8
As of now, nearly all the pieces of my treatment program have fallen into place. I’ve managed to move the bulk of my treatment over to Marin, saving me the trouble of having to drive to San Francisco every day. The UCSF team has recommended a six-week course of radiation therapy which will be administered at Marin General Hospital, with its great view of Mt. Tam. This will be supplemented at the same time with a new form of chemo, an oral medicine called Temodar. It is supposedly much easier to tolerate than the older forms of chemo, with their nasty catheters and stuff. I can take it at night and sleep the worst part of it off. The thinking is that there is a synergistic value to doing the radiation and chemo together, and they told me "as a young man, you will be able to tolerate it." ("tolerate" being medical jargon for "it won’t kill you") I guess they sort of flattered me into it.

I also met with Michael Broffman of the Pine Street Clinic in nearby San Anselmo. His thing is to provide the body with nutritional supplements that help it deal with the rigors of treatment. He’s going to set me up with all sorts of Chinese medicine, which could include acupuncture, herbal supplements and other resources, such as Chi Gung practitioners.

I met with my Marin neuro-oncologist (it’s taking a lot of people to help me with this) a lovely, articulate and intelligent woman who appears to be from India (despite her obvious education, she can be hard to understand at times) I feel really good about her; she’ll be supervising my treatment and medications, and she’s now an integral part of our team.

Next Monday I meet with my radiologist to begin that process. I’m to expect a couple of days of set-up and preliminaries, and to have them point the machine at me starting Wednesday. I’m feeling pretty good...been putting some miles on the treadmill with some fast walking...and haven’t had any real problems except a couple of mild seizures, and the biggest problem with them is that if I’m not imitating Joe Cocker at the time, they look really stupid.

So now I’m entering the uphill part of the journey. As a runner and a biker, I’ve always liked hills...they always posed a worthy challenge, and if I had to get off and walk, well, so be it. I knew I’d get to the top of the hill eventually, and then it would be downhill. This, too, will have a downhill, and it’s my mission to get to it.

Peace and love,
Dan

(written by Ellen)

Elle's take on it all.

It seems as though Dan's fan club needs an update since his last communication. We have been very busy. Last week his sister Dede was visiting for 5 days. One day we went to Mendocino, it was a perfect day.

Last Friday, Dan had his first day of radiation and that night took his first hit of Temodar (chemo pills). He is only two days into it and doing real well, so far so good. On Friday evening his friend Anne Zesiger and family came over and we took some photos and played some music. Dan shared his new songs with Anne and Doug, who provided great backup. These small music evenings are very therapeutic for us.

As horrific as this situation is for us we are having a great time in between our various appointments. Last Thursday we drove to Napa to have a vibrato bar put on Dan's Telecaster. We took the opportunity to go visit Copia, a new museum in Napa, a tribute to food and wine, with some great exhibits and an abundant garden. We ate a fabulous lunch at Julia's Kitchen, housed within Copia. It's worth the visit if you've never been there.

Today Dan had his best round of golf in years, 95. He went with the boys and a work associate. They went to Peacock, it was 90 degrees out. I stayed home alone, got some things done, went swimming and enjoyed my space.

I'm learning a lot about nutrition and realize that all along we have been eating very healthy foods, I don't really need to change much about the food we eat, but I do need to get dinner together earlier so Dan has time to take his meds. Every morning he is making a fruit smoothy filled with a concoction of Chinese herbs. As for now we aren't eating meat and are using a lot of soy products and raw vegetables.

With all of the advancements in science and treatments of brain tumors we feel ready for the battle of the next six weeks. We are looking forward to ending the treatments two weeks before Thanksgiving. Dan's mom, brother, and sister will be coming from Colorado for Thanksgiving and we hope to get a weekend alone together at the Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa.

Life is going on for us and we feel very optimistic, which doesn't mean that we both don't have our moments of anxiety. We are encouraged by our love for each other and from all of you.

In love and peace {:> Ellen

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