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Fainting, Bike Rides, Brain Surgeon, Dr. Carroll

Week of April 19th: First ever post-cancer ride.  One of the benefits for me that he is now more at my speed.  You gotta love that.  Brace actually did 4 bike trail rides this week (not mountain biking).  We park at Aliso Creek church and then ride to Saddleback Church.  Brace told me of good biking memories with Jeff Goodall and Brandon Swaner.

Hospital Excitement: On April 25th and 26th, Brace just felt really weak.  On Sunday he just felt awful.  In about a 2-hour period he passed out 3 times.  The 3rd time he passed out he lost consciousness.  I dialed 911 when he lost consciousness, but he came back to life before I finished the call.  It seemed to only be happening 10-15 seconds after getting up from a chair.

Robyn Robinson, bless her heart, came over to see how the patient was doing.  She was worried that he might have some heart problems so off to the hospital we went at 7:30pm.  We were pretty worried about Covid at the hospital but there were only 4 people in the waiting room and of course they didn't let me in.  So I waited in the parking lot.  In the first hour, they did a chest Xray, EKG and the blood work.  It took a long time to get a doctor to evaluate everything but we finally got released at 1am. Kjarstin and James pretty much talked to me every hour looking for the latest update while I watched Netflix movies on my phone.

Tuesday: Dr. Carroll seemed to think he was OK.  He said if he continues to be dizzy after a month we should see a cardiologist.

Wednesday: Dr. Luu, the ENT cancer surgeon, did a scope of his nose and said his septum repair is toast. (We had no idea). He said he expected it would last radiation. Again this was news to us.  His nose was swollen, beat up and green inside.  Dr. Luu gave him a compound antiobiotic nose rinse to clear that up.  We seem in 3 weeks again for a follow-up.

Thursday: Physical Therapy knocked him out today.

Friday Brain Surgeon: So we thought we were meeting with the surgeon but on our Zoom call was the nurse practitioner Courtney that we hadn't met before.  She was delightful and extremely smart. They basically said that there was no change in the brain tumor and they didn't want to take a 3rd scan until October unless he started having blurred visions and bad headaches.

Saturday: Bikeride to the beach.  I've always wanted to do the bike ride to the beach.  We went with Kjarstin and James and parked near Angel's stadium and ended up in Newport Beach.  Ate lunch there and headed back to the car.  On the way home we stopped at the Donuttery (thank's to Carroll's) and then Tonaka farms for produce. 

April Thank You's
********************
  • Sandy Schreiber for a Costco trip
  • Lisa McLeod laundry detergent and amazing banana bread
  • Victoria McDaniel for delivering amazing homemade bread. ($5 a loaf)
  • Chimney Rock Neighbors for continuing to pray for Brace. 
  • Diane Perkins, my sister, getting me a Walmart pick-up slot 
  • Erik and Jane Larsen Tanaka strawberries
  • Jeri Juarez card
  • Robyn Robinson for coming over when brace passed out 
  • Jalane Hong for napkins and butter 
  • White family: Ordering the amazing custom 77 shirt (Brace was the 77th person on record to have his type of cancer and the only one living) 
  • Webber Family for the fun yard sign this morning. 
















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