Radiation Mile Marker

Male praying mantises live such a short, exciting life. More often than not they meet their untimely demise at the jaws of their ladies (such as the beauty pictured here). The queen pictured here sits on our front steps and surveys her domain as one of the last mantises standing at the end of the season. We all can only hope for such an exciting life; making the most of each moment while knowing some femme fatal could be your undoing. I imagine the chances of seeing male mantises by October are miniscule, but not ever zero and that’s a hopeful thought.

This past Thursday marked the half way point of this year's 6 week radiation journey. It's 15 minutes, 5 days a week, 30 minutes away from home. Some days could be "doctor" days or they could be "cognitive" days where Paul does tests for the memory preservation clinical trial he's in. It's not the one we hoped for at this stage (i.e. anything that may affect the disease progression aka kick this damn thing in the teeth), but it's not nothing.

Chemo is every day for the 6 weeks as well; something that has shown to be more effective for grade 4 tumors than sequential radiation and chemo. If I could leave a 1 star review of this treatment somewhere I would. I took away 4 of the stars for the nausea, fatigue and general shittiness that is cancer treatment. If we have a good MRI in December after treatment I may revise my feelings.

Next steps for the treatment journey include continuing chemo and radiation through November 14th. Then that aforementioned MRI to see the tumor's response to treatment before starting more rounds of chemo.

Paul also started on a Keto diet which has some limited research, both clinical and anecdotal, showing it has a positive impact on protecting healthy brain cells during cancer treatment and may increase time between recurrences of the tumor. It's certainly been an adjustment. It’s hard to tell if he’s tired from just treatment or both treatment and diet, but that did not prevent us from getting out to Crane’s Orchard this weekend to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather and a walk through the property.

We're continuing to work with the Brain Tumor Network to prepare for applying to clinical trials in the next 2 phases of this cancer where he may be eligible. My hope is that this thing (We've named the tumor Hank; apologies to anyone with that name but it's now forever on my shit list) comes back years from now and in the winter. One of the potential cancer centers is in Houston and no one, not even Texans, want to go there in July.

Paul’s health is good and we're looking forward to spending Halloween together as a family. Matthew is going to be a character from a video game and we will be Gomez and Morticia Adams. Matthew insists that adults NEVER get dressed up and we absolutely had to. Never mind the part where his aunt, uncle, and grandmother dress up every single year; apparently they don't count. 

We also adopted a cat, or more like a cat adopted us. A few weeks ago a stray kitten appeared at our doorstep. It’s not uncommon to have stray cats wander through the area for a time and then drift off again, but this one was a kitten and she was determined to stick around. I have never been a cat person; I’ve been very vocal about never wanting a cat in my life. I knew that was all over the moment she climbed into my 9 year-old’s arms and closed her eyes, purring.

So, now we have a cat.

Queen demon (aka “Winter” to her subjects)

She’s much more like a dog with her love of belly rubs and walking in wet tubs. I like to comfort myself by thinking that I wouldn’t have begrudgingly acquiesced to this sweet little hellion if she wasn’t actually sweet most of the time. She’s probably the nicest cat I’ve ever met which helps my feelings of her when she and the dogs thunder after each other from one end of the house to the other while I’m on work calls.