We saw the neurosurgeon on July 26th and he said just about what the oncologist did (as far as the scan looked pretty good, some "signal changes" in some of the tissue (that could be from radiation, chemo, or cancer) that we will keep watching with additional scans), but he did actually show us the scans and showed us what the signal changes look like. So no major new info there, but still a nice appointment; good to see a visual of my love's brain. He also informed us that the visual changes my love has been having are most likely treatment related and that they will hopefully fix themselves in time. The neurosurgeon also agreed with the "maintenance chemo" plan the oncologist laid out, so my love started the first round of that the evening of July 26th.
The higher dosage, maintenance chemo round went pretty well, all in all. My love was quite tired throughout, which is to be expected, but had fairly minimal nausea which we are very thankful for. I was planning on trying to visit my family at the end of July, beginning of August, as my brother was in Iowa to see the family, but felt I was needed more here, so I stayed with my love. This turned out to be a good thing since my love's grandfather ended up being taken to the hospital on Sunday the 29th. He was in the hospital for just less than a week, during which my love's mother was very busy spending time at the hospital and taking care of things at her parents' home, while my love was exhausted and not feeling 100%, so it was good that I was able to help out with things here.
On Monday, though, while driving my love back from physical and speech therapies, I got a very flat tire (I think something in the construction zone on the way there snagged it as it had an ugly gash in it), so that was additional unneeded stress. Thankfully, I pulled into the parking lot of Wolverine Printing and a couple of their employees were extremely kind and generous and put my spare tire on for us. I was so grateful, since otherwise my love's dad would have had to come out to help after he got off work that evening and my love and I would have been without a car for the day. So yeah, the drama and stress has a tendency to never end apparently, but it could have certainly been worse. No one was hurt, and we were helped by some really nice people.
On Saturday, August 4th was the "Miles for Hope: Moving Towards A Cure" walk for brain tumor research, so Friday night my love's parents and I stayed up until midnight decorating t-shirts with one of my love's favorite quotes. The t-shirts were gray (the color for brain cancer awareness) and said "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not!" The quote is from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, and we felt it was quite fitting in this situation as well. We had a few mishaps in making the t-shirts, but in the end, we all had gray shirts with matching quotes, which is what we were going for :). Below is a picture of me, my love, and my love's dad wearing our shirts at the walk. My love is trying to give my love's dad "bunny ears" with my love's troublesome left hand, you just can't see them as much from the angle the picture was taken at. Still a fun picture I think, and it gives you an idea of what the shirts looked like.
The walk itself was special, but rather exhausting, especially for my love. My love and I signed up to walk the one mile portion, but the halfway point for the one mile (where we were supposed to turn around) was not clearly marked, or if it was, we missed it, so we just kept walking. The 5k portion of the walk that my love's parents participated in, started in a different direction, but looped around and met up with our trail. Long story short, we walked a long way (not sure exactly how long, but we're pretty sure it was quite a bit more than a mile). We got to walk the last portion with my love's parents and some friends (both a new-found friend and a couple of people my love knew from teenage years). We crossed the finish line around an hour after we started and a bunch of people clapped and cheered as we finished. It was quite an accomplishment for my love. Afterward, my love was pretty much exhausted and it took a couple days to recuperate, but I think it was worth it. It was something my love looked forward to doing and was able to accomplish. A special thank you to all of you who supported us in this walk financially, as well as those who spread the word about it to others. It really means a lot to me, my love, and my love's family. More than anything we want to see a cure for this, and hopefully things like this can help us get closer to that goal.
So yeah, those are the main things that have been going on here. My love and I had been hoping to make it up to Milwaukee this weekend, but it's just not going to work out. Maybe we can sometime in the not too distant future.
Love and hugs to you all!
