Medical update......

Hey all, it's Deb here. Bill's asked me to give a quick update of our doctor appointment this afternoon, so here goes..........

We met with the oncologist today after going into the lab to give blood (checking white/red blood cells, levels of the anti-seizure medication and blood thinner medication). The meeting with Dr. Tai was an important one, as Bill will begin his 6 month (and unofficial) last round of chemotherapy this upcoming Monday. I personally can't believe it's been 6 months of the mega dose of Chemo, Bill has done so well, he's unbelievable!!! Anyhow, the "really big" MRI is scheduled for the end of Jan. (28th to be exact). Statistics show that 6 months post the beginning of mega dose of Chemo is the typical indicator of what's really going on with the brain tumor, if anything. We'll sit down with Dr. Tai the first week of Feb. to discuss the results of the scan. He said today, that his gut reaction is to end the chemo treatments if the results are clean/clear. Chemo isn't something that you want to continue to take just for fun - it's got major short term/long term issues and it's just plain wicked medicine for the brain, killing off good and bad cells all at once. It's odd to hear that we just now wait to see what happens, but it's all in your perspective I suppose. Personally, I don't think about it as waiting for the other shoe to drop, it's about getting a vacation from this thing and living carefree for as long as we're given....(I'm trying to talk Billy into a Disneyland trip after we get the all clear....hee hee).

Billy will probably also be able to discontinue taking the blood thinner medication (Coumadin) and the end of Jan., as that will be the standard 6 months treatment for the blood clots he had in July. He had chest pains a few weeks back, so we got him a CT scan, which came back clear. Dr. Tai said that if there had been any clots in his lungs again, they would have shown up, so ending that medication in a few weeks from now is pretty safe, and Billy loves this because it's one less pill to take!!

He'll stay on the anti-seizure medication indefinitely. He's doing really well, although the holidays took a bit out of all of us. It was WONDERFUL having Jane and Juan here, just having them around is a massive piece of mind for me - and the boys love spending time with Gma and Gpa, doing things like running errands, making cookies and playing music for them. I'm sure there will be a post from Bill soon regarding the outdoor hockey game we all watched on New Years Day or the fact that little league sign ups are around the corner, etc. All the fun stuff he likes to talk about.

I'll be sure to hijack his blog from time to time with medical updates, and certainly once we get results from the next months appointments.

Love and gratitude to everyone - and a special thanks to those that post, we may not reach out to each and every one of you, but it warms our hearts to see your quick one liners on the blog - we're reading them and we appreciate the time you take to give us all a shout out!!!

Deb