Right Now

I have another "normal" blogpost waiting in the wings...waiting for me to feel more "normal". The way things have been the past few days, that may not happen.

Right now I am trying not to take any meds they didn't say I HAD to take...which is only the Dexamethasone (right now, 2 a day - they are tapering me off). I don't like being made to feel any more different than I already do, which is A LOT DIFFERENT. 

Today I have succumbed to the anti-nausea meds, though, which has me a bit spacey, but I am determined to get something written here, and maybe even finish that other post.

But just in case there is anyone looking for side effects of WBR and other info, here is where I am right now:

**Dizzy / light headed - been that way for a good while now. David and I actually walked outside last night. He had to learn to hang onto me like someone's 80 100 year old granny. It was a beautiful cool evening, odd for August, so I knew it was time to get out and air my head. If you followed my blogging from 3 years ago, you know this was a nightly event on my part and hugely therapeutic.

So, he walked me to the end of the block and back...and that was all I could handle. I then sat on the front porch and just breathed for a while. Which, with the way my lungs have been lately, is saying something.

**Doing too much coughing for my liking, especially at night.

**My handwriting has changed. I noticed this in the past couple of days. It's a bit like a child's and I have to think about which way things go. Not happy with this side effect, obviously.

**As mentioned earlier, I fight nausea at times. And with the occasional coughing fit, it does not help. I am ready to get some chemo in me next week and start killing whatever is growing in my lungs. Praying, praying, praying that that happens.

**Headaches. Not terrible usually, and I think the Dex is supposed to be helping there, but they come. I have taken to wearing different glasses. The weight of my other trendy frames was seeming a bit much at times.

**I am sensitive to smells. Strong food or perfumes or whatever odors are just too much at times.

**Certain food commercials gag me. We eat an awful lot of garbage in this country, and it's all over the television. I resent every one of them, for some reason. The lies are just too much, I guess.

**I am tired a lot. Period.

**Favorite foods are watermelon, clementines, nectarines, blueberries, just about any fruit, and for some reason, refried beans - black or brown. I love my Japanese green tea (thank you Megumi and family), which I find myself sipping several times a day. I am drinking a crazy amount of seltzer water, too. It has to be fresh and cold and not diluted with ice. Feels good on the tummy and I enjoy any belching that follows. Life's simple pleasures.

**Yesterday the hair went. It was coming out in handfuls, and my precious husband gently worked to get rid of the offending mass that was creeping me out. I read that your head can be tender with WBR, so he was extra careful. The follicles had been tender for a couple of days or so, but no probs with the cutting. I am glad to be done with it. No cute photos or anything this time (like in a previous blog). It was just a nice private time  between the two of us.

So that's a bit of where I am at the moment...today...right now. I don't like the feeling that my brain is not normal now, and am praying that once the swelling decreases (assuming it does) that I will begin feeling more like me again. I HATE feeling so different, and knowing it's not due to medication or whatnot, but that it's what is physically happening inside my own head.

Keep praying. I'm making it, just keep praying.

Art Teacher Forever

Next week my WBR ends and chemo begins. I still don't know what regimen I will receive, and part of me doesn't want to know. So, I though I'd just ignore all of that and focus on a couple of good things that have come my way this week. Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative...at least for today.

As many of you know, I am an art teacher in beautiful Northwest Arkansas. I am blessed to live in a state that actually mandates elementary art education for grades 1-6, which makes an amazing difference in the lives of thousands of children. I am thankful and proud to be a part of this wonderful profession.

Since NWA is now home to one of the premier art museums in the USA, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, this is all even more impactful for these kids and their families.

However, due to this terminal diagnosis I have been dealt, my days of teaching art are very likely over. I will forever be an art teacher, though. The students, teachers, administrators, and other teaching professionals I work with and have met along the way have been a fabulous part of a very fabulous life. Can I say it again?...I am so thankful to be a part of this profession.

If you want to see a smidgen of what I do, then check out a great resource called "Artsonia". I really didn't begin using it until last year. If you Google me and Artsonia, you can see some of our projects from last year (remember - two schools: Walker and Shaw). For more on me and my kiddos, I also have a "Mrs. Brigman's Art Room" Facebook group. It's closed, but if you ask permission, I might let you in! Lot's of fun video and images there, too, and you get an idea of what goes on in some of my happy places. (I am not linking any of this here. I figure if you are interested enough, you can find it.)

So, where is the good news here? (other than it's good that I love my job.)

Well, art teachers have conferences, both state and national, and I am almost always a presenter at our state conference, which is not saying a whole lot. I do enjoy it, though. It's my small way of paying back a great state that takes care of their youngest artists. I do a bunch of extra planning, organizing, arranging for a sub, then I haul stuff in my van (usually with a few other art teachers in tow) to Little Rock in late October or so and present some fun hands-on activity, or a best practice discussion, or both. Always fun and rewarding. Arkansas art teachers are the best!

Back in the spring of this year, though, I actually submitted proposals to be a presenter at the National Art Ed Convention in March of 2014. This is a convention I have often attended, but never as a presenter. I have been fortunate to work in a district that makes this possible.

And, as perhaps you have guessed, my proposals for presenting two sessions were accepted this week. I received my congratulatory email from someone at NAEA, explaining that, and stroking my ego by telling me how many submissions there were and how few were accepted. It's in San Diego, which probably added to the submissions! 

So, I was excited to get some good "normal" news this week! It does seem bittersweet, though. I am honored and excited about presenting, but at the same time realize that it may not happen. Right now, I am going to savor the thought of presenting in San Diego next March. I will be praying that I will get this cancer under control and be beyond the chemo and chemical sickness and feel good enough to do this. I sure am not going to turn them down yet!!

And, if you are curious about the titles of my two sessions, they are:

--Street Art: What Happens When You Teach 200 5th Graders How to Sculpt with Tape

--Facebook Groups: The Secure and Easy Way to Show Off Your Art Program

Sound fascinating, don't they? I think so! 
And...why doesn't EVERYONE want to be an art teacher?? That's a question I've never understood.

Whole Brain Radiation

I wanted to share a bit about this bizarre procedure I am undergoing everyday for 13 days, not counting weekends. 

My final day of WBR (whole brain radiation) is next Tuesday, August 13. On that day I will go from radiation, straight to "chemo class" and then to the infusion room for the first round of my systemic whole body poisoning. 

As an aside, there is something called a "blood brain barrier" that prevents chemo from crossing over to the brain as it should. I have been told that WBR helps break down that barrier, which should make chemo more effective.

Here is my miniscule understanding of how WBR works. If you are a medical physicist, or some such person, please forgive my shallow understanding, and feel free to comment and clarify in any way you can! 

First of all, this is not a procedure for everyone, only those who have so may lesions on the brain, that treating individual spots is not possible. There are procedures known as CyberKnife or Gammaknife or, more generically, Stereostatic Radiosurgery (SRS). These are "surgeries" done using radiation techniques that can pinpoint and eliminate individual tumors within parts of the body, often the brain. However, my brain is so full of lesions that this is not a possibility. So my WHOLE BRAIN gets treated. Not ideal, but really the only option to try and eliminate as many bad things going on in there as possible.

Today, I asked my radiation therapists to take a few photos of this procedure, just so you'd have some idea of this, my daily 9:50 occurrence. The whole procedure takes less than 10 minutes, once I am on the table and strapped down. 

Let me preface this by stating that the therapists you see pictured here are the sweetest, kindest, most caring people you could ever meet. They are ultra sensitive to how I am feeling, and yesterday I was swooped into a wheelchair as soon as they set eyes on me. I did not think I was that bad off, but, fighting mystery nausea, I did have Sean drive me, thinking it might not be the best for me to go solo. I guess as soon as they saw me they knew I did not need to be standing upright. I was grateful for the wheelchair, and not too proud to use it. Today seemed better, thank goodness.

So, to start with, how do you get your own mask? Before any treatment begins, you get your own personal mask formed by two very sweet and chatty ladies who drape a very warm and wet plastic mesh thing over your face. They then spend a few minutes pressing this down onto your face and nose area so it fits as closely as possible, using small fans to blow, cool, and create a permanent face shape only for you. It works. They then do some taping and marking and measuring and I don't know what all to make sure everything lines up perfectly. Before any radiation is done, they line all up using xrays and CT scans and double and triple check that "things" go where they should go.

Ready to get masked.
See white thing above my head - that's the mask.

Getting me positioned for treatment.
The table is cushioned and they always place a pillow under my legs and offer a blanket.

I don't know if this is the beginning or ending.
I do know the technicians are NOT in the room when I am getting treated.
 

Me and the machine.

These lovely people always make me feel better...
an amazing feet.

Ready to go.
The "mask" is strapped down to a plastic head shape sort of thing.
No moving!

That blue and grey thing is the radiation machine. It moves left, right, up, down, all around me to get in the perfect zapping position, making whirring and clicking sounds as it goes.

Masked and ready to go.
 

Part of my Sunny Spring View on the ceiling...It could be a lot worse.

Better view of me in the mask attached to the table/head holder thing...
and part of the machine.

 

What they see when they leave the room.
Me on the monitor.
They are never far away.


Some oddities that occur during treatment:

• I do see a blue light during each round of radiation. It lasts just a few seconds, but it's definitely there...and bright blue.
• There IS an odd smell that also occurs. Not offensive, and apparently not always a side effect, but I smell it. I have decided it smells slightly like the smell of the tap water in my house that is not filtered - so slightly chlorinated. Our kitchen filter prevents that smell, but I get it in the bathroom. Go figure.
• The coolness of the mask is almost a comfort. It does not make be feel claustrophobic, as it does for some. I am not wearing it for long enough, I suppose.
• I close my eyes and pray while undergoing this. Still see that blue light, though.

Elders, Anointing, and Peace

I have been processing the events of last Thursday night. How do I put into words the amazing and wonderful event that occurred in a small upstairs room at one of the buildings on my church campus at Fellowship this week?

Last Sunday morning, following worship service, David and I visited the Prayer Room, for obvious reasons. The Prayer Room is a private room designated for those who feel the need for prayer following a worship service. The room is quiet with lamps and secluded sections with comfortable chairs. Most importantly, members of our elder board and their spouses are also there, waiting. 

Newly diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer to my brain, lungs, liver, possible pancreas, and who knows where else, and we were reeling. We are not geniuses, but we recognize when we NEED HELP. And we are far from too proud. We've visited that Prayer Room a couple of other times, and it's never fun. Emotional and serious and tearful, but such is life at times. To hide from these events is foolish and even selfish.

We met with Kent and his wife, Terry, who listened intently and were quick to comfort and hold us and pray fervently. Their prayers were comforting and strengthening and we suddenly did not feel quite so alone. They immediately promised to make plans to get with the rest of the Elders to pray with us as a group.

The following day, Kent contacted David and said they wanted us to come to church some evening that week for a time of prayer and anointing with oil. We, of course, were more than willing. In fact, many of these same elders had done just that during my first cancer diagnosis in 2010. We knew what a special and strengthening time it would be. Thursday night it was.

And to make it even more special, many members of our community group also attended. These are people that we meet with regularly for Bible study and fellowship, and who keep a large church body such as Fellowship from seeming quite so large. We know each other better than most and love each other, warts and all. They were there to support and comfort, and that they did!!

So, we met with the elders at 7:00 on Thursday evening this past week. We were greeted and seated comfortably in two seats. Everyone was introduced, our community group members in attendance were also seated, and I, with the help of David, explained my current situation...and the praying began.

I will not go into detail, other than to say these are obviously Godly men who know how to speak through the Spirit. They know that the Spirit intercedes in our "groaning", as it says in Romans. We may not know what to say, but the Spirit's got it covered (thank God!). I count on this daily - as my words are usually pretty pathetic, and rambling, and sometimes confused. 

Their words, however, were NOT pathetic. They felt golden and divine and they put things into words that I only dream of doing. We were ministered to in amazing ways. Not to be overly dramatic, but I felt the Spirit of God hovering over and around all of us.

One at a time, each elder knelt before us and laid his hands on us and anointed our foreheads with fragrant oil (James 5:14, etc.), before following with the most comforting and sincere prayers...some so quiet only David and I could hear. These men were there for US, and no one else.

I went through numerous tissues, of course, as did David. But somewhere in there, that peace came. That peace that transcends all understanding...it came. Sweet relief!...to feel that unbelievable peace in my mind and my heart. 

I know this is the battle for my LIFE, for my BODY - but it is also a battle for my MIND. I have heard the voices in there - those voices from the evil one. Voices that bring doubt and fear and anger and resentment and, perhaps, worst of all, apathy.

I left feeling hopeful and buoyed and loved unconditionally. Every single one of these men made the point to tell us what a BLESSING it was for THEM to be allowed to pray for us. Needless to say, it was mutual. I know their prayer will continue and that I have the BEST PRAYER WARRIORS on my side. Not just these wonderful men, but so many, many of you. You, who are standing in the gap, when my words don't come or I am too beat to do much else. I praise God for you all.

It was a blessing walking out of that building with my community group brothers and sisters by my side. With humor and promises and love, we all returned to our cars with relief and thankfulness, feeling ready to take on whatever may come...and not alone.

Can a Smoothie Be a Miracle?

Here is a little bit of heaven...

A son (Sean) who takes you to get your brain radiated before going to the hospital for chemo port surgery, and listens with empathy and sympathy while I whine about thirst and hunger (exacerbated by side effects of meds).

Sweet nurses who all take an interest in my story, with sympathy (whichs keeps me with tissue in hand). One particular nurse who wraps my dehydrated arm in a warm, wet towel to insure good veins for IV, which works beautifully. Did not feel a thing.

Finally go to surgery around 11:30, and finally get my ice water around 1:00. Oh, the pleasure!!

I am horribly and blissfully out of it, so we don't leave until around 2:30 or so. Get home to bed and Sean makes me possibly the best healthy fruit smoothie I've ever tasted. I loved it so much, he did it twice. I did not want it to end! Then David came home and did it again! Can I just live on smoothies from now on? Bliss. 

Between then and this rambling and Percocet influenced account, I am resting and being worthless and praising God for my good men.

Ahhh...the blessings!