The second round of chemo is over!!!!

Hello Everyone!!! I hope this post finds you all healthy and happy. The sun has been shining and that seems like such a blessing. We've all made it through another winter in the Pacific Northwest. I noticed tonight that it was still light out past 5:30. Oh....I felt so happy!!!!

Richard finished his second round of chemotherapy last Friday evening. This time, during his week off, he continued taking the anti-nausea medication and he has done much better than last time. However.....he still is extremely tired and suffers some of the other side effects of the chemo.....cold chills, foggy brain, lack of appetite. He and I still feel so confident that this regime is the right one....and so when we start feeling down about how he feels we just remember the little "pac-men" (our chemo visualization that we've come up with) traveling around his brain searching for and chomping up any little cancer cells that may have survived through surgery, radiation and chemo.

Because of his suppressed auto-immune system (another chemo side effect) Richard has now caught a nasty bug that has morphed into strep throat!!!! I just can't believe it....chemo AND strep throat!!! That just seems so wrong. Our doctor immediately (today) put him on huge antibiotics....the big guns....so hopefully he'll be feeling better soon. People who take Temador (his specific type of chemo therapy) are very prone to lung infections and so he's been on a low dose antibiotic ever since he's been in the clinical trial.....but apparently those nasty little cold/strep bugs weren't deterred and were able to infect him anyway. Boy are they sorry now!!!!

The hardest part for both of us is to maintain our focus. Given our belief that our thoughts create our reality we try desperately to continue to believe that Richard is going to be a long term survivor of this brain cancer. However....we both are very aware of the seriousness of his disease and of the sad statistics that are published. We definately hold each other up....as daily we read about sad cases of glioblastoma, level 4 brain cancer. We remind each other of the successful surgery that Richard had where ALL of the tumor and margins were removed. And we remember the fabulous team that has put together the radiation and chemo therapy protocol for Richard's specific case. In addition, we hang onto the words of all of Rick's doctors who have told us that he is in the best possible statistical group. And then we look into each other's eyes and remember how much we love each other and how we have so much more to do here together. Three short years of marriage is not enough. We constantly assure one another that truly our hearts tell us that Richard will be a long term survivor!!! That's exactly how we get back on track. Exactly!!!!!

This week has been particularly difficult because we heard about a well known neurologist who lost his battle with GBM. This man was on the cutting edge of glioblastoma research, working on a new type of chemo therapy that is looking at using vaccines in treatment. Amazingly and sadly after years into his research he was, himself, diagnosed with a GBM three years ago. He had two years of tumor free MRIs after a vert aggressive treatment protocol of surgery, radiation and chemo therapy. During the past year he experienced tumor regrowth. After a valiant fight he died earlier in the week. This news hit us hard. It has given us time to, once again, evaluate our decisions and our tactics and again we have resumed our "walk in faith", holding one another's hands tightly.

My angels.... please continue sending Richard prayers of healing light. He is treasured by so many.

Love to you all!

Love Sherri