a radio was on.

Tracy Brown passed on from the material world today at 1:44 p.m.  She was surrounded by loved ones, including all of her children.   One of Tracy’s favorite pictures said, “Somewhere just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering.”  I (Kyle) bet Tracy is now gathering with them.  She could not have been more loved.

For anyone who might want a message read to Tracy, please feel free to leave a message in the comments.  We will be sure to read anything left in the comments to Tracy. 

It’s Kyle writing.  Tracy had a series of seizures on Saturday.  She was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital.  Scans suggested that Tracy has leptomeningal disease, which means the cancer is in her cerebral spinal fluid.  She also has lesions in her frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and cerebellum.  The leptomeningal disease is the real issue, though.  The steps that could be taken to contain the cancer did not present quality of life for Tracy, and she continues to have seizures.  The decision was made to move her to hospice today.  Rest assured Tracy is being kept comfortable and surrounded by so much love. 

And so the winter passed and the writing ceased. I spent time in my body, which seems to me to be slowly failing as I try one medicine after another. I got kicked out of a clinical trial when the cancer progressed right away. I tried another clinical trial medicine that dragged my blood pressure into the basement. I had back surgery again. I got a port. I dug deep into my body and it was not a place of light. Some of you may have noticed I stopped consistently responding to texts--a flurry one day and then the silence of a snowfall the next.  I got a little cynical, which was not attractive. "Oohh, a clinical trial," people would exclaim excitedly. As if a clinical trial was good news. And I thought of all the mice who took the medicine before I got the nod. These are phase one trials. Of course, the people running the trial have reason to believe there is some efficacy to the drugs, but phase one also means the real goal of the study is to identify a dosage that is not toxic