Cancer-Free for Christmas

Okay, okay...I've received more e-mails and phone calls than I can count asking for an update, so here it is!

After discharge from the hospital, Pooh and I tried to occupy ourselves in Los Angeles, doing our best to "sight-see" in LA and Beverly Hills on a budget...which is actually quite a challenge. We ended up spending most of our time sitting in bookstores reading and relaxing -- I still fatigue quite easily, and can only go for about an hour before I need to rest or nap for an hour or two. I was even awakened by a security guard in the Thousand Oaks Galleria, who politely informed me that "sleeping wasn't permitted in the mall." I was tempted to take off my skull cap and throw out the brain cancer card, but decided against it...poor guy was just doing his job. Still, it would have been fun. ;-)

One of the great things that helped speed my recovery was a visit from my longtime friend and newly-minted marathoner JD, who flew down from Seattle just to spend some time together. We've been friends for 27 years, and this guy can make time fly. All of a sudden, a week from major brain surgery, I'm singing with the band at a piano bar in Universal Studios:
Strolling the Santa Monica Pier:
Even having our picture taken with Santa:
As a side note, this is particularly bizarre for me, since I never believed in Santa -- as far back as I can remember, I've known that it was mom and dad, and I don't think I've EVER had my picture taken with Santa before. So now, thanks to JD, at the age of 36 I've finally had my picture taken with Santa...and a real Santa at that!

So, after a few days with JD, Monday arrived and we checked back in with the neurosurgeon. He did another exam, looked at the incision to see how things were healing, and gave the approval for the staples to be removed. He also brought in the neuro-oncologist to talk through additional treatment options. The short version of the story is that we've tried surgery alone, and the tumors returned. We then tried surgery followed by 22 rounds of chemo, and the tumors returned again. So, the best alternative at this point is surgery followed by radiation. These alternatives were presented to the Cedars-Sinai Tumor Board, and the votes were about split...some in favor of radiation, some in favor of waiting. The problem is, radiation is normally a "silver bullet," and at my age it's very early to burn that card...given how well I respond to surgery, doing radiation at this point may eliminate an option we'd like to use later on. However, at the same time, radiation makes a lot of sense, since we've now removed the bulk of the cancer, and have a unique opportunity to kill whatever cancerous portions we didn't get with surgery and knock this thing out once and for all. Both the neurosurgeon and the neuro-oncologist, and both Pooh and I, are leaning in favor of radiation. We'll meet with our docs and NIH and get a second opinion, but I suspect we'll follow this surgery with radiation. After those discussions, the staples came out -- ready for the nasty pics? Okay, you've been warned...here they are...before:
During:
After:
The procedure was far less painful than last time, and pretty easy overall. Now, we're safely back in Virginia, reunited with little Monkey (who is now walking, by the way), and happily on the road to recovery.  I still struggle with some pretty significant headaches, and some of the medications cause a bit of nausea and stomach problems, but I really can't complain after all I've been through.  

On the training front, I have to wait about six weeks before I can run again, but that should still leave me enough time to train for the Rock-N-Roll Seattle Marathon in June.  I'm still aiming for that 3:45 that eluded me a few weeks ago!  In other news, it appears that Santa was good to me this year, and a treadmill may be under the tree.  I'm not a fan, but the weather here just isn't as conducive to running as it was in Monterey.  We're very happy -- we're home for Christmas, little Monkey remembered us, I'm unaffected by surgery, and just dealing with a few headaches and minor problems.  The prayers and support of all the bloggers, friends, and family members have been instrumental over the past few weeks -- thank you all so much, and Merry Christmas!