Home Bitter-Sweet Home

So I flew back to Texas on Monday. Thank goodness my flights were uneventful. Roger and I had a great visit. Roger signed us up for a yacht trip through MWR at Walter Reed. We spent the day on a 49 ft luxury yacht. Talk about the life. There's no way I'd ever be able to or spend $572,000 on one of those, but man, what a life. The captain and crew from The Yacht Center were so nice. It was a lot of fun. I didn't know what to expect at first because yachts are defined differently by many people. My only knowledge of what a yacht was is from Puff Daddy and Jay-Z videos. Turns out the yacht we were on was a baby compared to theirs. After the cruise around Kent Island with a short detour to Annapolis, we were treated to an awesome lunch at a local seafood restaurant called The Jetty. It was truly unbelievable. We ate so much seafood. I was in heaven. What's so funny about that is Roger and I went to Annapolis the following week for three days and we ate so much seafood there, I was sick of seafood. We walked by a restaurant in Bethesda later that week that served crab and other seafood and I thought I was going to throw up from the smell. I couldn't believe I was sick of seafood. I love seafood. Proves the point, too much of a good thing...

So we went to Annapolis and had a great time. We toured the city, the Naval Academy and all the shops. Roger was exhausted after it was all over. We stayed at a bed and bagel on Main Street over a delly called Chick & Ruth's. You'll have to read about them to understand how unique they are. It was great and we highly recommend staying there. This place was way cool. The Saturday before we went to Annapolis, we had the honor of observing our friends Charles and Deborah get married in Warrenton, Va. Pastor John performed the ceremony and it was absolutely beautiful. One of the most personal and sweet ceremonies we've ever witnessed. The town of Warrenton is a quaint town with lots of history. It was really neat. The reception followed at a local country club which was a lot of fun. We had to leave early enough to make the hour and a half drive back to DC to make it to church the next morning before we left for Annapolis. Our friend Allison let us borrow her car while she was visiting family in Indiana. We wouldn't have been able to get away without her generosity. Thanks Allison. You rock!

We only had one week left together and poor Roger got progressively sicker. Turns out he had an upper respiratory infection. So he spent most nights of our last weekend hacking all night. We were both exhausted. And on Saturday we went swimming with John & Tamra to which Roger thought he jammed his ring finger while we tossed a football in the pool, but he actually fractured it. Poor thing, he was all messed up this weekend. A good friend of ours, Alev, gave Roger a photo safari she couldn't get to for Sunday afternoon and we didn't think he'd be able to focus a lens with his finger wrapped up like it was. But he was able to and we had a great experience in Georgetown learning how to take better pictures. It was really neat. I'll get Roger to post pictures from all these events soon. He'll be visiting his friend Ryan and his sister Marie this weekend at the community house. He's already feeling better and not coughing at all through the night now.

But as always, going home is bitter-sweet. Living at Walter Reed is not the most comfortable so although I love being with Roger and going through this experience with him, I really miss the comforts of home while I'm there. And although I look forward to going home to my nice big bed, my own private bathroom, etc., I sure wish Roger was coming back with me. Walking into an empty house all alone doesn't make those conveniences any better. I can't wait for Roger to be home. I really miss him.

All Day at the Hospital, New Meds

Today was a pretty stress free and straight forward day. I got up, headed to Bethesda NNMC on the metro and saw my Oncologist for my 1130 appointment. It was a fairly easy visit. He had a resident there learning today so I got the help teach strength, balance and memory testing. They do this every few visits just to gauge my level and see if there any differences from last time. I think my strength gets better each time, but the memory stuff stays the same. I'm not getting any younger!

After that, I grabbed a quick bite and then headed to my Neurology appointment. We discussed my last seizure and also talked about the strange twitches going on around my right big toe and the side of my foot. For about two months before the seizure, the activity was so pronounced that I would lay in bed and could feel it. Sometimes it would keep me awake for a while. Then, after I had the seizure, they seem to have slowed down quite a bit. He was interested by this and seemed fairly certain that these were, in fact, tiny focal seizures occurring throughout the day. I thought it was just my brain confused and healing doing that, but that is basically a type of seizure, I guess.

We did more strength testing and he also seemed satisfied with my improvement, but wanted to control the seizures. I am at the maximum dosage for Keppra at 2,000mg per day. He also told me that Keppra is good at controlling generalized seizures, but not so good at focal seizures. I tend to have focal seizures that progress to a generalized seizure. So, he waded through the list of additional medications that he could add and finally ended up at one called Tegretol. I’ll be taking 400mg per day to start. I took my first 200mg tonight and feel okay – a little drowsy – which is a side effect. He said that it also might make my stomach feel upset for the first few days, but it should pass. It’s feeling pretty good so far. The only issue with the Tegretol is that it can increase liver enzymes, so he’ll need to draw levels to make sure that I’m getting enough of the medication into my system and that my liver enzymes don’t increase to a dangerous level. He also wants to do an EEG on Tuesday, just to see what kind of activity by brain is creating. He mentioned that there may be some scar tissue or something else in my brain that is irritating it and causing these seizures. It is apparent that something in the part of my brain that controls my right foot around my big toe is irritated. He said that if I was interested, they might be able to pinpoint it in time, and possibly go back in to remove the irritation. Hmm… we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. He was also happy that I had an MRI scheduled for later in the afternoon and would use the data from the EEG and MRI to compile the NARSUM for my MEB. He said that he’d have a better idea of what to include in the NARSUM, but was not going to do it until I was stable. That means that next week, WRAMC will only transfer me into their system, I’ll have to move there and then will have ongoing appointments until the doctors think my condition is stable enough to begin the board process. In addition, my doctors don’t want to see me moved to a different location – they would prefer that I stay close to them for my care during the MEB process. My Neurologist said, “Why start you over again with a new doctor? That’s just stupid.” I agree. I hope WRAMC agrees.

After the visit with him, I went down to MRI, and after a short delay due to an emergency MRI, I had my time in the machine and actually fell asleep inside the magnet again. I didn’t have a chance to get a CD of the images because it was after 1800 when I finished, but my Oncologist is going to call me Saturday morning with the results. I’ll pick up a CD on Tuesday when I’m there for the EEG and will try to share them with you.

After the MRI, I high tailed it back to Clarendon and joined up with Amanda, Buddy, Ryan, Zach (John’s brother) and Tamra for dinner to celebrate Tamra’s getting out the Army. We went to The Cheesecake Factory and ate a lot of food and of course, dessert too. Buddy and Amanda gave me a ride home and hung out for a while with me. All in all – another good day. I’m looking forward to a weekend of rest and beautiful weather here in DC. I’ll let you know what my Oncologist says about the scan results tomorrow.

Off to bed - long day Saturday

A big thanks to Buddy, Amanda, Ryan, Derek, Jumoke, Pili, Charles, Megan, Ruben, Esther, Ashley, Matt, Julie, John, Tamra, Jana, Kezia, Naomi... your help providing materials, ideas, muscle while we packed everything up and loaded the trailer has been such a blessing to us. All we have to do now is wake up, take our last few items down to the truck and drive off. We had a nice meal at El Pollo Rico (which we're going to miss so much since it's so close and sooo yummy) and then we watched just a little TV and talked. Then our great friends presented us with a scrap book full of pictures from our two years here, and goodbyes from many different people from church. We looked at the pictures, but didn't really get a chance to dive into it. We'll enjoy reading it when we get home to Texas. Thanks again to everyone that had a hand in this wonderful gift.

Our time here has been awesome. I can't believe that we're leaving and that one year has passed since my brain surgery! Time has absolutely flown by. It just ticked past midnight and now it is March 3, 2007. One year ago right now my parents and Holly's mom were here and I was trying to get to sleep knowing that I would undergo brain surgery the following morning to remove my tumor. I didn't know it at the time, but the months following the surgery would be the most trying of my life. But here I am, one year later, driving off on one year to the day of that life changing day. Sometimes, it never seems like it happened. But every day I look in the mirror and I see the scar and my thin patch of hair from the radiation. It reminds me of what happened, and how far I have come. But I didn't do it alone. My wonderful wife, Holly, was there by my side every single day. She is my rock. And our family from Grace lifted us up during that time too. God gave you to us so that we could get through that time. In turn, we gave something back to others that are able to take our experience and somehow get through something in their lives just a little bit easier. I'm happy that God used me for that purpose. I will go through it again if I need to, because I feel I have helped more people having experienced this than anything else in my life. And it has made me a better person in the end.

The next few months will be a challenge for us, but it's nothing we won't be able to handle. But for the next 40 days, I'm on vacation... my first in two years. Man, am I looking forward to it! Lastly, Holly shared with you that I am on the selection list for a promotion to E-7/SFC in the Army. This is great news since it means more dinero and it just feels good to know that I made the cut. I had to take what the Army calls a DA Photo (Department of the Army Photo) and submit it with my promotion packet. I thought I'd share it with you. Good night.