I have really appreciated everyones love on the most recent post regarding Brady’s health. It has already been a pretty long road, but its definitely just beginning! To those who are sticking by us and have been in our corner, we see you, and we thank you 💜 God absolutely always provides, one way or another, and we trust that He will continue to in these ways!
So. The plan. Its still a little choppy as its just in its beginning stages, but I’ll let you know what we know.
Because the pathologists labelled Brady’s tumour as high grade malignancy, it is being treated as aggressively as possible. So, as is common with cancer treatment, there are two parts. Radiation and chemotherapy.
In his case, radiation comes first. It starts ;next week, on Tuesday. He will have third fractions. So, every weekday for six weeks, he has to go in for a radiation treatment.
Hopefully he will be granted his license back in that time, which would make things considerably easier for all of us. That should also be decided next week. Please Lord! 💜
Another fun thing that starts next week is chemotherapy. Yes, you read it right. He will do both simultaneously for the first six weeks.
Now, if you remember back to the last run of chemo, Brady took chemo pills. The cycle of medication went like a period, if we’re being blunt. He would take pills for five days out of a 28 day cycle, wait out the other 23 days, and then start again. However, for the first six weeks, he will have radiation treatments five days per week, and take chemotherapy seven days per week, both for six weeks.
If it was unclear, those will be some LONG weeks. They come with lots and lots of bloodwork, as well as LOTS of fatigue. Apparently the main side effect of this type of treatment is fatigue. As in chronic fatigue that refuses to quit. For months. Brady would argue that, as a father of eight, he already has chronic fatigue, so probably the treatment won’t feel like any extra 😅
Don’t worry 💜 He is not naive. We have been here before. He’s just trying to have a sense of tumour about the whole thing 😏
Once those six weeks are done, its smooth sailing! 😅 Ok, no its not, but it slows down, anyway. After those weeks, Brady will start a year of chemotherapy. Which feels HUGE, but Brady and I both agree that its more annoying than scary. Realistically, we’ve also been told chemo could be as short as six months, buuuuut only if his brain tissue is being severely damaged and its not worth it to keep going… Somehow that feels worse than a year of chemo, lol! So I guess we’ll just see how it all plays out!
If you can wrap your brain around these details, I’ll point out the time of year. The beginning of summer. Radiation will BE our summer. At least until mid-August. Which is hard. No week at the lake. No extra long weekends, even. Plus a very tired husband. Oh and did you know our road will be closed for at least a few weeks here, meaning parking the van somewhere else and having to trek to it anytime we drive somewhere? EVERY TIME we drive somewhere?! Ugh. I work pretty hard to stay optimistic, and I do feel a pretty real peace about a lot of it. Truly. But parts of me want to absolutely tear my hair out in total frustration.
Lucky for us, God knows those things, also. He has never left us before, and He won’t start now. So, forward we go!
Dr Burzynski and go fund me