Athena has been doing imaging this month. A very romantic brain MRI on Valentines Day, and then CT scans of chest and lumbar areas today. We met with Dr. Shih, Athena's oncologist, afterwards.

The tumor in Athena's lung has diminished in size by 50%, and the tumor in her spine has become too small to easily measure. A spot on Athena's brain is not cancerous, and apparently common, but they wanted to check anyway.

These results mean Athena's medication is working well for now (and hopefully for a long time). The goal is for this medication to push Athena eventually into full (although likely temporary) remission.

Athena continues to be extremely tired (side effect of the medication, though the weight of mental/emotional exhaustion cannot be overstated), and often goes to bed in the 6:30 to 7:30pm range, at the same time or soon after our son. Other times she can rally well into the evening, but that seems more the exception than the rule. She's had a few bouts of leg/foot swelling (another medication side effect), but relatively mild and short lived. Nausea seems to be decently controlled with a prescription medication when needed.

Good news in the context of a probably terminal illness still brought forth a few tears today. It's hard to know how to plan when disease seems to hang just overhead, waiting to come down harder, but next month, next year, 4 years from now? When and how?

Nevertheless, good news is good news, and we'll take it. For now it means we continue on with our lives and plans for the next 6 months.

Athena will continue monthly blood testing, and quarterly imaging sessions.

The meal train dinners have been a very impactful bit of help as the end of the day often finds us pretty ragged.

We appreciate all the love and well wishes.

Thanks.

Jesse