finally...

Everyone has been yelling at me for not updating the blog, but with everything going on it has been hard to find time. But now I have a day off and I have no more excuses. So here is the update...

Sean is doing fantastic after his surgery. As it turns out, the new area where they did the surgery was not only necrosis, but it was also tumor. So Sean is now officially eligible for clinical trials. He will actually be starting a clinical trial of Avastin at the end of September. This is a drug that is currently FDA approved for colon cancer and will shortly be approved to treat a number of other types of cancer. The trial is currently being offered at NIH, Duke, and UCLA and they have had some pretty impressive results. Sean will be able to go off the steroids, as this drug has a positive steroid effect, because it reduces the swelling in the brain, without all the nasty side effects. Eventually the hope is that the drug will cut off the blood supply to the tumor, thus killing it off. The trial is for 12 months, but if it is working he will remain on it indefinitely. The treatment consists of an infusion every two weeks and MRIs every four weeks. We are all very excited about the possibilities.

School is going well, finally starting to calm down a little and I am getting into the swing of things. I love my teammates, they are so nice and so helpful, it makes such a big difference. I have 16 in my class and it is a nice little class. Still feeling overwhelmed, but everyone keeps telling me I will probably feel that way all year! So I am adjusting. But everything really is going well.

This weekend we will be going to NY for Sean's cousin, Tony Long's wedding. We will get to see Conlon and Tracy Ann, Brigid, Alex and the kids and celebrate Gracie's birthday. So we are looking forward to it!

I will try to be better about updating and keeping everyone in the loop!