{NOTE: This was originally published on Vanessa’s CarePage. We are copying all those posts here to have her story in one place that all can access. We are back-dating the posts to match when she originally published the post there, and are marking the blog post here with Vanessa as the author, as these words that follow are her own.}

Posted Jul 7, 2007 12:02pm

Well, still plugging away! I know some of you were wondering when my next update would appear, so here it is! Just didn’t have too much to report really, but here’s the latest…

I’m down to 5 more treatments!! I’m eagerly counting them down, can you tell?!? Also, Dr. Brennan thinks my tumor is STILL shrinking! It started at 5cm, and last time is was half that size, but now he thinks it is about 2cm. So of course that was good news!

The other good news is that it appears that my hair is growing back!! I don’t want to get overly optimistic since I still have some chemo and radiation left, but it seems as though the taxol is letting my head hair grow a little bit at least. Which is weird because as of a week or two ago my eyebrows were still thinning and my lashes were falling out, so who knows! Doesn’t make much sense to me, but I’ll take it!

Next Tuesday we meet with Dr. Sillins (the reconstructive surgeon) to get some more info on options and ultimately get a gameplan, I suppose. As far as I know, I am still tentatively scheduled for sometime in September for surgery, but we still have to hammer down the specific dates. On Tuesday I will also meet with Dr. Cross (the radiation doctor) for him to take a look at me pre-surgery for him to get a gameplan as well. We did learn that my radiation will most likely be after I recover somewhat from surgery, and I will have to go 25 times (5 times a week for 5 weeks). But each time “getting zapped” only lasts a couple minutes, so the whole process doesn’t take that long. I will probably know more once I see Dr. Cross. So many darn appointments!!

That’s about it for me. For those who didn’t know, my Grandma (mom’s mom) is still in the hospital. She went in last week after a car wreck, so she’s busy getting better and trying to heal up a bit. It’s looking like she will need several weeks of therapy, which means she will be in the hospital for awhile, but she is looking like she is feeling a little better now. Please keep her in your prayers. Thanks!!