This break was a long time in coming. It sure is great not dealing with punishing Spa visits every two weeks. Maggie’s in great spirits and has seemingly boundless energy, just like things used to be. Everything is going great!
Last Friday she had her Spa visit for Avastin. Everything went fine, of course. However, she has been having some back pains which she mentioned to the doctor. Blam! “Emergency” MRI appointment for Monday afternoon. Heh. So 4:30 on Monday she got an MRI of her back which, as we both expected, showed up nothing to worry about.
Her work is going great. And Lori, after all this time helping us get through the tough times, is moving out this weekend. For the first time almost since we came home from Baylor the house will be just us two again. It’s bittersweet.
On the research front, three things stick out as interesting. The most interesting but least likely to be useful is the recent announcement of doctors in Seattle that have used a patient’s own immune cells to clone infection-fighting T-cells to fight cancer. It’s been amazingly effective, at least in one patient. When they started the experiment he had Stage IV skin cancer (melanoma). Two months later he had no trace of disease and remains disease-free three years later.
Another interesting thing I’m watching is this new research on Vitamin D and its effects on colon cancer. Apparently the two don’t get along very well. Higher levels of Vitamin D in the blood of colon cancer survivors increased life expectancy significantly. We’ll definitely be checking with Dr. Loukas on this one.
The final science I’ve been watching (thanks to my friend Francis, whose wife Karen shares Maggie’s condition), is called Cyber Knife. It’s a very new, very high-tech mechanism for apply super-focused beams of radiation for a non-invasive “removal” of all detectable tumors. This video is quite an eye-full, especially if you like robots. And since Maggie remains and is expected to remain ineligible for a liver resection, CyberKnife may be the next best (possibly even better!) thing.
Ditto on the bittersweet feelings!
I can’t believe it’s been almost a year that I have shared a home with Chris and Maggie. It has been a blessing to me to of been able to spend so much one on one time with Maggie, these are memories that I will cherish forever!
I love you guys! Thank you for being the best family a girl could ever hope to have!
Thank you, Lori, for doing all that you’ve done to make Chris’s and Maggie’s lives so much easier through the past year. Despite the fact that the word “easy” is certainly not the appropriate description for what any of you have battled through, I have to think that maybe we all have new definitions for words like “difficult,” “easy,” and “normal.” Whatever the definitions are, I am truly grateful that you were there with them.
Good post.