Hello from the other side of brain surgery
Hello everyone! It's me, Liz! I'm officially back from the other side of surgery, although my writing and math skills are still very much on the mend. I hope you can bear with me as I relay this very personal update.
1. I am alive! Yay! It's great to be here.
2. Although I have brain cancer, my specific tumor type remains firmly in the slower growing category, still! While there is a chance that this could be impacted by the genomic findings (see more under #3), this is amazing news.
3. My wonderful team at UCSF has already embarked on collecting new information about my tumor, with a focus on the specific genomic results for my very unique tumor type. There's A LOT of emerging data and information in this space, and I'm excited to have access to it in the coming weeks. We are now waiting on genomics for complete pathology results, which should arrive in 4-6 weeks.
4. It is physically difficult for me to type at the moment, but rest assured my language skills are flowing and I am excited to remain connected with how everyone is doing. We begin physical and occupational therapy soon. The TL;DR is that I have actually lost some of my calculation skills (this even has a name - Acalculia!) and that, as expected, my brain will now need to adapt and re-learn.
An excerpt from one of Liz's progress notes.
5. I'm social media savvy, but at this moment social media feels like a lot to process with so many links and so much information. In the coming weeks you may spot me in a photo or two, but please be patient as I learn how to balance messages, friends, colleagues, and my enthusiasm at being able to say Hello, World!
A picture of Liz's handwritten draft of this blog post
Thank you to everyone who has reached out, brought or sent food to our house, and directed all this amazing energy our way. We feel all of it, and are grateful.
Postscript, from Liz’s friend Erika who helped convert Liz’s handwritten post:
”This blog post is a ‘first’ for Liz, as illustrated by this picture. Liz’s solo version, in her handwriting, was converted with cleaned up copy that I hope stayed true to Liz’s voice.”
