Loose Strife

Laura had a pain filled last night and day. She didn’t have the energy to get out of bed. Around dinner time her mother Natalie found her passed out on the floor beside the bed. It was frightening, but she seems to be unhurt and ok now. We decided to check in to the Baystate […]

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Laura decided today to have surgery to relieve her spinal fluid pressure. If all goes as expected, she’ll be in the hospital on Friday for a day. We’ve had busy days meeting with doctors yesterday and today (Tuesday). Meanwhile, Laura and I have the strong impression that her symptoms are worsening significantly from a week […]

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On Friday morning Laura and I consulted with a new oncologist with expertise in breast cancer. Although I hadn’t provided any advance information, the doctor had already acquired Laura’s full case history. She seems to be a very nice doctor who seems particularly concerned about a patient’s total well-being. She also emphasized the importance she […]

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Laura and I met with a neuro-oncologist at Dana-Farber today. The main outcome was that he more specifically diagnosed Laura’s headaches as due to intracranial pressure. He said that the spinal fluid pressure changes periodically, so Laura’s periodic headaches fit well with that diagnosis. He also observed something called papilledema, or swelling around the optic […]

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It was an unexpectedly full day today. I took the girls to a music class this morning and stopped for a snack at Elmer’s, a schizophrenic little store in Ashfield. When we got home, Laura was on the couch with ice on her leg. She had fallen again, but this time she hurt her leg. […]

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Laura and I got up at 4:30 this morning to be in Boston to meet her “2nd opinion” oncologist. He seems like a good man. Pragmatic, bow-tie sort of guy who plays a good detective. He’ll rapid fire a number of seemingly unrelated questions, skip over other questions we’ve heard from others, and quickly size […]

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When I think of my family, I always pause to think about how often they were willing to do “the robot”. Or, anything else silly for that matter. That’s what I love about my family. I also love that we’re very close, and that we’ve never really given up on each other. Growing up as […]

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I wasn’t really sleeping last night, so when I started to see sunlight, I got up to take a walk. It was cold out and snowing lightly. The flakes looked light and large. The dusting on the sunken packed snow had a pretty, rough texture that caught the dim light in the dawn. Walking into […]

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I think that if Laura were a superhero, her name would be “Super Awesome Creative Girl”. It seems like she has always been in the process of creating stuff. And always managing to “capture the moment in pictures”. I remember that she had the coolest scrapbooks/photo albums, even in grade school. I loved to go […]

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