Memorial Day Summary

(As predicted in the previous post, we did have enjoyable visits to the Air & Space Museum, and to Mount Vernon [see 1st picture] before returning to Seattle).

It's now been almost 6 months since Meg's surgery (December 14th) and her health continues to improve.  She now has lots of energy, though she tends to doze off in the evening.  The odd set of symptoms that affected her a while ago (extreme fatigue, always cold, no appetite, food tasting overly sweet or salty) have gone away as mysteriously as they appeared, and we of course hope that they will never return.

We had a most enjoyable East Coast trip, have returned to work in Seattle and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Elspeth (and her cat) tomorrow. She'll be here for two months while she does fish research in a lab at the Hutch (for her Master's thesis) as well as working at the Capitol Hill Trader Joe's (look for the young woman with the salmon tattoo on her arm).

Meg announced that she now feels perfectly normal, and has done so for the last week or so. She proved it by spending a couple of hours pruning trees in our backyard, when it finally cleared up this afternoon. She's also happy to note that she has NO medical appointments this week.

Coming soon to this blog:

• report on our visit to the Neuro-Oncology doctors  at the National Institute of Health (as promised before!)
• details of my visit to the Brain Cancer Research lab at Swedish Hospital, where Meg was treated - they're doing all the right molecular things to help plan rational treatments for brain tumors.
• details of the Seattle Brain Cancer fundraiser walk, at the end of June, which raises money for the lab at Swedish Hospital.

Vacation News

Despite having just finished 5 days of chemotherapy, Meg has had lots of energy, a good appetite and none of the taste oddities that have plagued her in the past. As a result, she's been able to enjoy our time with friends in Washington DC.

Our adventures in brief:

• Monday touristing with Nick in Philadelphia: Liberty Bell etc
• Train to DC to stay with Sue Holbeck, former colleague of Andrew's.
• Visits to assorted museums and galleries and sights on the Washington DC mall.
• On Wednesday morning we visited the neuro-oncology doctors at the National Institute of Health: details later, but everything looks great.
• Thursday: Sue took us on a field trip to historic Harper's Ferry: history, hiking, views (upper picture).
• Friday (after some touristing)  we went out to dinner with Sue and with Cathie Cooper, a college friend of Meg's, and then went to stay with Cathie.
• Saturday saw Cathie taking us hiking in the C & O Canal National Historical Park on the Potomac River (lower picture). After dinner at Cathie's home we retired to Cathie's living room, where Meg learnt the wonders of sports on the Wii!
• Today (rainy) we return to the Washington Mall, where Andrew can enjoy the Air and Space Museum without boring Meg stiff, as she will have Cathie for company.
• On Monday, Cathie is planning to take us to Mount Vernon, before dropping us at the airport for our return to the other Washington.

I've posted yet more pictures!

(minor aside: Meg's colorful Buff™headwear makes it very easy to locate her in crowds at museums, airports etc).

Nick's graduation

Nick, Zack (advisor), Andrew, Meg, Dan (boyfriend)

We all had a wonderful day at Nick's Ph.D. graduation in computer science at Penn today. Meg and Andrew flew to Philadelphia on Friday, poked around town on Saturday, spent a lovely Sunday afternoon watching Nick graduate, then had the rest of the day with Nick and Dan. More pictures here.

Toasting the graduate: the disembodied hand is Andrew's.

More good news

Meg had an MRI on Tuesday: she gets them every 2 months, with extras as dictated by the research protocol.  This one looked just like the one in May: no signs of any recurrence of the tumor! The physician's assistant and the neurosurgeon told us the good news, and the radiologist's report (which I was sending to the doctor at the National Institute of Health whom we're consulting when we're back there next week) confirmed and extended the good news.  The MRI of the tumor area looked just like the previous one, so I won't burden you with it. However the CD of images, which I was also sending to the NIH, let you play around with the assorted views, and I'm unable to resist sharing this image of Meg's head.

Talking of images, I'll be posting assorted pictures of Nick's graduation and of our touristing around DC on this photo page.

(this page proofread by Meg and posted at Sea-Tac airport, as we await our plane to Philadelphia and Nick's Ph.D. graduation)

Meg continues to slowly improve

Meg's endurance and appetite continue to slowly improve. At her most tired, she'd be snoozing on the couch immediately after dinner. These days she lasts till 10 PM or so, before she nods off, then goes upstairs to bed to read for 30 minutes or so. We've also managed to watch whole TV shows (typically "Foyle's War" from the library) at one sitting: previously used to involve a lot of dozing and rewinding!

She's also commented several times that her appetite is returning to normal: she actually feels hungry, and does not find all foods to be unpleasantly sweet or strongly flavored, as she used to. I've even managed to get a few triangles of Toblerone into her after dinner!

Another sign of improving health is the appearance of new hair on top of her head: after radiation and chemotherapy lots of it fell out, leaving her with a  very bald top and right side to her head (that on the left thinned greatly but never all fell out). The photo tries to capture the view from the top: the new hair is smooth and soft and Meg's had to endure my repeated stroking of it (note from Meg- now I know how a cat feels).

What we don't know is whether these improvements will persist, or whether they will be reversed by the next round of chemotherapy (it's 5 days on, 23 days off, and starts again on Wednesday). At the patient support group I'd asked about this and got conflicting answers: one patient reported such cyclic changes in vigor, another noted that each month was different!

We'll be going back east, for Nick's graduation and a visit to Washington DC, immediately after the chemotherapy cycle starts - please keep your fingers crossed on our behalf.

We had a pleasant weekend in Seattle, enjoying the sunshine while Andrew had his (pre-graduation) haircut, and Meg searched for books for the trip. On Sunday we enjoyed a performance by the clarinet choir that she's been a part of since its inception: Meg greatly enjoyed visiting with all the choir members after the performance.