Lots of tears. Aaand on to the next procedure. I had the open-brain surgery last month which has left me with a very uncoordinated left hand. So now I’m keyboarding with one hand which is a major annoyance when you’re used to using both hands.

But of course that’s the least of it all. I still have a tumor in my cerebellum. The med team is going to laser it tomorrow morning (Gamma knife again) to try to buy me more time. Cliff has been a gem through all this — so supportive — and of course it’s always hard on everyone, including my two wonderful kids. It’s just way life goes sometimes. At least I got to marry a fine man and raise my children and live in this beautiful world.

I suppose I should be worried, but I’m not at all. I got two opinions from top neurosurgeons, and they both said this was necessary surgery and that gamma knife surgery is not a good option for these tumors.

So I really don’t have a choice, and I’m going for it. I may have some coordination/balance issues afterwards, but I’ll just do the best I can. Hopefully, with time, activity, and physical therapy, this will improve.

Also tomorrrow I’ll have my fourth brain MRI in a month…bam bam bam bam. Those things are loud. But they give important data, so onward we go.

So I am scheduled for invasive brain surgery on Monday at 4pm.

I’m not looking forward to being in the hospital again so soon. It seems as if I just got out. But I have had severe headaches lately and am unsteady on my feet, so maybe this will take care of the symptoms…or at least prevent the symptoms from getting worse.

I am expecting physical therapy afterwards because the surgeon is going to have to cut through healthy brain tissue.

Then I suddenly began throwing up and couldn’t stand upright. I drove to the oncologist for rehydration, and they wheeled me right over to the hospital and checked me in.

There is no cancer showing up in my body now, only in my cerebellum. It’s unusual enough that the med team was concerned it was a new kind of cancer. They are reluctant to go through healthy brain tissue to take a biopsy, but a biopsy is the only way they’ll know what kind of cancer it really is. Because of the risks to my motor skills (vroom vroom), they are going on the data they have, which is of course colon cancer.

It seems that a tumor or else some edemic necrotic tissue (from the gamma knife surgery last year) was pressing on my cerebellum, causing the symptoms. After four days in the hospital and a high dose of steroids to reduce the swelling, I was released. Hurray.

I’ll have another brain MRI this Thursday, then meet with a second neurosurgeon the following Tuesday. After that, I will have some kind of brain procedure (probably gamma knife again) to kill the tumors.

I’ll get some time to recover from that, which may involve some PT, and then I’ll be starting some chemo. It won’t be hard and heavy chemo, as I had before (twelve rounds every two weeks for six months). This time I’ll have a couple of rounds, then be allowed to recuperate, then a couple more rounds, etc. — more sporadic. The med team thinks the cancer is lurking in my body on a microscopic (i.e., non-tumor-size) level, and they want to go after it.

All this recent news made my husband, children, and me very somber at first. I wasn’t weepy, but of course none of this is good news.

But we are working through it and treasuring our time together, and now I am feeling remarkably peaceful about it all. I am painting, cooking new recipes, hiking, doing yoga again, enjoying my family and three loving pets, and I’m even doing a little knitting, now that our golden is a year old and not such a terror with yarn.

Regardless of our circumstances, there is always so much to be grateful for. I have wept many tears on our back patio, which is sort of a sanctuary for me. But recently just standing out there and taking some deep breaths of fresh, crisp winter air feels healing to me. It seems to clear my head and give me hope.

They thought they killed the nodule a year ago with the lasers, but apparently they did not. All that needs to survive is one cancer cell.

So I am ready to go ahead with the treatment that they recommend. I am also sending the data to my oncologist at Univ of Colorado Cancer Center for his medical team to review. He is my second opinion guy. He has a lot of resources there and does clinical trials too, although I am not ready for trials yet.

It is eerie to be just waiting. My days are pretty full, but in the back of my mind is a quiet question: Is there anything growing in me that shouldn’t be? No easy answer to that one. I know that colon cancer can be persistent, and I’m in a late stage. But I will be most happy to live a long time.

Lately, though, I’ve been very under the weather with severe allergies. Nothing has worked very well. I’m off to the doc tomorrow to beg for some relief, if there is such a thing.

Evan and Molly

Our six-month-old puppy gets spayed tomorrow. Molly will be gone all day, and I hope to feel better while she’s gone and get something done. She is a real handful. The vet technician calls her “rambunctious” as she hauls him through the door, her feet getting purchase on the carpet, the tech’s arms flailing to the sides desperately grabbing for support.

How a dog can be such a terror and have such a sweet face is beyond me. She even purrs, sort of — a soft rumbling noise accompanied by sleepy eyes — when she’s particularly content. Aww.

She will be a wonderful adult dog, if we all can survive that long.

The radiologist thinks it could be some kind of bleeding thing instead of a met, but the neurosurgeon disagrees. One of the oncologists agrees with the neurosurgeon, the other one sides with the radiologist.

I’m sort of easy-going about it all this time. What else can I do? I don’t know what to worry about…a met? an aneurysm? It’s all too much, so I’m just trying to go with the flow.

In a day or so, I may have more info. So I’ll wait and see.

My oncology file is very large. When I commented on it, the oncologist smiled and told me it was better than having a thin file.

Let the nodule diminish and that file keep growing.

More art:

Inlet

Field 2

Reservoir

On the Rocks

Here I am with three ponytails (one’s in the back) just to make me look extra cute. Okay, it’s really so the surgeon can screw the frame into my head where the hair is parted without having to go through hair or shave any of it off. You can see the two front screws going into my forehead.

Here they have put a dome on my head. I don’t remember why, but I guess it was necessary at the time.

The goofy smiles are because you’re always supposed to smile for the camera, right? And I was on some meds….

This photo is after the procedure. They put me in a hospital bed and fed me…a big magenta flower? I don’t remember the flower. I probably ate it.

My neurosurgeon and a physicist monitored the whole procedure. The physicist checked in on me all the time, very comforting. They were very pleased and said they were confident it was a success. The MRI in July will give them more data about the results.

The nodule was in the balance area of my cerebellum, and I have had no balance problems since the procedure.

Today is my brother’s birthday. Happy birthday, Doug!

Sooo, tomorrow I go in for gamma knife brain surgery. No cutting, just lots of laser beams aimed into my head, killing whatever is at their point of intersection — in this case, the metastasis in my cerebellum.

I will be able to go home the same day. Brain surgery has come a long way.

On a happier note, we are adjusting to a new puppy in our household. Molly is a ten-week-old golden retriever. She joins Jesse the bichon and Romi the cat. The housetraining is a pain, but she has given us many laughs during the two weeks we have had her.

Molly and pals

Our cat likes dogs, so that adjustment has been smooth. Jesse the bichon was not too sure about Molly for a while but is playing with her now.

Also fun: Cliff and I just got back from visiting the elementary school where our daughter teaches art. They are having an all-school art show this evening, and we were very impressed with the kids’ artwork. Our son showed up too, so the family was all together.

On brain surgery eve, all is well in our household. And Romi the cat is at the keyboard, supervising my writing.