No Word Yet on MRI

But Lucy did an amazing job remaining calm for her first fully awake hour strapped inside the machine. (She did the scan awake when she was in the PICU post-surgery, but had lots of morphine on board to help.) She was so still that not one image (out of the hundreds taken!) needed repeating. Thankfully she could watch a video inside her helmet, and hear the voices of the the technicians speaking to her. Her neuro-oncologist will call us soon with the scan reading, and we will go for an in-person clinic visit in a couple of weeks. Grateful for all of you who care enough to still keep up with us!

We like this old hymn's language as a simple prayer for her:

Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of Thy wing...

Progress Report and Upcoming Dates

Lucy has enjoyed returning to school, art class, and everywhere else she can accomplish a creative task, have a crazy playtime or enjoy a cozy chat.  The further out she gets from the hospital, the more outgoing and confident she seems.  The last two weeks she has had mild headaches, but so have I, so we hope it's just part of the autumn cold our family is passing around.  Her first real post-surgery MRI is next Tuesday, November 27th, and we will post results here.  Her outpatient surgery for her wandering eye is scheduled for March.  

Sometimes art is the only means of expressing our honest situation, so I close with poetry:

...sometimes the camera pauses while a family
counts itself, and all of them are alive,
their mouths dry caves of wordlessness...
a craziness we have so far no name for--
(Mary Oliver)