Good news, friends!

Some weekends are so good, you just can't imagine it getting any better.

This weekend was good enough for two trips - one to beautiful Asheville to celebrate Sarah's brother's graduation from Warren Wilson College, and the other to have a checkup as Mass General Hospital. We'll save the best for last.

My checkup at Mass General started with an early morning MRI, with the soothing "achunk achunk achunk" noises of magnets sloshing water around in my brain. This MRI comes one month after finishing radiation and chemo, which I was told was potentially too early to provide any information. Still, I was eager to get any news I could. It's the first MRI I've had since mid January... that's a long time to stay away from the camera for a brain as photogenic as mine!

The MRI was followed with two appointments - one with my neuro-oncologist Dr. Chi (who administers chemo) and one with my radiation-oncologist Dr. Shih. Dr. Chi was the first to give his take on the images, and said it appeared as though the tumor got a bit smaller - largely because the tumor cells were disrupted by radiation, and have compressed. Unfortunately the brain does not have a tumor janitor for this sort of thing - the dead cells will always be there. Dr. Chi says he has patients who have had tumors present in their brain stem for twenty years... they just sit there and don't do much. Dr. Shih said the images looked even better than a level she would consider to be a success, and noted that I may continue to see positive effects of radiation for months or years to come. I'm lucky. Radiation is not effective in all cases - one doctor told me that's true for 33% of patients. And in other cases, radiation necrosis (accumulation of dead cells in the brain stem) can lead to severe symptoms.

How do you feel?
Better than yesterday. I'm still occasionally dizzy and off-balance, but my symptoms should continue to go down in the next two to three months, possibly more, and will fluctuate during that time. My double vision is nearly gone, and my appetite is ragin' again - though I have some serious snacking to do to get back to my fighting weight. Dr. Shih noted that I may experience sudden relief of symptoms, which appears to have happened on Sunday - I just felt much, much better than ever before. Today I went for a 1 mile run. Not too shabby!

What happens next?
I start chemo again next week - 5 days on, 23 days off, for one year. Relative to treatment in Boston, this should be a cinch. From here on out, I'll be seeing local doctors, and will start with MRIs every two months. As time goes on and the MRIs continue to look good, the MRIs will be fewer and farther between.

And how was Asheville?
Asheville is a diamond in the blue ridge - as is Warren Wilson College. The sun came out just as the graduates were seated at commencement, which featured a speech by Sylvia Earle, a charismatic oceanographer who encouraged everyone to take their child - or borrow someone's child - and bring that child to a river to play. Get the child wet, and watch the look of possibility in their eyes. Good advice - I plan to get my nephew wet any day now, which I'm sure he'll be quite enthusiatic about. Each student took home a hemlock sapling along with their diploma... a beautiful tradition.

Sarah's brother Gordon showed us around the College farm, which he knows inside and out, and introduced us to the cow herd who ate much of Gordon's thesis research. I'm not sure I've ever met someone so accomplished and involved in his undergraduate studies as Gordon.

A fence holds back one of WWC's many camera-starved piglets

These are the cows that ate Gordon's thesis. They tell me it was delicious.

Jack Douglas came to town over the weekend. He introduced us to his son Hurt, and regaled Sarah and myself with stories of Italy and tales of ice cream all over Asheville. He has been an incredible cheerleader throughout the last few months, and I'm lucky to have him at my side. Thank you Jack!

Jack and Hurt, the jellyfish and the maestro himself