Day 321: A Shrinking Surgical Cavity and Going Back to September
While waking up knowing that I had a visit at UCSF ahead of me, I was excited knowing that the end of the day would bring about a vacation with Laura.
I was able to make it up to UCSF in under 1.5 hours which isn’t too bad given rush-hour traffic in the Bay Area. As I imagined, it felt odd to be there without Laura but I pushed forward.
While waiting to get the IV for the contrast started I opened up Twitter and saw the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. It filled my heart with joy to know that so many of my friends will have their marriages recognized in this country no matter where they live or travel. It made me happy to be an American.
I have lost count how many MRIs I have had since August but what I do know is that I’m able to get through them without any issue nowadays.
I don’t actively meditate though it is something that I would like to do. However, during my MRIs I seem to be able to put myself into a meditative state. I can hear everything going on but am able to keep my mind still.
I try to keep my mind clear from work and home stuff as well as not thinking about being stuffed inside of a magnet. It helps me to keep my head perfectly still so that they don’t have to take additional images.
The MRI went by fairly fast. The only issue this go-round was that the right ear-plug came out as soon as the scans started so I had to deal with very loud banging noises in my right ear for the full 35-45 minutes.
When I visited with our neuro-oncologist, she told me that the surgical cavity had shrunk more and there were no signs of the tumor remnants of coming together. Score!
Since I had gone through it last time I didn’t have to complete a neurological exam though they are easy. When I have to do the exam it includes tests such as touching your index finger and thumb fingertips together repeatedly, walking heel to toe, etc.
After wrapping up my appointment with her, I went downstairs for my Day 21 CBC blood panels. I’ll follow up with the Day 28 blood work the Monday that we get back from vacation.
I came back home, sat down for lunch and decided to go back to September to read the wall posts and comments that SO many people left on the day I went in for my brain surgery. Tears began to well up as I saw post after comment after post of people expressing their love to Laura and I.
It’s not often that I go back and read older updates that I have published or the older comments that so many were so gracious to post. One day I will catalog it all, probably when I take the next step with the evolution of Built Unstoppable.
I had a number of things to tackle this afternoon before putting up my out of office message and signing off of work for the week.
After finishing work for the day I went over to the gym for my final pre-vacation workout. The Spartan website kink has been worked out so there was a new workout published.
Warm-up
- Dynamic warm up
- Rope 5 minutes
Main set (for time)
- Run 1 mile
- 30 burpees
Cool Down
Though it was simple, it still left me exhausted. I am unable to do 30 burpees unbroken but was still able to finish them all within around 3-4 minutes. Let’s put it this way - the song that I was listening to when I started them hadn’t finished yet.
Tonight has been spent getting through the number of must-dos that always have to wait until the night before taking off. Ah, just one more night of sleep before a week in Cabo.