Tracey's Update: January 4-January 10

January 4, 2007, was family portrait day. Tracey had radiation treatment in the morning and we had a great session of family pictures in the afternoon. Again, Tracey packed as much time with her Mom and Jenny as humanly possible.

January 5 saw Tracey's Mom and Jenny leave to go back home. They departed very early and arrived safely many hours later. Tracey and I went to radiation in the morning and ran some errands in the afternoon.

January 6 - 7 were fairly uneventful days with a couple of exceptions:

• Tracey's hair began to fall and
• her blood pressure began to rise again.

She is not in pain thanks to a pain patch. Her energy is beginning to return but not enough to be at normal levels. On Sunday I trimmed Tracey's hair to about 3/8" long.

January 8: This morning I took Tracey to radiation -- one more to go. At night she asked me to trim her hair even shorter because it was falling a lot more now.

January 9: Tracey had her last radiation treatment and we met with Dr. Ezekiel (Radiation Oncologist). We learned a lot of things:

• Tracey's tumors were larger than we had been told before; one is 3 x 4 cm and the other 1 x 2 cm
• Both tumors are on the left side of her head.
• The "normal" long-term side effects of this type of tumor are minimal.
• The radiation treatment she just finished was whole brain to eliminate stray cells and to shrink the tumors present now. If they do not shrink enough or if they should regrow, then Tracey will need spot radiation to kill the tumor cells.
• She may or may not get her hair back -- Tracey thinks it will return.
• Dr. Ezekiel reduced the steroid medication in half until next visit. Tracey was happy about that because she is concerned with increased appetite and weight gain.
• Her next appointment with Dr. Ezekiel is January 16 at 3 PM.

We then went to see the wigs at Becky's Place at Lexington Medical Center; Tracey saw some that she liked and we made an appointment for fitting a wig. Tracey is looking for something different. I will not spoil the surprise. We originally set the appointment for 1 PM but then had to move it to 9 AM because of a new appointment with Dr. Madden's office.

We then proceeded to Dr. Madden's office to report the increased blood pressure Tracey has experienced in the last two days. Shannon increased Tracey's BP medication and asked us to come back on January 16 at 1:45 PM.