Sunday, March 02, 2008

Suanne's Sunday Evening Update

As I start my 5th full night/day with Elise, I want to thank my hubby John for taking such good care of me ... making meals and bringing clean clothes to keep me well stocked and cared for. Cameron and Jasper are still home sick and are getting better. They've come in and spent several hours with Elise during the past two days, with masks over their mouths to stifle the spread of germs. Elise's Uncle Glen (my brother) came up from California this past weekend and gave some wonderful support, as well as a Thai Yoga Massage for Elise. In fact, Elise has had lots of nice visits from many family and friends this past week ... they really do her heart good.

On Friday, the doctors got the final pathology report that confirmed that Elise has a grade IV glioma, called a glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). It is in a part of her brain that makes it inoperable. If you want to learn more, the UW Medical Center has a good web site about brain tumors at http://depts.washington.edu/neuroonc/. Other good sites include the American Brain Tumor Association at www.abta.org and National Brain Tumor Foundation at www.braintumor.org

Elise is working very hard in her occupational, physical and speech therapies. Improvement from day to day is very noticable. The physical therapist mentioned today that she thinks Elise will do very well when she gets to rehab. We are expecting to get her moved to inpatient rehab tomorrow. Once there, she'll work three hours each day doing various types of therapies. She'll also finish the last part of the preparation for radiation therapy tomorrow. The actual radiation treatments start on Tuesday.

Elise can't wait to get home to her family.

PS: When you visit, please avoid bringing treats with sugars as Elise is temporarily diabetic due to the steroids she is taking. Thanks much, Elise's Mama.

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