It's a snowy Wednesday night in Portland, and I'm printing out crossword puzzles and getting ready for the red-eye to Houston. Our little hiatus in Portland has proven to be a blessing--besides just the usual home-cooking, wonderful parents-christmas shopping-real-life parts of being here, we actually made some progress (by being here on some weekdays) that we might not have made if we'd been in Houston. This morning, Mark & I jumped in the car (grateful for our fancy snow tires) and headed to Beaverton (ugh) to meet with the fabulous Dr. Sam Wang, radiation oncologist to the stars (or just me, at least.) He was great--had been talking with my docs both here and in Texas and is raring to get started, as am I. It was the first real meeting with someone whose focus is less on diagnosing and more on obliterating, and that felt great. He actually said, at one point:
"The good thing about this kind of tumor..."
[at which point I cackled and asked him if there's really a "good" thing about this little b^&8stard]
".... is that it's really responsive to radiation."
Music to my ears. (although I'm listening to my 2nd cousin Lesley Kernochan's cd right now, and feeling pretty happy about that, too.)
Anyway, he's got some figuring and measuring to do, which he'll adjust slightly depending on what Mission Control in Houston has to say, but either way he's got a solid plan. We do a dry-run measuring sort of business back in Portland on Monday am on Pill Hill, then have ourselves as normal a Christmas as we can, ready to dive in and actually start the attack on Monday 12/29. He said the little blast of chemo that I had a couple of weeks ago probably slowed the bugger down, but it's time to get on it and I'm more than ready.
But tonight, we're headed to Houston, and feeling as though we've got this thing in our sights.
Love & ninja kicks,
JMB
16 years ago
3 comments:
Kick its ass Dr. Wang. And remember, there's a secret service team of ninjas backing up our beloved Jess. Safe travels through the snowy night MacBlaines - Dee-Jay Joel and I are toasting you with our cheap TJ's port tonight. Love to you from icy Malibu Way.
Great news, Jessica and Mark!!! We are thinking of you and we send you our love and support!!!!!!!!!!
Hugs,
Paula, Miska, Elo and Ahti
Dear Jessica
Peter just wrote a really long message to you - his first experiment on a blog - and then lost the whole thing and of course gave up in total frustration ... We both send you our love and support and our hopes that you will soon be able to put this very difficult experience behind you. We are sorry not to be seeing you this Christmas too and hope it is just a pleasure deferred. And when Peter has regained his usual charming equilibrium, he'll try blogging again, especially if you encourage him!
with love and all good wishes
Anne and Peter
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