Clear Scan!

 Life is...

 ...coming to grips with the puffy pants.

Darrell has a routine brain scan (MRI) every four months.  His first scan of the year was Tuesday morning, 3/30, the same day we lost Roene.  Roene appreciated the elfish quality of the new, standard issue scan pants, despite Darrell's original distaste.  You see he's coming to terms with the particular fashion statement they make.

The St. Jude radiologist read Darrell's scan and gave his tentative thumbs up.

In other words, Dr. Young saw no changes to Darrell's surgical site, and he found no "definite evidence" of remaining or recurring tumor.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but that's as good as it gets.

Darrell saw UCLA's Dr. Cloughesy via telehealth next.  Great news:  He concurs.  In the photo below, the top image is December's scan, and the recent scan is below it.  You can see that the surgical site, circled, looks the same in both images.  

Dr. Cloughesy also wheels through the slices of the images for us to show that he, too, finds no evidence of disease.  Hurrah!  

 

Darrell did an amazing job this scan of handling his scanxiety, which made it easier for me to handle my own.  Truly.  He was singing right up until we went to bed the night before.  We both marveled at his calmness.

 

But that isn't to say that either of us has ever taken a clear scan for granted.  Never.  We know how easily the result could be different, as it is for more than one friend of ours right now.  

We can't help but have them on our minds and in our hearts today.  They are incredible people, showing us how to simultaneously keep on fighting while marveling at the goodness of life, regardless of the treatments they face now.  

 

We love you, friends, and hold you up as models for how to live and love life's adventure.

Barring any changes, Darrell's good to go until his August scan.

Here's to the adventure.

Update 4/5/21:  Kim has a much better name for the puffy pants:  Scanties.  Brilliant!

Today's Blooms

 

Ginger and Tim are adventuring up the California coast.  They captured these lilacs above San Simeon.