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Showing posts from June, 2016

My Father's Day Letter. 6/17/2016

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With Father's Day approaching this weekend, I thought I would take this moment to share a little letter to my Dad and to all those Dads out there, specifically those lucky enough to have daughters. It takes a pretty special soul to handle a house filled with women, and I'm lucky enough to have witnessed first hand my special soul that I call Dad.  Dad, Living with a house filled with women I'm sure was a bit challenging, but you handled all of those years with pure grace- and a few beers. You were patient and kind, helpful and handy, and most importantly loving. You have gone above and beyond to take care of your girls, and I think it's pretty clear that God hand picked you to be my Dad.  Thank you for all the times you had to explain to me how to put air in my tires when the tire pressure light came on, even though we both know that to this day, I still don't know how to put air in my tires. Thank you for all the times I called and said that I "may or may not ...

MGMT Methylation Promotor. Say What? 6/15/2016

Almost any article you read regarding Glioblastoma talks about "MGMT promoter methylation". Which apparently, if you're going to have Glioblastoma, that's the type of promoter you want to have. I guess it's like having the best of the worst?  Yesterday we met with Dr. Fleener to schedule our next MRI and discuss any issues from the treatment. And then, we had a little discussion on this MGMT promoter methylation thing. Apparently, Dad's tumor was never tested for this initially- and there are a lot of reasons behind that- but now, there have been some new studies specifically about this MGMT promoter methylation.  "The study demonstrated MGMT promoter methylation is a favorable prognostic factor in patients with glioblastoma." IF someone has the MGMT promoter, then studies have shown that the tumor responds very well to the chemotherapy and treatment (i.e. the chemotherapy kills the cancer cells)- which is a VERY good thing. An even more recent study...