August 28th Update

Gentle readers,

The whole Stevens/Clark family, August 18th.  "Silly Picture"

We've been back from a wonderful trip to Pawleys Island sinceSunday and are getting back into the swing of things.  We celebrated several birthdays at the two weeks at the beach and came back stuffed on shrimp, and cake and ice cream.  the boys (John and Troy and I) made a quick day trip up to Aiken and joined Joe Spencer for a round of golf at my old club, Palmetto Golf Club, one of the jewels of golf in the U.S.

South Carolina was generally hot, and occasionally wet, but we got lots of beach time and creek time as well.  We split the drive into two days each way, which helped a lot, especially for Zora, who had to do the driving.

As you may remember from my last posting, the most recent MRI shows that there is some new abnormal growth in my brain.Not unexpected with the kind of critter we're dealing with.  The good news is that I'm relatively symptom-free, so the immediate plan from the oncologist(whom I saw today) is to continue the current biweekly medication, (Avastin), which has shown periods of success in battling the beastie until or unless I begin to show some symptoms, or the followup head shots suggest that the beastie is too happy there.  I had hoped to triangulate this with the neurosurgeon this week at Johns Hopkins, but he had to cancel our appointment at the last minute for an emergency.  I am not really a prime candidate for surgery right now, because Avastin interferes with normal healing processes, and because the beastie is not readily presentable for surgery.

I have rescheduled the neurosurgeon for a consult in 2 weeks, and we'll have another "head shot" in about 6-8 weeks to see if the Avastin is doing any good, or if Mr. Beastie is growing.

In the meantime, I have enough get up and go to do most of the things I like, even if not so well as in the past.  We are concerned, but also optimistic.  And there are still a few things on my to do list that I intend to get moving on, like a proper celebration of our septadecadal birthdays this year.

Tonight was the first night of church choir rehearsal for the season, which looks like a really good one.  It was great to be back with so many dear friends, and get to work at making music again.

Thanks for your good wishes, prayers and encouragement.  They mean a LOT and we appreciate them all.

7 August Update

Gentle readers,

Well, the results are in but there is no dancing in the street as of yet.  I had the routine head shot (MRI) done Friday and got the results today from the radiologist via the oncologist.  This is the first head shot since March or April.  Will see the neuroslicer in a couple of weeks to triangulate what we know.  What we think we know now is that while I have been on Avastin for 8 months and it has kept me clean at least thru March and shrunk the known beastie, it is no longer as effective as it seemed to be. There is now evidence of new tumor appearance, likely related to the original GBM beastie, and not in a very good region of the brain.  The good news is that while I am less than 100% in capability,  I haven't had any major changes in symptoms and am still functioning very well.  The prevailing opinion is that I should continue the meds for another couple of months and see what the next head shot shows (unless, of course, new symptoms arise.) The neurosurgeon may have another opinion, but we'll see about that in time, too. For the reader who wants to know more, google up the splemium of the corpus callosum

At this point we face the future with optimism given that nothing they have found has reduced my capacity to enjoy and participate in LIFE.  Sure there are clouds on the horizon, but there always have been - We've known all along that at some time the beast would return.  But I still intend to shoot my age before I go, especially given the large digits involved in my age this year.

In the meantime, we leave on the 10th for our annual family pilgrimage to Pawleys Island for golf and beach and fishing.  Good times a'comin'. 

As we have in the past, we thank you for your love, and prayers and support.  Our load is much lighter knowing you are helping tote this barge.