For several reasons that will become clear later, I have titled this blog post with the old order to a ship's Helmsman "Steady as she goes!". You may notice that this ship is still in rough sea, but she is nicely making way. So it is with Kelly.We got a good report from the MRI on Tuesday Nov 29th. The tumor has not grown since the August checkpoint. So the chemo is working to keep the tumor in check. For now, then, we are concentrating on dealing with all the effects of the tumor and side effects of the medications that help with the treatment.
One is that Kelly has been on a large dose of a steroid medication. This has lots of unpleasant side effects like weakness and weight gain and skin problems, so now that the chemo is helping with the actual brain tissue swelling near the tumor, she is weaning herself off the steroid. It's sort of like an addiction- the withdrawal has to be done slowly to allow her body time to adapt, and the side effects of the withdrawal are unpleasant.
The second is that the main side effect of the anti-seizure medication is that it makes her sleepy, or groggy, almost as if she were drunk. If we are feeling uncharitable and she is being groggy and cranky, we call her Captain Jack, referring of course to Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp's drunken pirate from the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean. So there we have the second nautical reference. If you think it might be lovely to be drunk all the time you have probably not tried it. For Kelly, who loves to get some work done, especially out of doors, its very frustrating to be weakened by the steroids and then sent for a nap by the seizure medication.
And lastly, Kelly is working to gain back the function of her right hand and right leg and rebuild her strength. Physical Therapy helps, but the nap attacks make that very difficult.
One final inside joke to close out our Helmsman theme. Once upon a time, in a galaxy very nearby, there were a group of high school and college friends who had a car that was so big it was known as the Barge. The Space Barge. And in that group, among the others of that merry band of army-surplus-uniformed star fleet adventurers, was the Helmsman. Yes, you guessed it- it was Kelly. Steady as she goes, indeed.
