Brain cancer is...

 

...all about the hats!

Darrell's first hat was from Melanie and Gail, a motoring hat.  It's for the British side of him, driving about, supercilious. Love it!  Great foresight.  Above is the hat from Mer and Matt, the Dublin walking hat.  We post it in honor of St. Patrick's day.  Erin go bragh!

And, in keeping with our promise of three entirely positive posts, here's the first:

Here's  to the potential positive power of the tinfoil hat (not) that we call Optune.  Today Dr. Park confirmed that Optune is a good option for Darrell.  It's a clinically demonstrated treatment for initial GBM patients. Check it (and related research) out at the site above.  Also do your own research with "Optune" as the search term.

Even before surgery, we heard about Optune.  Every family member began planning awesome options to enhance the look of Optune.  Winner to date:  Packers beer glasses.  I think that's Tiana.  Andi's idea:  Let's move away from white bandages.  How about mango?  We are open to your ideas!

More Positive Updates

• Blood pressure at Dr. Park?  115/75.  Awesome!
• Dr. Park's willingness to listen to maintenance phase treatment options for MGMT negative tumors?  Super cool.  Looking at metronomic dosages of TMZ during maintenance.
• Lunch date?  Better than blood pressure readings.
• Moral lesson?  Best ever!  We knew (pre-surgery) when Dr. Park took Darrell as his patient that Dr. Park was overbooked.  Today, 45 minutes into our wait to see Dr. Park, an 80-year-old man told us that he was ABOUT TO WALK OUT.  He had prostate.  (That's cancer talk.)  He was ready to leave.  He needed to go to work.  Darrell and I had a decision to make.  This decision was made more difficult because we were knee-to-knee in a crowded room full of cancer patients.  Should we:
• A:  Punch this guy in face?  He's got two punch strikes against him: (1)  He's 80.  (2)  He is maintaining a Life 1.0 job.  Gotta go!
• B:  Listen with patience?  Life is falling apart.  
• We went with B:  Listen with patience.  Whenever life falls apart, it's horrible. When this guy asked us, "Why I am I still around, at 80, with everything falling apart?", we told him, "Maybe it's enough that you made us smile today."  When he left, he looked us in the eye, laughed, and said, "Have a good day.  See you next time."  We hope we do.