Allison age 27, diagnosed with Primary CNS Lymphoma February 2005.
One year ago today Allison had brain surgery: February 22, 2005. The right front lobe of her brain was removed for biopsy specimen and to relieve pressure in her head.
Today started out just as it did one year ago with heavy fog blanketing the Waco area. Last year Allison's surgery was delayed several hours because the necessary MRI staff could not get to the hospital early in the morning. Today Allison and Karen drove in the fog to Scott & White in Temple for Allison's 17th inpatient chemo treatment. There are just 5 more to go! For you locals, she is in room 658. The phone number is (254) 724-3658. She will be there at least until Friday evening.
Our family has adjusted to being under one roof again. There are extra jackets tossed on the couch, a garage full of apartment furnishings, bottles of pills and extra central line dressings in the kitchen. Three cars still fit in the driveway and the sound of the garage door late at night lets us know Allison is once again safely home from work at the theater.
The year has had its ups and downs but the bottom line is the tumor is gone and Allison is more and more the great young lady she was before all this started. Those of you who followed her during the year may remember that she won two airline tickets as the grand prize at a Brain Tumor Conference in Houston. She has used one to go to Tennessee for a Girl Scout girl friend's wedding in September. Next week she will use the other to fly to Sacramento, CA to visit Uncle Cliff and Aunt Anne Marie. They plan to do some skiing at Lake Tahoe.
During the year we were pretty much on our own when it came to finding organizations that could help us. We have gotten some assistance from American Cancer Society, Leukemia Lymphoma Society, Cancer Care and the Waco Area Community Cancer Association. Today Allison was approved for assistance from the Healthwell Foundation to help pay for the Neulasta shot she gets after every chemo treatment.
Just in the last month I have found another, which I would like to pass on. It is a website called thestatus.com. Families can set up a page, free, to follow the status and progress of someone with a long-term illness or disability. The only way I can thing of to tell you about it is to give you the ID (mcbee) and password (kristen1) of a friend who is using it. This would have been a great help to us, if we had known about it last spring. Please add this to your list of resources for folks that contact you.
Update: 3/14/2006:
Allison began high dose methotrexate chemo in March 2005. She spent 3-4 days every other week in the hospital through July with frequent MRIs. The MRI in July showed no sign of the tumor. After a month off, Allison discussed options with her doctor at Scott & White in Temple. She decided to continue the high dose methotrexate every four weeks for 12 more treatments.
Update: 1/1/2007:
In May 2006 we needed a couple extra weeks in between chemo treatments so our family went to Disney World. It was a welcome change for all of us. Allison was concerned that she would get tired half way through the day but that never happened. We spent a week. Opened the parks in the morning and came back to the hotel after the evening parade/fireworks. We had made arrangements for Allison's stitches on her central line to be redone at the clinic near Disney World just in case, but never needed to use them. The folks at Scott & White stitched them really good before we left and they never had to be replaced.
Allison finished her second round of methrotrexate in July 2006. There was celebration all around! Her central line was removed in September. Her MRI has shown no sign of tumor since August of 2005. Hopefully it will stay that way. She will have labs and MRI done quarterly for 2-3 years and visit with her doctor at Scott & White every 3 months. After that we will just have to wait and see. The neurologist has taken her off all the remaining medicines she was taking and all is good so far.
Allison has been working her 2 part time jobs and living at home for the last 2 years. She recently said she might stay at home. The food was pretty good and she didn't like to cook. Besides she couldn't find anything with rent as low as what mom & dad charge. She will be losing one of her jobs in January 2007 because the bookstore will be closing. She is planning to go back to school and work toward her teaching degree. The future looks good.
Added 4/2/2008
Ten years ago, I had just completed my Girl Scout Gold award and was getting ready to graduate from high school. In the next few years I completed my Associate in Applied Science degree in Computer Maintenance and all the lower level courses necessary to move on to my Bachelors Degree. I was living on my own, working 2 jobs and saving money so I could go back to school and get that Bachelor in Mathematics. I was almost ready!
Along came a brain tumor, Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma to be specific. One craniotomy and 18 months of chemo later, I was 26 years old, living at home with no money in the bank! I was in full remission and would need to have checkups every 3-6 months for a couple years. So now I set out to begin again. I went back to the local community college to see how well my brain would handle academia. After Calculus II & III and Differential Equations, my GPA of 3.197 was a solid indication that I could again move forward with my plans.
Both my employers had stuck by me during all that time, sometimes letting me work as few as 6 hours a week or not at all when I was in the hospital. Now it was time to get busy again. I stayed at home, worked my 2 jobs, as many hours as possible, and went back to school. By the summer of 2007 I had enough money in the bank for one year at a four-year college and I was ready!
I enrolled at Tarleton State University, about 100 miles from home, and hoped I could find a part-time job on campus or in Stephenville. One year has almost come and gone. I have worked really hard and my GPA stands at 3.46.
- I am an almost 3 year survivor of a Brain Cancer.
- My mother is a 25 year survivor of Breast Cancer.
- My father is a 9 month survivor of Colon Cancer.
My love of mathematics has been long lived but I can’t begin to understand the mathematics of the above statistics. When I graduate, and I will graduate, I hope to find a career dealing with statistics or statistical applications.
Hewitt, TX
