Subject: Lesley Update - 8/23/00 Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:28:36 -0400 From: David Baldauf Lesley is now officially a 1 year survivor of her brain tumor. She was stricken in Denver last year on August 11th and had her surgery on August 24th. We're not making a big deal out of it, but I am keeping track. This past month would have been boring except for all the traveling. Lesley continues to feel pretty good with only small changes. She handled the last round of chemotherapy very well - better than the previous 2 times. Less fatigue, and quicker to bounce back to "normal." We did reduce her Decadron dosage to 10 mg/day from 12 mg/day. She is doing very well but is now pretty consistently taking two extra strength Tylenol tablets twice each day due to eye aches she quantifies as 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the worst). We met with the doctor yesterday; he thinks that Lesley may have reached her minimum dosage of Decadron and has advised us to stay at 10 mg/day and not try dropping down to 8 mg/day. Otherwise, he was pleased and gave us the go-ahead for Round 10 of Temodar which started this morning. Her blood counts were good again, although he didn't find her Day 21 counts. That's because we were in San Francisco and didn't make arrangements to have her blood drawn (the visiting nurse didn't think it was really needed). San Francisco? Yup! Northwest had a coupon for travel that got us good fares to San Francisco. So, I booked us out of Manchester from Saturday the 12th returning Saturday the 19th. We did San Francisco (staying at Fisherman's Wharf and doing Muir Woods, Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, cable cars, cable car museum, Seal Rock (with no seals - they were gone somewhere to mate!), and Coit Tower), Yosemite, and Great America amusement park in Santa Clara (coasters for the kids). We did a lot of driving but we had a great time. Lesley did very well. The only times she didn't feel good were when we didn't keep her hydrated and fed. We tried to keep the walking to a reasonable amount and didn't do any hiking this year (no hiking up Yosemite Falls, especially since they were almost completely dry!). The San Francisco trip came shortly after we returned from Venice, Florida where we visited my folks. I grabbed us a USAirways long weekend fare so we flew to Tampa on Saturday the 5th and returned on Tuesday the 8th. We hadn't seen my folks since December so we decided to take advantage of the fare, Lesley feeling good, and the kids being out of school. It was good for my parents to be with Lesley since she was doing so much better than when they left in December. Nuthin much scheduled for the next 28 days - school and activities start up again so the taxi service will resume. Next Dr.'s appointment we do an MRI which we hope shows no change. Be sure to check the web site for new pictures! http://www.davebaldauf.com Dave -- Dave Baldauf, h/o Lesley, gbm, dx/srg 8/99, rad 9/99, rad completed 10/99, debulk srg 10/99, bone flap removal srg due to infection 11/99, started Temodar 12/99, started 10th round of Temodar 8/23/00 mailto:dbaldauf@alumni.brown.edu web site: http://www.davebaldauf.com