An Anniversary

Meg's brain surgery was on December 14th, 2009.  Elspeth's Facebook post has upstaged me so effectively that I will say no more, other than to note that Meg continues well, exactly as noted in recent posts.

Life is now normal enough that I have (after a several year lapse) written a Christmas letter, grandly titled the "Taylor-Holmes Annual Report 2010", which you can download here, should you wish.

In that letter I rashly promised a website with extra news and photos: it has lots of photos and a bit of extra writing.

Much to be thankful for

We are most thankful that:

First snowy day

• Meg's MRI last Monday showed no cause for concern.  Let's keep it that way.
• Our son Nick flew out from NYC for Thanksgiving last Tuesday, and made it safely to our house, despite our snowy, icy, hilly streets. He took the (new) light rail from the airport to downtown and walked from there.
• That same snowy day Andrew made it safely to his oral surgeon's appointment, thanks to a ride from a passing firefighter on his way home (for which, many thanks).
• Our aging (and recently very sick) cat is doing much better now, thanks to a trip to the kitty Emergency Room. She's eating up a storm and back to her normal self.

Thanksgiving 2010

• We had a pleasant but quiet Thanksgiving meal with Nick, who has now returned to NYC but will be back for Christmas, for which Meg has already begun to prepare.

Christmas cakes are baked way before Christmas

And we continue to be thankful for the excellent and very caring treatment that Meg gets from the doctors, nurses and clinic staff, and for all the support and advice that Andrew gets from the patient & caregiver support groups.

Still chugging along

Meg's health continues pretty much as it was last month: she's generally OK but somewhat tired. The end of her clinical trial is now within sight (2/2/11), though we do not yet know what treatment (if any) she will have after that.

The first picture shows another minor milestone - it's Meg returning from performing in her first concert since returning to her orchestra this Fall. If you'd like to hear them, the main performance will be on Sunday, October 31st at  3PM at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle.

The other picture is of Meg, her sister and their mother on the beach in Santa Barbara. We've just returned from a visit (together with her brother and sister) to her parents, where we celebrated Meg's birthday. More pictures here, should you be interested.

We're starting to think about holidays and celebrations: Nick has his tickets to visit us over Thanksgiving, and both kids have tickets for Christmas, so Meg is starting on the Christmas cake this weekend. She'll also be celebrating the date of her surgery (December 14th) as "Recalled to life day".

Another uneventful month

Weather had continued fine, so we've been out biking and hiking, as shown here (click to enlarge).

Meg continues as last month: pretty fit, sometimes rather tired, often has some pain while eating.

Upcoming events:

• A trip to Santa Barbara to visit Meg's parents
• An MRI just before Thanksgiving.
• Nick will come out from New York to spend Thanksgiving with us.

That's it: no news remains good news!

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.

Backpacking

Meg's medical life revolves around infusions every 2 weeks,  rounds of chemotherapy / doctor & physicians' assistant visits every 4 weeks and MRI's 2 months out of 3 (don't ask!). This last week she had NO medical appointments, the weather finally improved, Andrew got his teeth-cleaning rescheduled, and we got to go off on a backpacking trip, precisely 8 months after she was admitted to the hospital.

We drove to near a pass about 75 miles east of Seattle for a 2 night stay in the wilderness area. It was midweek and we saw very few people. It was a good first trip as there were 2 lakes on the trail: we aimed for the further & higher one, but were happy to stop at the nearer one when it became clear that the 2,000 foot elevation gain with the packs was all that we were up for. As we approached Surprise Lake, a forest ranger appeared (as if by magic) and led us to the most wonderful campsite on the shore of the lake.

The next day was gorgeous, we were fully recovered, and we greatly enjoyed a not too strenuous hike up Surprise Mountain, which we'd been admiring from our tent door! We had a relaxed, and solitary, lunch on top, admired all the surrounding mountains, and returned to our tent in time for dinner. Meg had fun playing with her Buff head-scarf, finding imaginative ways to keep the voracious and numerous msoquitos at bay. 

On the 3rd day we packed up and hiked back to the car: we both greatly enjoyed the trip and were relieved that Meg was able to do so well, despite her ongoing chemotherapy. We're now deciding where to go and what to do in the next medical-free week in a couple of weeks.

You can see some pictures on this Facebook album.