no more Temodar, clean scan, no work and a walk

Mark has now completed 24 rounds of Temodar and is currently no longer taking any chemotherapy!! There is a risk of developing Leukemia if you stay on the drug too long, so the standard treatment is 24 rounds then you come off and continue with scans indefinitely.

Mark had another MRI and doctor visit yesterday. He passed all the neurological tests with flying colors and entertained the student nurse by answering some of her questions in Spanish ;) He has practiced spelling "world" backwards so many times that he now has it memorized, so when she asked, "Spell world," he instinctively spit out "d-l-r-o-w" in lighting speed. You should have seen the look on her face, 'cause she asked him to spell it forwards!! We met with Dr. Cloughesey and all scans remained unchanged, so good news there. He also met with Dr. Liau last week for another dose of the dendritic cell vaccine.

Over the past few months, Mark has complained of more fatigue and does seem to get tired alot. His work recently went through some down sizing and Mark was now required to do more of the calculations and bidding. Since numbers and word recollection seem to be some of the areas that are affected by his tumor, he was feeling more and more pressure and frustratation on a daily basis. He has since sought council with the social worker at UCLA and will be going on state disability for the next year. The interesting thing about this program is that they also provide career counseling and training to help patients find areas of work that are more satisfying and require less emphasis on the areas that seem to cause him trouble. I think the backyard project will be good relaxation therapy for him too ;)

This weekend (May 10th), we will again be participating in the Tom Atkinson Memorial 5K to help raise funds for the UCLA Neuro-oncology program. This walk is being sponsored by brain tumor patients and families of those that have lost loved ones to this terrible cancer. Brain cancer research gets a tiny percentage of the medical research budget and since we have a vested interest in their outcomes, we’re hoping to help contribute in as many ways as possible. All donations go 100% to the cause and we're hoping to raise more money to help the doctors continue to find new ways to fight brain cancer.

If you’d like to help us through an online donation, please visit the following website:
https://giving.ucla.edu/braincancerresearch
Under Gift Options, please be sure to put “Team Pace” in the tribute gift section, so our team gets credit for your generosity :)