See You in Two Months...

Sorry for the delay in updating everyone. Jordan's family is in town, it is Christmas, I'm lazy and it is snowing here. Pick one of those excuses please.

We rolled back to OHSU on Wednesday for the first time in two months. The place is wildly confusing. Elevators that only go to certain floors and three different "B" elevators are just some of the highlights. "Can't get there from here" is basically the unspoken mantra of the person that designed the hospital. This is probably some great analogy for the whole journey we are on but I'm honestly too drained to try and put that together right now.

As Jordan was getting her MRI on Wednesday I wandered down to the cafeteria. I sat at the same table I sat at in July as Jordan was having brain surgery. In July I sat at the table with friends. We all sat there nervously with no clue as to what to say. Yesterday I sat there by myself. I wasn't by myself because no one offered to be there. Several people had offered. Jordan and I told them all we were ok to be there by ourselves. I realized in that moment why I chose to sit at the same table and why I was oddly ok with being by myself. It was because all this has become familiar. That was super strange and confusing to me. After a few minutes of staring at my burrito, I realized I was angry (they overcooked the eggs). Angry because OHSU shouldn't be familiar. Angry because I didn't and don't have any control. Angry because it won't be my last trip to that table in that cafeteria. Too angry to think or process anything in a rational way. Everyone that works in the OHSU cafeteria knows not to make eye contact with someone blankly staring at their breakfast burrito. They've seen that look before...

After all of Jordan's scans, bloodwork and a quick trip to Portland to get harassed by a crazy person while trying to enjoy lunch we were back at OHSU for the results.

Jordan's tumor hasn't grown or shrank in size. The swelling in her brain has gone down significantly as a result of the risky treatment that she was taking. The MRI revealed some tissue damage around the tumor from the radiation treatments. This is normal and the tissue has the possibility of recovering. Her blood work revealed yesterday that her platelets (keeps you from bleeding to death) are super low (think less than 20% of normal levels). This is something that typically happens when you are taking chemo. Jordan will hold off on her next round of chemo until the platelets return to normal. This could take a few weeks and several transfusions. A friend told me she hoped the platelet donor was a Brit so that Jordan picks up a cool new accent. Not sure that is how that works but fingers crossed. So while Jordan's symptoms haven't improved (they have gotten slightly worse in the last few weeks) it looks like things are going slightly better in her brain. The doctor shared that her weakness, slurred speech and lack of coordination could be a combined result from the treatment, the steroids she has been taking (currently working on taking her off!) and just general apathy.

As we were receiving all of this information on Wednesday and asking awkward clarification questions I finally asked: "Is this good news?". The doctor shared that this is about the best possible news that we could have realistically gotten. He then shared that we will continue treatment as normal and check back in at the end of February.

Jordan has bought us all two more months. We will take it.

Brack