This post is a bit overdue – Rachel and I got home from Boston Tuesday night. Her last radiation treatment was on Monday afternoon. Due to the wind/rain storm and all the power outages, we decided to stay in Boston an extra night. Here is a gif file of Rachel “ringing the bell”, signifying the end of her radiation treatments on Monday (can’t seem to get the actual video file to look right on here):

Everything went well with Rachel’s treatments. The first week the pain from her September surgery got quite a bit worse with the radiation treatments making it harder for her body to heal. We feared this would get worse as the treatments went on, but thankfully, the second week the pain was better.

On Saturday, October 21, we attended a Bruins game; tickets were generously donated to families staying at the Ronald McDonald House and were for one of the executive suites. It was a great game – right up until the Bruins lost in overtime. We had a fantastic time anyway.

Rachel and I kept ourselves busy enjoying Boston as much as we could: visiting the aquarium again and taking in one of their IMAX movies; visiting the Museum of Science; having dinner at an Italian restaurant in the North End (a must when you visit Boston!), near the Paul Revere statue; and enjoying the Harborwalk Trail near our apartment. We also enjoyed some “dog therapy” one night at the Ronald McDonald House.

Rachel is now done with treatments, as far as we know. Her next step will be to have outpatient surgery to remove her IV port, which should be relatively soon. The information we’ve received from her oncologists thus far is that they’re leaving it up to Rachel as to when she wants to have it removed. Once that is complete, she can focus on recovering from all the treatments and surgery. She will need to have follow-up scans every 3 months to check for recurrence, but as of now she is cancer-free. ❤