‘dem Bones, ‘dem Bones

It has been so long I almost forgot my password! It has been quite an eventful spring/summer for Gwen and family.

As you may remember, Gwen had some spots in her brain that her last medication was doing well to control. Well, all good things come to an end. There was some back and forth about radiating the spots, but alas, the tumor board here in NC did not concur on this course of action. Her doctor in Boston was adamant that radiation be done, therefore they took a trip to Boston May 9th and 10th for radiation. The plan was to stay on the current medication as it was doing a decent job on her bones (the spots looked to be healing).

In this time, Gwen has been getting regularly scanned in Raleigh. Her team of doctors has worked well with Gwen and Justin to accommodate their summer travel plans, which include a large chunk of time in NY as always, so the most recent round of scans was moved to Boston, and as long as they were heading East to Boston, might as well throw in a trip to the Cape!

They left NY around July 17 and returned around July 21 (I could ask Gwen the exact dates as she is in the next room right now, but apparently I am too lazy). The latest scans revealed that the medication was no longer working on her bones (In fact, today she mentioned her bones hurting, like the kind of pain you feel if you press on a bruise).

Once again, we are thankful that science is staying one step ahead of this dumb cancer, and Gwen is able to get in on a clinical trial that is in phase 1 (her previous trials have all been in phase 2) and has shown some good results so far. The downside here is that her NY vacay plans will be cut short as she will have to go back to Boston for several days next week to go through all the hoops one needs to go through to start in a clinical trial. Then, it is our understanding, she will need to go to Boston once a week for 3 weeks, then every other week for a couple of months, and then once a month for who knows how long. One of these trips is scheduled for the first day of school, so that’s fun.

In the meantime, Gwen, Justin, and Callie are making the most of the summer and hanging out with us in NY.

Continued prayers are always welcomed! I will try to be better with the updates (but NOT after every single trip to Boston as Justin jokingly suggested I do because there’s just no way I will get my act together to do that).

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