Today it is "Patient Meghan" not "Tourist Meghan".

The Proton Beam Cyclotron is acting temperamentally again. We were supposed to have treatment at 1:20pm but didn't get in until 7:30pm. They canceled all but the critical patients--of which we were one! The accelerator is taking a long time to get the Protons up to the right speed. Meghan was bolted to the table for 40 minutes tonight as her Protons have to reach a very high speed to get into the center of her brain. A small army of engineers will be working through the night but everyone is holding their breath for tomorrow's schedule.
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Only 2 more treatments to go! Meghan enjoys Occupational Therapy as she solves a puzzle.

Physical therapy is more challenging. Here she is doing the Reverse Limbo: She needs to get the left leg over the bar without knocking it down. It gets harder as the bar gets higher.

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We had the dreaded CT scan today: It will tell us exactly what the tumor is up to. I manage most of my emotions quite well but it is a struggle to keep fear at bay---I "give it up' and it quietly comes creeping back. Who would have ever thought that I would want to hear the words "stable". Once radiation is over, it becomes a waiting game. The tumor cells are not killed immediately by radiation. They won't die until they attempt to replicate--now the DNA has been damaged and they should die. It can take up to 12 months for slow growing tumor cells to replicate. Meanwhile we are fighting fluid build up inside the tumor which no one has any idea how to control.
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Yet I am sincerely grateful for the peace that I feel. I have peace knowing that I have done all that is in my power as a mother. I have sought out professionals from Coast to Coast; researched, read and educated myself on viable options; I nutritionally supplement her body daily with organic vegetable juice, I give her herbs to help her immune system, control inflammation, regenerate cells, inhibit angiogensis etc; I have sat in prayer during each & every radiation treatment and she has a plethora of sincere prayers offered by so many wonderful people, daily. I am humbled as I realize just how powerless we are: We are simply in God's Hands.

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I am blessed to have in my life, people who give me exactly what I need, when I need it. Today, one of my amazing "sisters" read me this quote. It meant so much to me that I asked her to email it to me.

One should not try to console either those who lost their eyes, or those who have suffered other losses – of money, health, or a loved one. It is necessary instead to show them what their loss brings them, to show them the gifts they receive in place of what they have lost. Because there are always gifts. God wills it so. Order is restored; nothing ever disappears completely. We wish to force our own conditions on life; this is our real weakness. We forget that God never creates new conditions for us without giving us the strength to meet them...By all this I learned at the same time that we should never give way to despair, no matter what brutal and negative events occur in our lives, because just as quickly, the same sum of life is given back to us.
Jacques Lusseyran, a blind survivor of the Buchenwald Nazi prison camp