Well, we finally got through our first day of treatment.  We thought we were going to start yesterday, after our PET scans, but since the glucose they inject into our bodies before the scan doesn’t leave for 24 hours, we had to wait.  The clinic is on the Oral Roberts University campus, in what used to be ORU’s hospital.  This was a little surprising.  This university’s campus is crazy….quite ornate in a semi-creepy way.

ANYWAYS, the treatment went well.  We had some blood drawn first, so they can check red/white blood cell counts, etc… and then we received our first treatment that included high does Vitamin C, DMSO and Laetrile.  For those of you who don’t know, DMSO has a very distinct smell about it, and apparently my dad and I are already mildly emitting that smell.  We can’t smell it, because it’s actually in our bodies, but we can definitely taste it.  I plan on doing 2 full cycles of this treatment, which will be 40 days total, so all I can say is….my poor family.  All for a great cause, though, eh?  Part of the treatment cycle doesn’t include DMSO, so they promised me that they would time it to where I was on that part when flying back home to finish out my treatment there.  That was a HUGE relief.  Tonight we will get our PICC lines inserted.  My dad will appreciate not having to get the treatment through an IV after tonight.  His veins aren’t nearly as cooperative as mine are.  It took them a few times to get him going today.  I think my veins have just finally conceded to cooperate, after about the 1000th time of being poked by a needle.

We won’t find out the results of our PET scans until the end of the week, probably.  They just did a brain scan on me, but my dad had a full body scan to make sure that his cancer hasn’t metastasized anywhere else.  That poor guy was on the scanner yesterday for an hour and a half.  I was getting tired of sitting still after about 5 minutes, but only had to be on the scanner for 20 minutes total.  I guess that’s one of the good things about brain cancer.  It doesn’t metastasize anywhere else.  Yeah, that’s right….call me Ozzy Optomist.

I spoke with a family last week who has a little boy getting treated at this clinic for a brain tumor, as well.  I met their little boy today, as well as a little 5 year old girl.  It is just absolutely heartbreaking to see these little kids coming in, dealing with something that no child should ever have to go through.  These parents are just amazing.  The dad of that boy told me last week that he can’t even imagine how I felt when I was first diagnosed.  I told him that it had to have been a million times worse to hear that your 2 year old son has a brain tumor.  I can’t even imagine how much grace I would have to have to be able to go through a journey like that.  He has an inoperable astrocytoma, which is the same tumor as mine, but his is a grade 1.  He is through his first cycle of treatment and will be going through a second cycle at home.  His name is Curtis, if you would please pray for him.  I sat there watching him get treated, trying not to cry.  He is just a little bit older than Trent is, and his older brother Trent is the same age as Tyler, so I had a hard time not putting myself in their shoes.  Trent and I chatted about snakes for quite awhile, though, so that helped to get my mind on other things…such as reptiles.  The little girl that was being treated was the most beautiful little girl, who was just starting to grow her hair back from being treated with chemo.  Her name is Esther and she has neuroblastoma.  She is cancer free from her treatment, but they are following up with this treatment to try and mop up any remaining cancer cells.  Her cancer is similar to mine with a very high rate of recurrence, so please pray for her, as well.  Here is a GREAT story, though.  There was a girl that just got done being treated at the clinic for a Glioblastoma, which is grade 4 of my tumor.  She is my age and had a 1 inch sized residual tumor that was inoperable.  She’s back at home and it’s GONE!!!!  She’s doing another cyle to make sure that everything has been mopped up, but that is just crazy exciting.

It’s nice to have finally started treatment so that we can now get into a daily routine.  It was a little bit surreal arriving at our hotel on Sunday, thinking about how this was going to be my home for the next 2 weeks.  I was having a hard time yesterday, thinking about being away from my kids and husband for so long, but the sun is shining today and we are on our way to getting healthy.  I’m excited!