Such.Great.News!

 

"I will exalt you, my God and King,

and praise your name forever and ever.

I will praise you every day;

yes, I will praise you forever.

Great is the LORD! He is most

worthy of praise!

No one can measure his greatness.

Let each generation tell its

children of your mighty acts;

let them proclaim your power.

I will meditate on your majestic,

glorious splendor 

and your wonderful miracles.

Psalm 145:1-3

Mom & Nallely, mom's caregiver

God's blessing (aka Nallely) to mom and dad.

The foremost purpose of "Annie's Song" is to focus on Ann/mom and her progress, as well as to give God glory for the many, many ways He has met our needs along the way ~ from July 4 (Independence Day) to October 31 (Halloween) and beyond. 😊

This may be a bit 'unorthodox' but I'm going to give myself an "atta girl!" for just a moment (and it does have a connection to the title of this post... which I'll get to shortly.) Most of you know that my husband, Roger also battled GBM beginning in September 2010. Dr. Kim was also his neurosurgeon and Drs. Chou and Fong were his oncologists. As you might imagine, I have had to fight the inclination to project onto my mom's cancer journey the things that occurred with Roger. It has been quite challenging to discipline my worrisome, speculative thinking. But ~ I have made progress. When the unwelcome and frankly unhelpful thoughts try to dominate, I remind myself that the best practice is to choose to live in the present. To celebrate what is positive. To hope for the best outcome. Ultimately, to trust that God has a good plan even if the road is sometimes bumpy and there are blind curves we can't anticipate. So, Yay me!

I want to express a great big "Thank you!" to everyone who has prayed for mom from the beginning of this journey in early July. Today we met with Dr. Kim to review the MRI that was done on October 25th. Dr. Kim showed us several images from the MRI and told us that 99% of the cancer is gone. 🎉🎉🎉 Obviously, this is fantastic news and confirms that mom's tumor has responded 'best case scenario' to the radiation and chemo.

Mom will continue maintenance Temodar (oral chemo) and have MRI's at six week intervals to monitor her status. One of the treatments that has been developed since Roger had GBM is a devise called OpTune. Mom and dad will be contacted by a representative from OpTune to discuss this in greater detail. Please pray for mom and dad to have wisdom about whether or not this would be a next step regarding treatment.

Who would have thought almost four months ago that mom and dad would be spending Halloween with their dear friend, Penny on Balboa Island passing out candy to adorable trick-or-treaters? (Honestly, not this girl.) But they are! And according to dad they will be enjoying tater tots and some chili cheese concoction... and if I know my mom ~ she will be thoroughly enjoying seeing all the costumed children and snacking on Baby Ruth candy bars. And my dad ~ he will definitely be enjoying some Halloween candy and grateful that he and mom are celebrating a festive holiday together on the heels of a great report from Dr. Kim. 

God is Good indeed!

Grateful for great news!

Terrie