Strikes and Gutters...

...up and downs.   This pretty much describes our last few weeks.  Three weeks ago, I made the long, and this time, stressful trip back to San Francisco for my regular two-month MRI and appointment with my neuro-oncologist  Casey made the trip down from Idaho to see me and go to the appointment with me since Steph remained in Canberra with Walt.  The news was good - stable, no new growth perhaps a slight improvement.  I was so exhausted from the trip and stress, it was hard to enjoy much about being home.

I returned to Canberra feeling encouraged that things would stabilize and improve but it hasn't worked out that way.  I never understood that the word fatigue could mean something so different from being tired. After seven months of chemo, it is starting to feel like a hole that can't be filled.  I slept for 34 out of 36 hours and yet I still didn't feel rested.  A bad week culminated in a high fever, a trip to the emergency room, and a night in the hospital.  It seemed pretty clear that it was time to call an end to our return to Australia.  We need to simplify things for all three of us and we need to be home to do that.
I will technically be reassigned to Washington but I will take leave so that I can continue my treatment at UCSF.  We're not sure how quickly all of this will happen but we're hoping to be back by my next appointment in mid-July.
In case you are wondering, we are  disappointed but there is no sense of defeat in this.  I was glad to have the opportunity to come back and close this particular chapter through choice.  I hope that after resting and stabilizing, I'll be able to continue to work hopefully with an assignment in San Francisco.  I'm quite sure this isn't the last of our ups and downs.  There was just no point in continuing with "everything normal" when it simply wasn't.
We're all doing fine, processing what this change will mean for us - Walt already seems to understand that it will mean more days playing with his cousins.