First, I saw my future service dog and life partner, Jack. We met his trainer at Rice Village shopping center and I got to spend time with my boy. He's still a baby. Almost 5 months old. So we decided to let Kelli keep him another month and get him used to walking on the leash and socializing him more. That gives me more time to get his stuff ready too. I will clicker train him, then when he's older I'll train him to do service dog tasks but I haven't researched a trainer or facility yet.
To my good fortune, my friend Haylie went with me to Houston as I had a very busy schedule AND the Rotory House had no vacancies (don't they know who I am by now?) We stayed at the hotel around the corner (and thats another story.) Had my MRI's and CT and the doctor reported that all was stable.
Saw Dr. Slopis, the NF doctor and he explained why I was probably having the upper body prickles, redness, imbalance, and headaches when having coughing spells. I may have encountered a little swelling around my brainstem last time I fell, so was given a regimen of steroids. I was actually looking forward to those because they give me energy. Incidentally, ALL my doctors at MD Anderson are excellent and I highly recommend all NF2'ers to go there if possible for complete NF2 care. We have so many more issues than just cutting out tumors!
I saw Dr. Schiffman, the neuroncology-opthamologist about my prism lenses and shes awesome! Another great NF2 doctor. I have tumors on my optic nerves and slight cataracts on my corneas which was all news to me, but I have good crisp eyesight. I just have a problem with double vision, but its corrected with prism lenses. Unfortunately there is not an eye doctor in my town that is a specialist in prisms. Grrrrr.
I had my 8th Avastin treatment uneventfully. No one said anything about my tumors shrinking, but at least they don't seem to be growing. YEAH!
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