Post Labor Day update

Meg's health continues as it has these last couple of months - pretty good, but with some tiredness, and still some pain while eating.

The neurosurgeon was not concerned about the jaw pain, and Meg continues to find ways to work around it, by avoiding eating anything that's too hard or too thick.  Elspeth, the fish biologist, has declared that Meg is "gape limited".

Meg was concerned that these jaw issues might impede her clarinet playing, or might be exacerbated by them, but it does not seem to be an issue.

She's been practising her clarinet diligently, and has happily rejoined her clarinet choir and community orchestra, both of which have just restarted after a Summer hiatus. She was very pleased with her playing with both groups, and they were all very happy to see her among them again: she got a round of applause from the orchestra when she walked into the rehearsal room. (The picture shows her cataloging and organizing music for the clarinet choir.)

MRI & vacation

First the important news. Today we learnt the results of Meg's recent MRI: NO evidence of any regrowth of her brain tumor. She's so healthy and stable that they may not send her for another MRI for 3 months. Picture shows the neuro-oncologist showing the results to Meg.

Now the vacation news. Encouraged by the previous backpacking trip, we set off to the North Cascades for a week's camping and backpacking vacation. First picture in our set of photos shows where we went. We carefully watched (and believed) the weather forecasts for the area, which paid off. We got three glorious sunny days for our backpacking trip north along the Pacific Crest Trail, and returned to a campground near the trailhead, at about 6000'.

We were not surprised that the weather had deteriorated when we woke up on the 4th day. We went for a day-hike south on the same trail that day, and were treated to low clouds, high winds and occasional tiny hail. On our return to the campsite  we found mighty winds, a semi-collapsed tent and a temperature of 38 degrees, as measured by our new car! We retreated to the valley for a final night's (warmer) camping, then did a lovely loop hike on the way home. We'd backpacked in the area with the kids some years ago, and it was great to re-visit such spectacular trails. Meg was noticeably more tired that normal when back-packing, but was her normal vigorous self when day-hiking. I guess this means I'll have to carry more of our stuff next time!

Link to the pictures.