Lori and Nancy
Thanks for you kind responses to my query. It's been very helpful to get your input and I have already marked in my calendar, the date when she should ask for the Spike antibody test. She gets blood draws all the time and yes Lori, you are right - she is tired of all the blood draws since it's become increasingly difficult for the techs to find and then get inside the veins for the draws - the veins are that scarred now - so the draws have become a bit of an ordeal.
Sarah, our only child, is 41 - a mother of 2 kids aged 4 and 9 - and this July will mark 4 years that she has been living with glioblastoma for which the initial treatment was surgery, chemo and radiation. She's had 2 recurrences, with surgeries for each recurrence, and I don't like to investigate the possibilities too closely for fear of what I may find, but I don't think that there will be another surgery for the next recurrence.
So we are coping as well as could be expected, since 4 years is a long time to acclimatize to almost anything but there's no question that we have been living under a dark cloud for all this time.
We live in Canada and Sarah lives in San Francisco which is fortunate since not only does she get superb, first-class medical care there through UCSF, but she gets to live at home during all phases of her treatment, which wouldn't be the case if she were still with us in small town northern Canada.
I don't want to end my thread on a gloomy note so I should tell you that with all three surgeries, she has bounced back in an incredibly short amount of time and we never noticed any major side effects from the surgery. If you were to meet her, you would never guess that she's afflicted with glioblastoma so we're very thankful for that.
The most obvious sign of her illness is the side effect of the chemo - at this stage she can't make it through the day without a 4 hour afternoon nap but aside from that - when she's up - she's bright, alert and functions normally - in fact, she's undertaken major house renovations which I didn't think was such a great idea but of course she's free to do what she wants and it's probably good for her mental well being.
So there you have it - a brief story of parents with a child who has cancer and while undeniably tragic, there are a lot of things to be thankful for in our journey. - John