What A Day

To have two people in my immediate family simultaneously fight brain cancers is an experience difficult to adequately convey.  Here's a photo of Zoe, still woozy from being sedated earlier this morning for an MRI, sitting with Uncle Eric.  They each have arguably the most aggressive forms of brain cancer for their age groups.

My day began with a 4AM wake up call by Camden.  As his jubilant giggles and coos met me in the hall, his joy for life reinflated me after another poor night's sleep.  He will turn six months old on Saturday and what a six months it has been.

I was four and a half months pregnant when we learned that my elder brother, Eric, had stage 4 glioblastoma.  Eric and his wife, Sarita, went through the unfathomable torture of hearing a rather promising prognosis from a doctor at one hospital, and then obtaining a second opinion at Mass General Hospital which is now being realized:  Eric's brain cancer is exceptionally swift and savvy, and likely will be fatal.  My friends and family feared for my pregnancy.  My mind, body, and spirit were at once reveling in the joy of a longed-for pregnancy, and churning with the heart-wrenching reality of my brother's illness.  And this dichotomous experience was only to become even more pronounced.  

Forty-eight hours after his successful tumor resection, Eric walked out of Mass General and up the three flights of stairs to his apartment.  He endured a summer of radiation and chemotherapy while going to work and living his life.  When Camden was born in August, Eric and Sarita visited us in the hospital and they looked great.  

A week into enjoying Camden, we found out that Zoe had a brain tumor and, forty-eight hours after her resection, we were only just beginning to learn the many serious complications from her surgery.  However, now, just as Zoe seems to be regaining some of her faculties, my brother is losing his.

Today, while we were hearing our neuro-oncologist relay the encouraging findings of Zoe's brain and spine MRI, my house-bound brother was being visited by his Hospice nurse.  It seems that Zoe's protocol has been effective so far in treating her ATRT.  There is no sign of tumor regrowth in her brain and no sign of any cancer in her spine (We are awaiting cytology findings of the spinal fluid taken today.).  There are over thirty stairs and six landings on the way up to Eric and Sarita's apartment, and David and I lugged both of our children up each one of them so that we could get a photo of them with Eric while he can still enjoy them and so they can get to know him.

The emotional torque experienced just today, never mind the many times over the last year, is simply too much to process efficiently.  Sometimes I find myself reminiscing about the hard and wonderful childhood I shared with Eric and feeling a fleeting panic when I try to summon and organize memories of him that I don't want to forget.  Other times, I am swimming in emotions of joy and awe when I witness Zoe's unabashed love for her brother, or when I reflect on the astonishing progress she is making.  And tonight I find myself in front of the fire, gratefully cradling a sleeping Cam at this late hour, listening to Zoe's sweet voice in a midnight gabfest with her Daddy about her favorite things (...Uncle Matt, guitar, Aunt Rachael, the park, the beach, the sheep song, the Christmas tree...).