Texas Size Surprise

I've had to remain pretty evasive about Kristine's plans to visit her family in Texas in the last few posts. Kristine and her three sisters have been planning to surprise their father, Jim, for his 65th birthday for some time(their mother Connie was, of course, in on it as well). They succeeded this past week when on Wednesday Colette and Stephanie caught him by surprise by showing up unannounced. Then again this past Friday, Kristine and Gretchen where waiting for him when he came home. He was floored and truly had no idea. It isn't often that the whole Becker family is together in one place. Especially under the current circumstances with Kristine in her current condition and Colette due with her first child soon. They are visiting all this week, a week likely filled with card games and lots of laughter. Although, as I understand it, the girls took over the living room and main television to watch the Oscars, relegating Jim to the bedroom for the evening.

Kristine will remain in Texas for the next few weeks. It's a great chance for her to relax in some warmer weather and focus on her alternative natural treatments. For me it is a much needed respite and a chance to regain energy before we begin our schedule all over again. Although a have to admit that I am already a bit bored all by myself. I'm getting a little taste of what her family and friends must go through being on the outside with only periodic updates wondering if she is OK. To an extent I think the discipline of a routine helps bring a feeling of control to an otherwise intractable situation.

Before Kristine left for Texas her cough, which previously was nagging but never serious, got much worse. In the week leading up to her trip her cough began yielding some fluid, a sign that she had likely contracted some kind of infection. Kristine went to our primary care doctor to get checked out. He was initially concerned that she might have pneumonia. However, subsequent x-rays proved otherwise. She was given an antibiotic to kill whatever was causing her illness and she has since noted that her cough has improved significantly.

V-Day

My apologies for being a day late on this week's post. I was a bit turned around by the President's Day holiday, which I had off, and thought that today was Sunday.

This past Saturday was Valentine's Day, exactly two year's to the day that Kristine was taken into the Aspen Valley Hospital and diagnosed with cancer, ironically in the veins leading to her heart. It wasn't until I sat down to right this post that I even remembered this fact -- neither Kristine nor I mentioned it all weekend long. I guess it's the kind of anniversary that you try to suppress from your conscious memory.

Kristine and I agreed when we first met that Valentine's Day was not a holiday that we were into celebrating. To us it is just a marketing hoax to sell chocolate and flowers. Not to mention it's impossible to get a reservation anywhere unless you book months in advance. So Kristine invented our very own day, "I Love You Day." It is once a year on any day we choose and it's always easy to get a dinner reservation.

Ever since our approximately 8 year boycott of Valentine's Day and the genesis of I Love You Day we have not ventured out on the holiday. This year, however, we got tickets to see Rufus Wainwright at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. We have been looking forward both to seeing Rufus in concert and to experiencing a show at the Kimmel Center for a long time. The only problem was that the show fell on V-Day, forcing us out into the mayhem of couples scrambling to make their reserved dinner appointments with flowers and chocolates in hand.

The concert was great but it was a challenging experience for Kristine to fight the show crowds. Upon entering the center Kristine became anxious and a bit panicked. She struggles to remain stable while walking as it is without the threat of being bumped by a sea of hurried people moving in all directions. We made it through unscathed on the way in and left a little early on the way out to avoid the crowds. All in all, I think it was good for Kristine to build some confidence in physical abilities.

Thing are well otherwise. Kristine is making good progress in therapy. This is especially true in aqua therapy where she has been seeing a measurable difference in her performance in just 4 sessions, which has had a positive affect on her motivation and attitude. Kristine continues to fight the bug that is going around. This has exacerbated her cough and caused several fever spikes in the last couple of days causing us both a great deal of concern. So far though we have managed to keep the fevers down and she has bounced back quickly.

Clean Brain Scans

Aside from the cold that she picked up this past week, Kristine is doing very well. Her temperature increased a couple of times over the week, which of course had us both pretty nervous given the linkage to her risk of seizure. We were able to manage her fever down though with a little Tylenol.

We met with Kristine's neurosurgeon, Dr. Lee, on Monday to discuss Kristine's MRI results and the medication he initially recommended after her seizure. He had nothing but positive news for her. He said that the area around the removed tumor in her brain looks clean of any disease and that the second tumor that received Gamma Knife Radiation is shrinking (a sign that the tumor cells are dead and being destroyed by the body). And contrary to his original position, he did not feel that it was necessary to do any additional Gamma Radiation on the first tumor location since it looked so good in the scans.

Dr. Lee also agreed that it was not necessary for Kristine to take seizure medication if it decreased her quality of life and her ability to recover physically. He said that she just needed to be careful to avoid stress on her body. Fever, illness, exhaustion, dehydration and lack of sleep among other things could trigger another seizure.

Kristine surprised Dr. Lee when she moved her hand after he asked how she was progressing. He had not expected this kind of progress so quickly. He was also pleased to see how well she could move her leg when she walked.

Our friend Shannon is in town this weekend visiting. She and Kristine got to catch up, watch bad TV and give me a little break from our routine. Fortunately we do not have any doctor's appointments this week, Kristine just has her standard physical therapy schedule. At some point in February she is planning a trip to see her parents in Texas. She will miss therapy for a few weeks but the sunshine and warmth will do her some good. Plus, as attentive as I am to her needs, her mom will undoubtedly be much more diligent at following through with her stretching routine.

Unmedicated

After Kristine's episode two weeks ago Thursday her neurologist put her on an antiseizure medication. His concern is that having had one seizure Kristine is now at a higher risk of having another. Kristine took the medication as directed for a few days, but almost immediately she experienced some adverse effects. She was getting very dizzy, began to get depressed and started having increased problems with her muscle coordination -- a concern given her current physical state. Kristine, frustrated with the side effects, stopped taking the pill and experienced instant relief from the past days' symptoms. We have an appointment with Dr. Lee on Monday to discuss the medication and Kristine's next steps. The doctor will likely encourage Kristine to continue taking the medication for fear of reoccurance, however, it is unlikely that Kristine will take heed of his advise.

This past Wednesday we met with our cardialogist Dr. Miles to discuss Kristine's heart pauses and another of her medications. The doctor urged her to get a 24 hour halter monitor hooked up to measure her heart rate over and encouraged her to remain on the medication until we could review the results. As you may recall, the premise driving the medication began after Kristine's brain surgery when the doctors found that her heart experienced occational pauses. At the time they recommended installation of a pacemaker to prevent a more prolonged pause that could cause Kristine to faint or, in a more unlikely but serious scenario, for her heart to stop altogether. Kristine chose to go on the medication in lieu of the pacemaker. In our Wednesday meeting with the doctor Kristine insisted that she go off of the drug. Dr. Miles again reiterated the risks of doing so. Kristine responsed to the doctor's rebuttel explaining that she wanted to deal with it if and when more serious problems occur, the most likely of which (fainting) seemed managable. He had trouble disagreeing with her argument.

In both cases, discontinuing the medications did a great deal to make Kristine feel better emotionally and physically and she is feeling quite a bit better. From her standpoint she is fighting against the odds of an abbreviated life, so living miserably with the side effects of drugs that simly aim to prevent small incremental risk of death doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So for now she'll stay off as much medication as she can to feel as good as she can and focus on staying strong.