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Dear friends and family,
This is another quick update on Barbara and I apologise for the lack of information over the last couple of months. After Barbara moved back to Calgary in late August she experienced a slow but steady decline in her condition which appeared to accelerate in late October at which time I moved back to Calgary to be with her at Mark, Martina and Shimon’s house. Two weeks ago her condition seriously worsened just two days before she was to start a new round of therapy involving Herceptin and Methotrexate, and she had to be transported to the Emergency Department of the Foothills Hospital. She was eventually transferred to the Palliative Care Unit of the Tom Baker Cancer unit (unit 47) where she still is. Tests have shown that the brain tumour is still the same size that it was 9 months ago and that there is no new uptake anywhere else, but she has continued to decline and is now completely unable to walk and finds talking difficult. These symptoms became more acute four days ago following an MRI which lasted about an hour and which appears to have traumatized her. The only physical change observed from the MRI was a very local spread of the cancer from the left cerebellum into the adjacent Meninges, but there be other non-detectable sites. We have a meeting with the oncologists and the rest of the medical team tomorrow to review the situation and perhaps we shall find out if and when she might be able to start treatment. At the moment Barbara is really not up to receiving visitors and if you plan to come to the hospital I should be grateful if you could phone me first to ascertain the current situation (either at Mark’s or my cell phone xxx-xxx-xxxx I am at the hospital all day). Barbara has greatly appreciated and has benefited from all your messages and visits up to this time and we hope that she will again be able to receive visitors again soon. She is still the indomitable Barbara that we all know and love and is still fighting hard, but after six and a half years and three previous surmounted metastases I fear that she is weakening, but we all still have great hope.
With love and best wishes,
Peter