Laura Durant TeamLaura

Welcome to our Caring Bridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.  Feel free to share the link to invite others....


This journey so far has been amazing and scary. I am mostly filled with gratitude. I am still here!!!  I am still standing!!  I can't believe that I have cancer....it has taken me awhile to process that. 


Details:  My neurosurgeon told me that I probably was not functioning fully (cognitively) for several months. Things were in bit of a disarray in my house....not organized and messy. Very strange. In June?  I fell three times in my yard....about a week apart between each fall. I also fell to sleep driving twice. I also could not find my car in the supermarket parking lots...(not like the normal cannot find your car....but strange)  I went to the ER a few times and I also contacted my primary. I fell in the house on July 22 and could not get up. My left side was not cooperating with my right side. I called 911. I was supposed to be at my friend Cathy's house to begin a trip to New York but I never made it to her house. At the local ER, they did a scan and told me that I had a brain tumor and that they would be sending me to Beth Israel. Who would have ever thought?   They did surgery to remove the tumor on Monday July 25th. I was discharged on Friday. 


I am filled with gratitude. My left side is fully functional and I full cognitive function. This could have been a lot worse!! i am still finding items in the house organized in strange ways, I missed a couple of bills, and my car is still sort of disorganized because it has been too hot to clean it!!  LOL. 


I had two weeks of full brain radiation and I am still feeling side effects of that....mainly fatigue. I have an MRI on September 22 to see if the radiation helped for the small tumors in the brain. I meet with the neurosurgeon on September 26th to find out the results. In the meantime, I met with a GI oncologist and she told me they found a rare form of cancer in my GI tract and she wants me to begin chemotherapy in a couple of weeks. She was surprised to see the rare form of cancer and she is still waiting for the genetic results. 

Thank you everyone for their support. I have been amazed of everyone's support and generosity. I am deeply grateful!!