What are your memories of roller coasters do you like them are they scary what do you feel about them?

I am not a huge fan. I went on one with my friends Jen and Pete at Alton towers in england. I remember being petrified when we reached the top and the feeling in my stomach as we decended. My life right now feels like I am on a roller coasters ride! I have hopeful days filled with things i love, then days when my heart is in my stomach and I am being dropped from a height. Mostly I am still trying to live my best life! That might look oneday, like a lot of sleep or it is a walk or hanging with friends and family. Today. I paddled!!!! How awesome is that?anyway, roller coasters! Not a fan. However I do visualize paddling the waves and having to roll with them. Up the crest and down the other side. Just going with the motion. It is all we can do. Each day is a gift. None of us really know what is ahead so ride the wave and enjoy the experience.

Happy place.

Theme park

https://www.altontowers.com/

Update:

Update from Dave: Hi All, a bit of a complicated update today. Currently one of the tumors is regrowing. This is on the right side of Dawn’s brain and so impacts her left side. The new growth is causing two issues, the growth is in the area of the brain that controls awareness of her left side and there is swelling in the motor area. This swelling is causing Dawn’s lack of motion in the left arm and weakness in her left leg. The treatment plan we are discussing is to perform an Ablation procedure to kill the tumor cells and then using a different form of chemo to kill any remaining cancer cells.
Ablation is a where they insert a small probe into the brain to the area that is to be treated and burn, internally, the cancer cells. There are a number of benefits of this over a surgical removal. The recovery time is much faster (home in 1-2 days) and so chemo can start earlier. Lesions in deep areas of the brain can be reached with less damage. Finally, ablation opens up the blood brain barrier making chemo more effective.
We have a meeting with the Dr. on Thursday, and they are planning for when the surgery will happen. There is a slight complication as to who does the surgery and where but not a big issue, just some administrative stuff.
We will let you know when the surgery is happening and how it goes.

But I get up again.

This has not been the best week. Early this week, I got myself in a funk; today is another day. With lots of words of wisdom from my friend Anne and her favorite poet Jon O’Donohue, and my meditation teacher Jeff Warren I’m ready to hop out of bed and enjoy the day focusing on the positive and the things that I can get pleasure from. Today that is going to be my kids and my grandkids. What more could I ask for? Oh, I know, mobility in my left side. I have plans today to make a schedule to keep me from slumping again. I can’t do that again; it was not fun for anybody. But, as Brene Brown says, feel all the feels. I’m certainly doing that.

My daughter-in-law Kyla helped me to make a schedule for my days. I am super tired from the seizure but getting tired of sitting all day! Good job I have Rex to keep me entertained. We even got to play trains for a little while yesterday. I also took a walk while Rex rode his strider Bike. We walked 1.4 miles around Tollgate Farm today and it was exhausting!

I’m feeling quite tired this afternoon, so I’ll just end with the message Dave sent out after my recent PET CT scan to look into the problems with my left side:

Hi all, we have had some troubling news. It seems the tumor in the back of Dawn’s brain is growing again. This is not a major surprise due to the type of cancer. We just discussed this with the Dr. and there are a few options that the Dr. is suggesting. First is sending a thin probe into the tumor area for an ablation, where they burn out the tumor in a controlled way. There is a new chemo drug we can try, and a trial that Dawn can enter. Also, more invasive surgery. The Dr. is working through the options, currently the favored options are a referral for the ablation procedure and entering the trial. The other benefit of the ablation is that it opens up the blood brain barrier to make the trial and / or other chemo drugs more effective. Not good news but we continue to be positive and hope for the best in further treatment. Dawn is basically okay in herself and starting to make improvements from the swelling.

https://www.cancercenter.com/diagnosing-cancer/diagnostic-imaging/pet-ct-scan

Last week or the first week in March I noticed a slowness on my left side. I still walked and did yoga, but over the weekend when we were in Kalaloch, it got worse.

On the Monday March 7th, when I got back, I went into school to talk to the staff about my plans for coming back. On the way out of school, I was walked out by Jill and Nancy. Jill gave me a big hug and I was not able to reciprocate because my left arm would not move! I didn’t think too much of it at the time until later in the day. At 4pm, I was waiting for a call from my oncologist as we had told him that symptoms had worsened. I was sitting in the bed in my yoga room and the phone rang; it was the nurse checking me in. I was little panicked, and in my panic to get to the phone I slipped off the bed! I put my my arm down to catch myself but it didn’t work so I landed on my clavicle and banged my head on the floor. Dave was outside unpacking the camper and he did not hear me screaming and yelling for him, so poor guy walked in to find me on the floor yelling and screaming. We had the meeting with the doctor and he said go straight to the ER and have a an MRI and a cat-scan.

We spent a long afternoon and evening at the ER Swedish Issaquah. The CAT scan showed no bleeding in the brain, so that was good. The MRI showed a huge amount of swelling, so that was not so good. This is what’s causing my lack of mobility. After talking to my oncologist, he is not sure why the swelling occurred. It could be the injections I had to help raise my white blood count, or it could be something else unknown. I’m having another scan that will check the brain activity. I can’t remember the name of the test but it is an MRI to look specifically at the activity of the tumor site so they can tell if the tumor is growing by observing oxygen and glucose test intake. Here is where I’m hoping the keto diet has been helpful and that is not a whole bunch of glucose causing the cells to multiply.

Right now I’m on steroids to take the swelling down and hopefully get some movement back in my left arm, which is not working just yet. This morning my meditation teacher said that everything already is and presents itself when ready!

Can you please be ready now and tell my arm to work!

Kalaloch

At the weekend we took our first trip of the year in Flo and headed to Kalaloch with our good friends Jack and Melinda. They took their new camper, Lance. Kalaloch is beautiful if you’ve never been you need to go! We walked the beaches and ate good food and just mostly breathed in that beautiful ocean Air. We spent a lot of time sitting looking at the water which paid off because we saw whales pass by. We first spotted the blow hole spray and then the humpback of the whales. That was very special and at nighttime the Stars were spectacular. Once again the solo stove was fantastic and kept us warm while we ate outside and then of course Flo is cozy at bed time.