to everyone else] on my iPhone, and told me that the remaining little cavity where the tumor used to be is called a crypt. Dr. Jost was very impressed with how well Meg is doing and sent us on our happy way.

Meg's overall health continues to improve and to impress everyone. She tolerated the doubled dose of Temodar with no ill effects, and continues to do well at work. She still gets tired in the evenings, and typically goes to bed early, but is up and raring to go by the next morning.  Any lingering doubts about her health were dispelled this weekend when she:

• went on a 20 mile bike-ride on an unpaved trail in the Snoqualmie Valley: we had lunch on a spectacular old wood railroad trestle over a rushing creek.
• played her clarinet for half an hour, having received the OK from the doctor.
• did the hard part of figuring out our taxes.

We're looking forward to traveling back east for Nick's graduation in Philadelphia this May, and to our visit to Washington DC after that. I'll take the opportunity to drag her round all the museums & galleries that I used to enjoy when I lived in Baltimore, and we have an appointment with a doctor at the National Institute of Health to discuss which of the many clinical trials available might be most appropriate for Meg as needed.

Week with Elspeth, then Meg returns to the lab

Elspeth (known to her friends as Ely) spent a week with us, and visited a lab at the Hutch where she's planning to do research for her Master's project this summer. She also found time to get together with a couple of friends, and hang around with Meg.

Friday was a lovely day, so I (Andrew) took the day off work, and we went for a trip to the Olympic Peninsula, by car and ferryboats. We drove the length of the Hood Canal, a long convoluted arm of the Puget Sound, and enjoyed sunshine, wind & mountain views and stopped at places we've been driving past for years. Here are a few pictures to entice you to visit there.

Meg returned to work on Monday, having been away for almost exactly 3 months. She'd been doing some science from home, but felt it was time to get back into the thick of things. While she'd been away, her colleagues had been doing some things for her, but also seemed so confident in her return that they'd been neglecting some of her lab duties. So she spent a lot of the first day playing catch up, as well as chatting with colleagues she hadn't seen for a while.

She's planning on working about 80% time, and is still finding out how much she's really up to. She's been getting stuff done, perhaps more than she should, and has been rather tired in the evenings. We drove on Monday, but she walked to and from the lab on Tuesday and Wednesday. She continues to feel pretty good, other than the tiredness, somewhat frequent headaches, and an aggravating itchiness over much of her body.

Next week Meg will have an MRI of her brain, visits with doctors, an infusion of her Avastin/placebo (clinical trial), and then starts the first 5 day/month cycle of her oral chemotherapy: it's twice the previous dose but she gets to take it at night, with the hope of sleeping through any side-effects. The freezer full of donated meals continues to be invaluable, especially after tiring days at the lab: many thanks again to all!

(click on pictures to enlarge & admire)

Comings and goings

Radiation finished 2  weeks ago, and Meg's in the middle of a 4 week "vacation" from chemotherapy, which starts again (at a higher dose, but only 5 days/month) in 2 weeks. So she was well rested and recovered when our "children" turned up to visit. She's still somewhat tired, balding, and suffering from assorted smaller complaints (itching, disturbed sense of taste, flaky skin) but is managing to enjoy life. She does some science, all the cooking, some relaxing, and is looking forward to starting back in the lab on March 8th. She greatly appreciates the prepared meals, supplied by colleagues, that wait in the freezer for the days when fatigue and hunger coincide. Many thanks to all!

Nick arrived Friday evening, despite lots of snow in Philadelphia, on his way to a conference in Los Angeles, where he gets to present his thesis work. He'll be getting his Ph.D. in May, and helped us make  plane, hotel and train reservations for our trip back to the East Coast. We'll spend the weekend with him, attend his graduation, meet his boyfriend Dan and explore a bit of Philadelphia. Then we'll take a train down to the Washington DC area and stay with a couple of friends. We're planning to visit assorted museums, galleries and other sights in the DC area, and will also be visiting the National Institute of Health for a consultation with the head of neuro-oncology: he'll be able to advise us about the best next-stage therapies for Meg, if/when that becomes necessary. Our two friends (undergraduate colleague of Meg, former graduate student in Andrew's lab) are also planning assorted other activities for us. On Monday,  Nick accompanied Meg to her latest (every 2 week) infusion of the drug/placebo, and then flew off to his conference.

Elspeth flew out here on Saturday evening (also battling snow) and is spending the week with us. We went out to her favorite restaurant on Sunday (Than Brothers phở on Broadway; see Wikipedia for description), stopped by Molly Moon's ice cream, and enjoyed assorted flavors of ice cream on our return home. Elspeth and Meg have been relaxing together at home, while I'm off at the lab, and they treated themselves to a Thai lunch on 15th Avenue today: better  Pad Thai than Elspeth can get in Ann Arbor. Elspeth's hoping to find a lab in Seattle where she can do the thesis research for her University of Michigan Master's degree, so that she can spend some of the summer with us.

In summary, Meg seems to be healing well and enjoying life and family, despite the inevitably harsh side effects of the assorted treatments she's received, and is hopeful that the upcoming rounds of chemotherapy will be as easy to tolerate.