A Very Merry Christmas To All!

First off, I want to take this time to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas from our family to yours. This holiday season we have really taken time to recognize and appreciate our very many blessings. Now more than ever we are holding our friends and family very close to us.

This week was a very momentous one because my mom officially began her first round of cancer treatments. She started chemotherapy and radiation therapy yesterday at the St. Joseph's Cancer Care Center. She starts everyday with a light breakfast and a small cocktail of medications to help ease her through the treatments. Her doctors prescribed a wonderful new antinausea medication that she is on 24/7 to preventively treat nausea, but also has 2 other medications on hand at home for if any breakthrough nausea does occur. She is also on a broad spectrum antibiotic to ward off any bugs she could pick up while her immune system is down from the chemo. I have fully stocked the house with antibacterial wipes, sprays and hand sanitizer everywhere :) For the next 29 days (of a 30 day treatment plan) she will take her chemotherapy pill (Temodar) at home. Following this first round of chemo, we are told she will be on a 5 day dose every couple weeks.

Today I was able to go with her to her radiation appointment and see first hand the amazing care she is getting. Her radiation tech Aaron was very friendly and took my dad and I back to see the TomoTherapy machine and be with my mom while she got ready for treatment. Once they put on her special radiation mask they moved her into the machine and did a couple minutes to scans to make sure the machine was correctly lined to allow the radiation to hit the most specific target on her head. During the actual radiation they showed us on the computer screen the MRI scans of my mom's brain taken today and the areas and levels of dosing for radiation that the doctors had ordered. The actual radiation treatment took only 4 minutes!

The whole process is very noninvasive and was over before I knew it. I did find myself getting a little emotional when it came time to see the mask put on her and see her go into the big machine. But like I have so many other times in my life, I drew strength from my mom. Today and everyday from now I want to be strong for her when she needs reassurance. She felt great afterward and even felt up to a little last minute grocery shopping. We are told that because she so recently started her treatment, she may not be experiencing any side effects until the next couple days.

We are looking forward to having a nice quiet holiday at home with our closest family. We can't tell you how much it means to my mom and our entire family that so many wonderful people have have reached out to us. It really goes to show that the best gift is to let someone know that you love and cherish them and communicate that to them, every chance you get. Merry Christmas and may God bless your family this holiday season as much as He has blessed ours.

"Ready to fight"

Sorry once again for taking so long to give you all an update, but I love being able to pass on PROMISING and EXCITING news…

So lets go back to the end of last week. On Friday my parents travelled down to Seattle to meet with Dr. Chamberlain, Chief of Neuro Oncology at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. He has been consulting with my mom’s oncologists in Bellingham and is 100% in support of their current plan for her treatment. He is also very excited about the clinical trial in Bellingham that my mom will be participating in and promised us that she will be getting the state of the art treatment at St. Joseph Cancer Center. Dr. Chamberlain will continue to oversee my mom’s care from Seattle and he encouraged her to be treated in Bellingham because there is no reason for her to travel when she can get the very best care right here at home. The one recommendation that Dr. Chamberlain did make was that he would like my mom to begin radiation, chemotherapy and the clinical trial all at the same time and as soon as possible. So beginning this week, she spent almost every day at St. Joseph Cancer Center (SJCC). She was prescribed her first round of chemotherapy and was fitted for a special mask that she will be wearing during her radiation treatments.

Radiation therapy uses various forms of radiation to safely and effectively treat cancer and other diseases. Radiation works by damaging cells, normal cells are able to repair themselves, whereas cancer cells cannot. My mom’s 5 day a week radiation treatment will take place in a special machine called TomoTherapy. It is an 8 foot tall device with a doughnut-like hole in its center and is one of only 120 such machines in the world! It uses 3D images to guide cancer-fighting radiation treatments with such precision it can hit a tumor the size of a pea. It allows the doctors to better target the radiation in my mom’s head to protect healthy cells from damage. Each session will last about 20 minutes and she won’t see or feel a thing. My mom shares my fear of small tight spaces but luckily one of her wonderful oncology nurses is teaching her to use acupressure to help her relax before she goes into the machine. Radiation side effects occur only in the area that is being treated and not everyone has these side effects. If they do occur, it is usually in the second half of the treatment course and could include hair loss, nausea and vomiting, fatigue and mild skin reactions.

The new chemotherapy treatment my mom will be receiving is cutting edge and the VERY BEST! Chemotherapy is a group of medicines that can kill cancer cells directly. My mom will be given a pill form of chemo, which is nice because she can take it in the comfort of her own home. It is considered a systemic therapy because the medicine will go through the bloodstream to the entire body and for this reason patients tend to experience many more side effects than radiation. The newer forms of chemo (like the one my mom will be on) have made some breakthroughs by producing very little side effects in some patients.

We have an INCREDIBLE family doctors office that have been a pillar of support to my mom these last couple weeks. Marcy Hipskind spent an hour talking with my parents and giving them a lot of encouragement, telling them “People live so much longer and so much BETTER with cancer these days!” Little did we know that Marcy was already very much on board! Earlier in the week she had contacted my mom’s surgeon and oncologists and presented my mom’s case to the Tumor Board at St. Josephs Hospital. During the board meeting her radiation doctor described my mom as “a vivacious woman, full of life and ready to fight!” It gives me such comfort and hope to hear that so many knowledgeable doctors are following my mom’s treatment closely and they themselves are getting inspiration from my mom!

We are currently just waiting for the first radiation day at SJCC to be scheduled, then chemotherapy and the clinical trial will begin as well. My parents were told it could be as early as Monday December 21st. My mom is feeling strong, encouraged and very supported by all of our incredible friends and family. She’s even felt up to working out at the gym, which has encouraged me to get my hiney in gear again  God bless you all for being so patient and understanding with my blogging…there has been so much information coming at us so quickly, I really am trying to do my best to keep everyone up to date. I promise to include more about the clinical trial as soon as I myself, can become educated on the process. Thank you for all the heartfelt emails, texts and phone calls I’ve received. One that particularly stood out to me this week was an email (including the picture I posted) from our dear friends Laurie & Bob Winters who currently live all the way over in Boston:

“Attached is a picture of the candle I burn every day in prayer, hope, optimism and love for your Mom. We are lighting a pretty candle, made by women in Honduras in a program that supports them, in your honor Tricia, every day. It shines beautifully for you and carries our prayers and love for your healing and strength.”

Plan of Action

This Friday we spent almost 5 hours with the wonderful people that work at St. Joseph’s Cancer Center in Bellingham. We received a ton of information about the treatment options and the overall process my mom will be facing. Learning that my mom has cancer has brought on a flood of feelings and concerns for the future. The people at St. Joseph’s Cancer Center understand just how overwhelming this can be and are helping us learn as much as possible about what we may experience. Right here in Bellingham they offer the best available technology, techniques and state-of-the-art equipment available to treat cancer. The staff have already been so supportive and uplifting to deal with.

The very good news is that the prognosis that came with my mom’s diagnosis really is much more positive that we had originally hoped for. After meeting with several different oncologists, we chose Michael Taylor (Radiation Oncologist) to monitor and plan my mom’s treatment. She liked his “warm & fuzzy” bedside manner and the fact that he brings in his golden retriever to the office from time to time  Dr. Taylor is very optimistic because her tumor was so small, was removed completely and my mom is in such good health to begin her course of treatment. We have an initial plan to begin her first radiation treatment starting December 10th. Radiation therapy will be 5 days a week and continue for 6 weeks. We also were told that chemotherapy is actually very effective in treating this type of brain cancer. A 4-6 week course of chemotherapy will follow the radiation therapy. Frequent MRI’s will be done throughout the first couple months of treatment, to keep an eye on any tumor regrowth but at this point the doctors don’t expect to see another tumor popping up any time soon. During treatment she also has access to some pretty great alternative therapies including a dietician, massage therapist and acupuncturist.

It is important for you all to know that we are still actively pursuing other opinions and specialists for further treatment options down the road. First of all we have already requested a 2nd reading of the tumor pathology report to be sent to UW. Unfortunately even after triple checking everything, mistakes are still made in medicine and we want to make sure we know for sure exactly what kind of cancer we are dealing with. Also, St. Josephs has already presented to us the option for my mom to participate in an ongoing clinical trial for glioblastomas. We will be asking lots of questions and be doing some extensive research about this trial before making a decision about this course of treatment. But it is so wonderful to know that we have OPTIONS! Even just by word of mouth we are hearing about new treatments that have worked for other brain cancer survivors and we are getting more and more hopeful for a positive outcome.

Here is a personal message from my mom…
“Thank you EVERYONE for all your love, support and healing words. I promise I am thinking about all of you just as much as you have been thinking about me. Please know that all of your phonecalls, emails and blog comments mean the world to me! Just because I haven’t been able to speak with you or see you yet, doesn’t mean that I haven’t been strengthened and uplifted by your thoughts and warm gestures. I’m feeling stronger everyday and my family wants me to preserve my energy for starting my first round of treatment next week. I want to reinforce the POSITIVE outlook we are choosing to have for the future. Love you all!!!”
-Tricia

We hope that by sharing this information with all of you will help you feel more connected to our family and give my mom continued strength on our journey.
Please feel free to email me at Tanisita16@aol.com with any more resources or medical contacts that could be of use to my mom. Feel free to visit the St. Joseph Cancer Center website www.peacehealth.org/cancer. The more we learn the more empowered we become to help my mom fight this battle.

Pray

We are sorry it has taken so long to update the blog, we know you've all been waiting to hear the results from my Mom's biopsy. Unfortunately on Monday my family got some upsetting news that the tumor that they removed during surgery was not what they had originally thought it was. Instead it was a stage 4 malignant glioblastoma multiformes. What does that mean? Well we aren't really sure yet what that means. As a family we are still trying to digest this news and quickly become as educated as possible for the road we are about to travel down. It is very important to my mom that we keep everyone she cares about well informed of what is going on.

The first thing people have been asking is "how is Tricia doing?" To put everyone a little at ease my mom is doing GREAT. She continues to have a smile on her face daily and has a very positive attitude and outlook for the future. Never have I been so amazed and grateful for the ongoing prayers, love and support from our family and friends. Her recovery from surgery is going great and she goes in on December 9th to have her staples removed from her head and start her first course of radiation therapy. As far as we know chemotherapy is not an option for this type of cancer because it cannot cross through the blood brain barrier.

Of course we plan on getting a 2nd, 3rd and 4th opinion down in Seattle for the best course of treatment. We are so lucky to live so close to some of the very best cancer treatment centers in the country. We may have an appointment as early as next Monday with Dr. Mark Chamberlin, Chief of Neuro Oncology at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. There is also a doctor in Oregon at Oregon Health Science that specializes in his research on this specific type of tumor. The world of medicine is advancing everyday with new breakthroughs in cancer research. We are going to explore EVERY option to make sure my mom has the best care possible.

We know this news is hard to take in and it has been so hard for me to try to find the right words to describe how we are feeling at this time. So many people have been sharing with us miracle stories of people they know that have lived a long time with brain tumors. We do not believe in timelines or odds, personally I believe they were made to be broken and defied. My mom is the picture of good health, already has such a positive attitude and is ready to battle! We are asking everyone to please continue to pray, pray, pray. It gives us great comfort knowing how many people are praying for our family. God bless you all, more to come soon I promise.

She's Home

After a long day of waiting for the doctor, my Mom finally got the ok to go home. She was MORE than ready to leave her room, come home and sleep in her own bed and eat some good food. She will be getting waited on hand and foot and can't wait to catch up on her Tivo shows. The nursing staff were so wonderful at the hospital, they took excellent care of my Mom and spent quite a bit of time visiting with the 4 of us in her room. I think they appreciated having such an easy patient! Her physical therapist told me the whole surgical floor was talking about how quickly she was recovering. It is a huge relief for our family to have her back at home, we are all going to sleep a lot better tonight. God blessed our Mom this week for her surgery and we pray He will continue to watch over her during her recovery and while we wait for the results from her tumor biopsy.

Beauty Queen

My Mom is downright perky this morning! They removed the drain from her head early this morning and she said she feels much more comfortable now that its out. She was up and walking around the hall again this morning with physical therapy and even got to take her first shower. She does get really tired after moving around for short periods of time and then starts having trouble finding her words (totally normal after the surgery she had).

Taryn fixed her up with a very fashionable head scarf because she has been feeling self conscious about her bandage. Her speech is getting better everyday and she's just mixing up a few of her words now and then. She actually sent my sister a text message this morning, which made perfect sense to us :)

There is a little bit of talk from the nurses about sending her home today. Her nurse just came in to remove her IV, which is almost always a good sign that a patient is going home. We are just waiting for her surgeon to make his rounds and give us the final word. When she does get to home we are going to make sure she lays low and gets lots of rest and won't be able to have visitors stopping by the house for at least a week or so. We really want her to have a nice quiet environment to heal up and get her strength back. We would also like to ask that family and friends call either my Dad's, Taryn's or my cell phone instead of our home phone. The blog is also a great place to leave her messages, we've been reading the comments to her daily. Check back soon, we will let everyone know when she's heading home.

Up and moving!

This afternoon about 2:30 my Mom got the ok to leave ICU and go out to the main surgical floor. She got bumped from a clear liquid diet straight up to a regular diet and was so excited to have a couple bites of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. The oncall surgeon came into visit her shortly before she left ICU and told her she was doing fabulous. She now has her own private room on the 3rd surgical floor and was already up and walking around in the hallway with the physical therapist.

All of her nurses and aids cannot believe how well she's doing moving around on her own. The pain comes and goes depending on her activity level, so we are making sure she's getting as much rest as possible. Mac and Skye were able to come in and see her for a little while today, they have been so wonderful and supportive to our family. Dad hasn't left my Mom's side since yesterday and is learning quite a few nursing skills :) More updates to come tomorrow.

"I Will Survive"

After getting a good night's sleep my Mom is feeling good this morning. We were sitting in her room watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Someone was singing I Will Survive and she says "I love this song" and starts dancing her feet around in the hospital bed. Taryn pampered her this morning with some face lotion and a massage :) Dr. Goldman came in to check on her at 1:30am this morning and said she looked terrific. They took her in for a CT scan at 3am to check for any extra swelling or bleeds from the surgery and things look good.

Her head is bothering her a little more today than yesterday but the pain is tolerable she says. She was able to have some clear fluids this morning for breakfast (juice, tea) and can't wait for some chicken broth and jello for lunch, she's "starving" she says! It sounds like the plan is to move her out of ICU later this afternoon and up to the main floor.

With everything going on with my Mom's surgery I woke up this morning and almost completely forgot it was Thanksgiving. We were so lucky to be able to celebrate early with our family last Sunday. But we want to wish everyone a very wonderful Thanskgiving, please eat lots of turkey and pumpkin pie for us. Love you all!!

Out of surgery

After sitting in the waiting room for what felt like eternity, we were able to get the good news that the surgery went well and Mom was in the recovery room. The surgeon told us that Mom woke up talking before she was even off the operating room table. This was very reassuring to Dr. Goldman, especially after operating so close to the language center in her brain. But we weren't really surprised, my Mom has always been a talker! He was very impressed with her ability to speak and communicate right off the bat after such an invasive surgery. She recovered very well in post-op, her vitals are stable and she has full use of her arms and legs.

They transferred her up to ICU for close observation for the night and we've already been in to see her. Amazingly she looks pretty good for coming out of a 5 hour brain surgery. Her head is wrapped up nice and cute and she has wires connected to her everywhere. I feel so helpful being able to tell her what she is hooked up to and why. She's very talkative and we have to keep reminding to her to not bob her head around while she's talking to us. Most of all she is extremely relieved to have the surgery over with. She has been blessed with some very sweet and attentive nurses, who have all happened to be male. I told her she lucked out because "murses" are rare in this profession. We are taking turns being with her in ICU and just trying to let her rest, the plan is for her to be transferred up to the floor tomorrow sometime.

Thank you everyone for all the messages you left today on our phones, through the blog and email. My mom told me to tell everyone that she is doing great and not to worry! Easier said than done, but I'm looking at her right now in the hospital bed and am in awe of what a fighter my Mom is. More updates to come tomorrow I promise.

Playing the waiting game...

We know we have a lot of people watching the clock just like we are, so we just wanted to let everyone know that my Mom is still in surgery and we haven't heard anything yet. Dr. Goldman told us my Mom would be out of surgery hopefully by noon and he would come out to the waiting room to tell us how things went. She slept very well last night and seemed very chipper and positive this morning, go figure my Mom has always been such a morning person :) My sister, Dad and I were allowed to hang out with her in pre-op this morning and distract her a little. She got a little emotional right before they took her back, but we did our best to reassure her that everything will be just fine. Please keep the positive thoughts and prayer coming, we will keep you posted as soon as we hear the good news.

Week of Mom's Surgery

Welcome to the Smith Family Blog. We wanted to create a place for all of our wonderfully supportive family & friends to go for the most recent updates on my Mom.

Just to recap the last couple week's events...on November 6th around noon my mom was doing some housework at home and started feeling strange. She remembers not being able to read a recipe, feeling very confused and having difficulty talking (saying things to my dad like "zoogle"). Luckily my Dad was home and immediately took her to the hospital. My mom had a seizure in the car just before arriving to the hospital and was unconcious when my dad pulled up to the ER. In the ER her vitals were stable and she slowly started to come to but her memory and speech were jarbled (very common post-seizure). Her CT scan came back clear but her MRI scan found a very tiny tumor in the left frontal lobe of her brain. They are calling the tumor a Meningioma, a very small, slow growing and usually benign tumor. Most likely my Mom has had the tumor for years and for some reason all of a sudden it caused irritation in her brain which caused the seizure. The location of the tumor (your language center lies in the left side of the brain) explains her confusion and difficulty speaking.

So yes my family was very scared to learn that my Mom has a brain tumor, but this is the way we've been trying to look at the situation. We really are very lucky that my Mom had the seizure because it alerted us there was a problem. So many people that experience seizures never learn what causes them and they are forced to be on medication for the rest of their lives in hopes of controlling them. Within hours of my Mom's first seizure, we knew exactly what caused it and had a very clear treatment plan for her. All of her doctors strongly recommended surgery to remove the tumor and my Mom quickly agreed.

Since being discharged from the ER, my Mom has been on a very high dose of antiseizure medication which makes her feel a little dizzy and weak, but has prevented her from having any more seizures. We met with her neurosurgeon on November 11th and he strongly recommended a craniotomy as soon as possible to remove the tumor. After viewing the MRI he believes the tumor is in fact a Meningioma and is most likely not malignant, but we will only know for sure after it is removed and biopsied. My mom is the perfect candidate for this surgery...her & my dad have been working out and eating very healthy the last couple months and are both in the best of health. The neurosurgeon even told my Mom she looked "very buff these days" at her first consultation in the office. Dr. Goldman knows my family well by this point (he performed back surgery on both my Grandma and Dad and I scrubbed in to observe a couple of his surgeries in nursing school) and will be performing my mom's surgery at St. Joseph's on Wednesday November 25th at 7:30 am. The surgery is expected to last between 4-6 hours due to the very advanced technology they will be using to locate the tiny tumor. She will spend one night in Intensive Care and then will be transferred to the main floor of the hospital for 1-3 days. If everything goes as planned, we are hoping to have her back at home by Sunday evening at the latest.

After having a very busy weekend of celebrating an early Thanksgiving with the family & an early Christmas with Skye's little girl Kayleigh, my mom has strict instructions to lay low & rest up before Wednesday. She is very ready to get the surgery over with so she can start her recovery and move on with her busy life...she's really been missing her kids at the schools and being able to work out at the gym with my Dad.



My family really wants everyone to know that my Mom is going to be in the very best hands for this surgery. We feel very confident in Dr. Goldman's abilities as a surgeon and my good friend Sarita Falcon will be working as a charge nurse in the operating room that morning. My Mom will have her own personal nurse by her side 24/7 advocating for her and making sure she gets the very best medical care possible. If there was ever a question in my mind whether I picked the right career path?? I love that my nursing knowledge can help my Mom and our family during this stressful time.

Unfortunately due to the H1N1 epidemic, St. Joseph's has a very strict no visitors policy and the last thing we want is for our family members to come to the hospital and pick up a nasty bug. I will have my cell phone on me at all times (texting will probably work better than phone calls) and will try to update the blog as much as possible.

A special thank you to Grandma & Chuck, Auntie Rene & Uncle Larry, Geneva, Barb, Nancy, Mary & Jim, Auntie Anne & Uncle George & Cousin Lindsay for visiting and bringing yummy deserts and flowers. Thank you so much to Auntie Barb and Grandma and the whole family for pulling off an amazing Thanksgiving meal this Sunday. My Mom said she felt stronger after being around all the people that love her. Please keep my Mom in your thoughts and prayers this week, we love you all very much!