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An Update, though short

It is Sunday, June 24th. I believe my last update here was on June 11th.

MUCH has happened during that time frame of which I hardly have the energy to write.

My family was able to head to the beach a day later than planned. The boys were so looking forward to this family trip that I hated to disappoint them. It was out of my hands, for it rained the whole time. We had a few hours of dry though still overcast time, during which some digging in the sand and playing in the waves still happened.

We got back late Sunday evening. I remained mostly bed or couch-banned for the next few days, which were a confusion of doctor visits. One included a treatment with fluids and pain pills because I just wasn’t doing well.

I presented for the cyberknife treatment on Thursday morning. (Thankfully many of my most faithful prayer warriors were able to join me Wednesday night to pray over the event, and God through them washed away most of my fears. Thankfully I felt well for their visit, and I even felt good heading into the cyberknife.)

Dr. Gray estimated the cyberknife would take 40 minutes. It lasted 1 hr and 17 minutes. The last 20 of which were torture. He later insisted he didn’t use more radiation, just many movements of the machine took longer than he realized.

But I still felt ok leaving the procedure. It wasn’t until several hours later that the pain rebounded and started to get worse.

We called the cyberknife on-call number. They didn’t call back the first time. By this time I decided I had to get to a hospital. And I was so light-headed from frequent vomitting that I couldn’t get there by myself. We called 911.

I rode by ambulance to the ER. I cannot describe how difficult it was being tranferred to the ambulance. We were on a second-story sofa. I think I may have vomitted on a medic. I was barely holding onto consciousness.

They finally stabilized me around 1:30 am I would say. This led to a long hospital stay – through Thursday night and into Saturday. Bless his heart, Brian was right there. He didn’t want to leave my side.

So now it’s Sunday, a week later. I have managed to stay out of the hospital this week, but I am truly living hour to hour. I have small goals each hour.

Writing here has not been one of them. But you deserve to know.

I don’t know how much writing will be done, but for the foreseeable future, understand it is not my priority.  For one, my brain feels quite foggy and not up to writing here. I truly hope this will change soon. More time out from brain radiation = less fatigue, or so I’ve been told.

I am hoping to start the next clinical trial with drugs for colon cancer on July 10th. I have preliminary paperwork and testing to be done in the meantime. That and living by the hour.

I truly hope you are still savoring the day. Any day out of bed can be a great day. And I still find moments to savor. They just don’t leave any time for savoring writing.

July 10.  You need to hang on to that date and I need it to work.  

As always I thank you for praying for me.

Sara Walker




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