Dear Family and Friends,
This last
Tuesday we traveled to Seattle so that Janae could receive an MRI scan.
Later we met with Dr. Rockhill to review the scan. He told us that he
felt both of the tumors that have been threatening Janae may be just a little
bit smaller. He didn’t feel that the change was significant other than
neither of the tumors seems to have grown any larger. This continues to be
good news considering how much the newest tumor had been growing from May thru
August. However, he showed us on the scan that the swelling in the
brain has increased quite a bit, maybe almost doubling from her last scan a
month ago. We shared that Janae has had headaches almost continually for
the past 2 months. Dr Rockhill explained that this swelling and
inflammation in the brain was due to using the Gamma Knife and is one of the
side effects of using radiation. Certainly the headaches are a result of
all of the swelling going on in her brain. He felt that I needed to
increase her steroids once again to see if that could help reduce the swelling
in the brain. Unfortunately, this also has other consequences especially
making it so that she retains lots of water and gets somewhat bloated.
He felt that
Janae should receive another scan in a couple of months just to keep an eye on
things. He showed us that there is one other tumor a bit larger than we
would like to see it, that doesn’t yet appear to be growing or causing any
threat just yet. Janae has been receiving physical therapy for the past
few weeks and as typical of her, she is impressing the staff with her
determination and desire to improve each week. She is making small
improvements in the use of her left hand and left foot and her strength
continues to improve.
We find
ourselves feeling very grateful for all of our many blessings and for all of
our wonderful family members and great friends. We feel positive that
that we are seeing the effects of additional blessings being answered on both
of our behalves. We thank each of you for all of your prayers and acts of
kindness that you provide. This has been a long journey and we are very
grateful for each of you and for the role you play in our lives. We love you all,
Calvin and Janae
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