A request for support AND an update from the March trip to Duke

Hi,

A request for support:

Yes, the first part of this post is to ask you for monetary support of Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University. This is the home of the world class team of researchers, doctors, nurses and staff that spend their waking hours looking for ways to defeat brain cancer.

Once a year they host a fundraiser known as Angels Among Us, a 3K/5K run combined with a silent auction and a survivor recognition ceremony. Now in its 21st year, it has raised over 14 million dollars to support the Center.

We have formed a team, John's Tumor Warriors, to raise funds for the organization that is central to John's fight against Glioblastoma. Our team page is at John's Tumor Warriors Home Page.  If you feel you can support this cause you will find a link to the donation page underneath John's Gonzaga graduation photo.

We will not be running in this event, as it is hosted on the Duke campus and falls between our bimonthly visits. However, for consistency,  I will be running the Presidio Trail Run on Sunday April 27th :

Besides this invitation to contribute there will be one other email that comes to you directly from the event website.  Thanks in advance for any support you can offer.

The latest Duke report

At the end of March John, Melanie and I made our every eight week visit to Duke. This visit was particularly suspenseful as it was on the heels of the seizure episode in mid-March. It was also going to be our first face to face with the medical team since the MRI that followed the seizure.

MRIs, while a great advance in diagnostics, is still a bit of an art with regards to interpretation.   Thus when one is undergoing a series of MRIs as John is, other doctors prefer to defer to the team that is doing the image reads over time. So for the intervening two plus weeks since the MRI was taken in California the local doctors have held off any analysis of the image.We did receive the observation from the Duke team that the image was "fine" but not much more detail.

When we arrived in North Carolina we found out that the John's doctor, Henry Friedman, was unavailable to meet, as he was going to be treated for kidney stones during our visit.  His staff assured us his absence had nothing to do with depression over Duke's early exist from the NCAA basketball tournament. :)

In his place the staff did a stellar job of addressing many of the side effects from John's treatment.  In addition they conveyed the encouraging news from the MRI that the tumor seems to be "less solid and possibly breaking down". Obviously this is a highly desirable . John will continue with his current treatment regimen as it seems to be having the desired effect.  We will return to Duke in mid-May for the next review. I will have another post at that time.