Beam me up!

Robin woke up in slightly better spirits this morning! As the morning proceeds she'll get an idea what side effects will be like today. The tumor reached its smallest size around Monday of this week and it's growing again. As it grows bigger it seems to increase her level of nausea and dry heaves. The last few days her mouth has been extremely sore, but it feels a little bit better today. For pain she now takes liquid Tylenol through the feeding tube.

We're in the city this morning for two appointments. The first will be a blood test - her Complete Blood Count (CBC) which will report her white blood cell count. The lower it is, the more susceptible she is to infection. If she picked up the flu or a cold it would be hard for her to fight it off and it could delay treatment. She did receive an injection of Neulasta last Saturday which should have boosted the production of these cells.

The second appointment is the Radiation Therapy (RT) Beam Check. Since we last saw the RT folks they have been planning how best to apply radiation, for example how many different beams, from which angles, at what intensity. Today they'll put Robin on the simulation machine again just to verify that the plan they have developed looks like the most efficient way to deliver a high dose of radiation to the tumor, while minimizing the radiation which goes through her healthy tissue (in particular the areas in her throat and around her brain).

We expect to be done here by noon and home by 5:00pm. We'll be returning next week - the first radiation treatment is planned for next Wednesday. We're really anxious to finally see the tumor stop getting bigger.