Category Cancer challenges
The Sum of the Parts
For the final #braintumorthursday of Brain Tumor Awarness Month #BTAM, after outlining this past year’s surgery and treatment adventures, I’m reflecting on my feelings toward all of these steps along the way. Or, more accurately, on the sum of the parts. I can start by saying that I’ve passed two more milestones in the week […]
My Treatment Diaries: Six Months of Chemo
As I shared in my “treatment overview” post that kicked off this May’s Brain Tumour Awareness Month, my path since diagnosis with a glioma in 2012 is divided into clearly defined and discrete chapters in my memory. I’ve written about all of them over the three years of this blog, most recently covering my adventures […]
My Treatment Diaries: Radiation & Chemo
We are in the middle of Brain Tumour Awareness Month (#BTAM) in Canada and the US, so I wanted to continue to update my experiences with treatment. As I’ve shared in literally graphic detail, last Sept I underwent an awake craniotomy to remove most of what turned out to be a Grade III oligodendroglioma from […]
Greymadder Returns: Turn May Grey
I am blessed to have followers and supporters who have been asking how I’m doing and noting that there’s not been a great deal of blogging going on. I recently had a talented friend and career/relationship coach (see Jolene Watson’s Clarity Coaching) do a Myers Briggs analysis with me, and found I’m an intuitive […]
Adventures in Radiation and Chemo Therapy
Ever wondered what happens in the radio therapy room? Are you looking at radiation and chemotherapy for a brain tumour? Here’s a terrific video taken by my husband of me getting set up for a treatment, featuring a couple of the terrific radiation technicians I see every day. Excellent people, doing excellent difficult work, making […]
Operating Room Video – Awake Craniotomy
Here is a live video taken in the Operating Room during my awake brain surgery. Perhaps not for the weak of stomach, but you can observe the brain mapping that is occurring, with the probing of my parietal lobe and sensory motor cortex. I didn’t actually remember doing this activity, they asked me to identify […]
My Awake Craniotomy Tales
Today I sit down to write. I haven’t done so for awhile. I’m a selfish blogger; I write when I want to, not according to any schedule. And today, I find my thoughts and attention are prepared and focused on telling you the story of what I’ve been up to over the past weeks. Readers […]
Anniversary Craniotomy
Today, August 14th, is the three year anniversary of the day I received the phone call from my neurologist directing me to the hospital, because he’d seen a glioma on my MRI scan. And as of today, we have a new plan. Awake craniotomy in September. (Updated to add – date will be September 9, […]
Pride and Progression
I feel compelled to tell you that I had a draft post ready to go entitled “Year Two of my Ketogenic Life”. One of the most popular posts here at Greymadder remains the Year One version. Over the past month, as I prepared to go for my six month MRI monitoring scan, I started drafting […]
Medicine, Science, Religion and Plagiarism
I was recently at a professional development event where respected NASA engineer Dr. James Brown enthusiastically advised attendees to “Plagiarize often and without shame!”. He admonished his audience to consider, when attempting to come up with an idea, whether one might in fact be the only human being in the history of human beings to come […]
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