Weekend Release Delayed: 11/30/2006, 7:00 PM E.S.T.
We just spoke to Deb's mom Dianne. Deb had a very uncomfortable night, (last night, Wednesday). After several tests Deb was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism (clot on her lung) and was moved back to the Neurology floor so that a "filter" could be placed in a vein close to her heart to prevent a recurrence. They think the rash (caused by an allergy to Dilantin) is subsiding but that the clot could be related to an additional allergy to heparin. The implantation of the filter is not a major procedure and shouldn't produce any further complications.

The family would like to thank everyone for their very kind donations and ask you to continue to keep Deb in your thoughts and prayers. We'll provide further updates over the course of the weekend.

Debbie's release date - this Saturday!! 11/29/2006, 7:20 PM E.S.T.
Deb's on the rehab floor and doing well and she's looking forward to getting home. Her headache is completely gone but she still has the rash (mentioned by Dianne in yesterday's comments) caused, the Drs believe, by an allergy to one of her medications. Deb is up for chatting on the phone and so if you wish to call her, feel free. She is, however, very busy with her appointments with therapists and other doctors so you might not be able to get in touch with her straight away.

Amy, Deb's sister is working on getting the "Fund for Deb" established. It may not be possible with the current IRS code to make it tax-deductable but we'll try to let everyone know as soon as possible as we're approaching the holiday season and the end of the fiscal year.

That's all for now. We'll let you know if any changes with her planned release date.

Debbie's day out; 11/27/2006, 6:00pm EST

Deb is officially on the rehabilitation floor of Cedars, and today went for a visit to her treatment center in Thousand Oaks. For the first time in a few weeks she's out of the hospital and should even have time to swing by the house and see Nala (dog) and Joey (cat). She'll be headed back to Cedars tonight and should be there for a few more days - then home to her house in Thousand Oaks. As we told you yesterday Deb had a nice thanksgiving dinner with her family and friend Jodie. I've got a picture of them courtesy of Jim; Deb's looking gorgeous! From the left-hand side, Bob Reardon (Dad), Amy Reardon-Doherty (sister), Deb, Jody Pysher (friend from DE), Jim Reardon (brother) and Dianne Reardon (Mom).

Deb moves to the rehab floor: 11/25/06, 3:15 PM E.S.T.
I spoke to Deb's mom yesterday. Deb and her family had Thanksgiving dinner together in Deb's room. Jodie from DE flew in for the day so that she could be with them too. Everone is in good spirits and are ready for Deb to start her treatment. She'll be moving to the rehabilitation floor at Cedars Sinai today. She'll be a therapists dream: there's nothing Deb loves more than to have someone set the bar and try her damnest to jump over it. If all goes well she may even return to work on a part time basis during her treatment.

Wednesday Update: 11/22/2006, 5:05 PM E.S.T.
Deb had her chest tube removed this morning but unfortunately still has a 5% lung deflation and will need to remain in hospital over the holiday. She will be moving to the rehabilitation floor of Cedars Sinai for approximately 5 days to 1 week. She'll meet with the medical team who are coordinating her follow-up therapy in Thousand Oaks on Monday and will most likely begin her chemo/radiation therapy sometime after the 29th of November.

Deb has been receiving regular print-outs of all your blog comments from Dianne and her family and is very much enjoying hearing the messages of encouragement from all her friends, co-workers and relations.

We'll keep you posted if anything major happens over the holiday period.

Letter from Deb: 11/22/2006, 5:00 PM E.S.T.
Hi Everyone,
I'm in shock at the level of support I've been getting from everyone as I go through this difficult time. I want everyone to think positive thoughts for me because even though I'm facing a fight against the worst kind of cancer, I know I'm going to beat this thing. The more positive everyone can be, the happier I will be. After I get through all of the treatments, I'm going to live a very long time and I want everyone to have this thought.

After facing this challenge, I have learned that life is too short to leave out the fun stuff. Going forward, I'm going to spend more time meeting new people, having fun, and, being a happier person. I expect to be able to say more witty things soon!

I want everyone to know that all of your concerns, thoughts, prayers, and support have meant more than you will ever know. Keep thinking of me and praying for me. I'll see you all soon.

Love,
Deb.

Deb's treatment begins Monday: 11/22/2006; 9:00 AM E.S.T.
Yesterday (Tuesday) Deb was out of bed and walking around her room and even participated in a game of cards with Dianne. She's doing much better and will have her chest tube removed today prior to being released today or tomorrow in time for a turkey Thanksgiving family dinner!

Deb will begin her 6 week regimen of chemotherapy on Monday and will be remaining on the west coast for the time being. The family would really appreciate any volunteers to help bring Deb to and from her treatments as she can't drive. Please contact Amy by email if you are available to help. We'll let you know as soon as she's released from Cedars.

We'd like to thank everyone for your contributions & suggestions for the blog and want to wish you all a very peaceful and relaxing Thanksgiving. We'd also like to share one special part of Deb with you too; the beautiful quilt she made for our new baby Andrea born in October.

Monday update - Pathology results: 11/20/2006, 6:30 PM E.S.T.
Dianne called us to let us know that Dr. Yu had the results of the pathology and he confirmed the initial findings of a Class IV Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). As everyone will be fully aware by now this represents a very serious diagnosis, therefore the family will be taking some time to come to terms with this, and determine the most appropriate path forward. One possibility is that Deb may come back to the east coast so that family and close friends can support her on a full-time basis. In addition, Deb had been complaining of chest pains for the past few days. CT scans today showed she had a partial pneumothorax (collapsed lung) which required the insertion of a chest tube. This has made her feel more comfortable. Deb's been told of her diagnosis (but not the severity of the classification) and has been working on her physical therapy, and making sure she is getting as much rest as possible so she can ready herself for the next phase of potential treatments. We understand that this is not good news and will take some time to fully absorb. Deb has a major fight ahead of her and will of course need our help. We remind you of the "Fund for Deb" that has been established for her. We'll also keep you informed as to other ways you can help.

Donations for Deb; 11/20/2006 10:10 E.S.T.

In response to the many many requests to provide financial support for Deb and her family to help defray costs associated with her illness and ongoing treatment, Deb's family have agreed to establish a "fund for Deb". The fund will be set up as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization by Amy Doherty, Deb's sister who is an attorney-at-law.

Amy is currently with Deb in LA and upon her return to her home in MA will establish the fund. In the interim, if you wish to contribute please mail your donations to the following address:

Amy R. Doherty, Attorney,
53 Westview Terrace,
Westwood,
MA 02090

You may email Amy for further information. Once the fund is registered, all donations will be elgible for matching company contributions and will be tax-deductible.

Thanks to everyone for your incredibly kind offers of support, prayers and well wishes.

Letter from Dianne Reardon (Deb's Mom); 11/20/2006, 11:00 AM E.S.T.

Hi All,
It is Sunday November 19th, 2006. I only know because they keep reminding Debbie of the day, date and year. I also know that we are at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, CA (I know that but Deb can't quite remember that.) My family and I want to take this opportunity to thank "ALL" of you for your best wishes, thoughts and most of all for your prayers for Debbie. I and my family did not realize how many friends she has, and how many lives she has touched. Again, thank you all from the bottom of my heart, keep those prayers going so we get the results we would like. Debbie is giving it her all!

Thank you again.
Dianne Reardon

P.S. Deb says "hi".

End of first week - Sunday update: 11/19/2006, 10:00 PM E.S.T.
Deb has been moved out of I.C.U. and on to the general floor of the hospital and will soon embark on the next phase of her treatment. Tomorrow we'll have a message from Deb's mother and also details on how you can help out Deb in a tangible manner as so many of her friends have requested.

We've also had several readers send in this photo, taken not on a sun-kissed Cali beach but actually back in New England shortly before Deb moved out west. Kudos to Al for catching Deb and the dogs in such a memorable pose.

Saturday Update: 11/18/2006, 3:00 PM E.S.T.
Deb was delighted to welcome visitors from her former home in Connecticut over the past few days including Al (dog photographer to the stars!) and her former work colleagues from Pfizer along with Amy (the blog maven herself.) Despite the affects of the pain medication Deb was conscious if tired this morning and was feeling hungry; always a good sign although she complains about the hospital food. She's lost about 50% of her curly locks and her vision is blurred due to some post-operative cranial swelling, but is in good spirits and looking forward to possibly getting onto the general wards and out of ICU today or tomorrow, depending on the availability of a room that fulfills her needs.

Her family want to thank everyone again for the kind wishes and messages of encouragement that have poured in from all across the USA and as far away as Ireland and Italy. Leaving a message is simplicity itself. Just click on the "comments" link below any post and a pop-up window will allow you to compose your message to Deb. You can sign as "anonymous" if you don't have a blogger ID (you don't need one but it's free if you sign up), and you can also click the "other" button to leave your name, but please sign your post in the text box so that Deb and the family know that it's you. If you have any problems using the posting comments box, you can always email Brian and we'll get it posted for you. By the way all posts (even if written by family members) will by default say "posted by Brian & Amy Manning" but the family indeed can post their own updates, so do look out for them.

Friday Update: 11/17/2006, 4:30 PM E.S.T.
Deb passed a comfortable night in the ICU and hopes to be transferred to the regular floor over the weekend. This should make visitation less of an issue but please try to coordinate with family by calling the hospital ward beforehand. Deb is being seen by physical and occupational therapists and is awaiting her final pathology report over the weekend prior to hopefully being released sometime next week to go home for Thanksgiving.

Great piece of advice from Ant in her post to park across from the hospital at the Beverly Center rather than the Cedars parking lot.

We do hope to have more updates over the weekend. Again, please do post your comments or email to get them up on the blog.

THANK YOU!!!

Hello All,
This is Debbie's brother, Jimmy. I'm writing to thank you all for your incredible support during this very difficult time. It really helps! I also wanted to thank the Mannings, Amy and Brian, for their timely updates. Keep up the great work!

I've attached a picture of Debbie with my older son, Augie, just a couple weeks after he was born. He seems to be cracking a little smile, like we all do when Debbie is around!

Update on the dogs: Thursday 11/16/2006 8PM E.S.T.
As many of you know the loves of Deb's life in addition to her family and friends are her dogs Radar and Nala. We received this great photo from Deb's former Pfizer manager Barbara Baris who wants to share the story on how she found her special friend, Barney.

• I found Barney thru the Pfizer classified ads – there was no picture, but he was described as a lab mix – clearly from the photo he is everything but lab. A whole crew of us left work early to go and see him (what a good manager I am huh?) – me, Deb, and our friends/colleagues Jennifer, Anita and Joyce. I took him home with me that day and Deb would have taken him if I had not – this she told me later. Bottom line, we were not leaving there without him. I thought she might like to see him and how he has matured from the young dog we saw that day. - Barbara.

Encouraging news from Cedars: 11/16/2006, 7:40 EST
Following Deb's second operation the surgical team were confident that they had in fact removed the targeted portion of the remaining tumor they were going after. She's awake, coherent and back to her feisty and funny self, and, her spirits are upbeat; glad that the surgeries are behind her. The surgeons were proactive in taking a small part of Deb's grey matter as a precautionary move. Now Deb may only be twice as smart as the rest of us ; )

The Doctors are so impressed with her progress that they are talking about discharging her as soon as the final pathology report comes back so she will not have to spend the upcoming holiday in the hospital. Something we can all be thankful for.

This weekend many of Deb's friends will be in LA to see her in person. We'll keep you updated as to the treatment options for Deb as things develop, and let you know how you may be able to help during the long road ahead.

Deb's out of surgery and doing well: Thursday 11/16/06 15:36 EST

The surgery took about 5 hrs but she's out and looks like she did fine. No other details to report just yet but thought you all would want to know.

The second surgery is under way: Thursday, 2:00 EST

Here's a quick update to let you know that Deb's in surgery now to remove what we hope to be the last of the tumor. Dr. Yu told her family to expect it to take 3-4hrs.

Also, the preliminary results of the pathology have come back; the tumor is an Astrocytoma with an abscess (infection). We don't know the class of Astrocytoma yet. We're hoping for a class 1 or 2; a class 4 is the Glioblastoma, so we'd like to avoid that one if we can. Deb was a bit uncomfortable last night and they think that could be related to the infection, so they will be starting her on antibiotics as soon as she's out of surgery.

We hope to have an update mid to late evening EST tonight.

P.S. Radar (the Briard) was delivered safely to AZ by Deb's mom on Monday and is waiting there for Deb to get better and come and get him.

Another day, another surgery: 11/15/2006, 19:11 EST
Based on the most recent MRI, Dr Yu and his team have decided to operate on Deb again tomorrow, where they will go after what they hope is the remaining 5% of the tumor. In addition, we are still awaiting the findings of final pathology report. By all accounts Deb is doing well and is in good spirits, and, we have some great first-hand updates and further details from Kim (see comments from the previous posting).

We're still working on a non-family visiting hours schedule for this weekend. In principle, ICU restricts to one 15 minute visit per hour for up to 3 visitors. We hope to be able to organize 2-3 slots of non-family visitations per day depending, of course, on how Deb is feeling. We do hope everyone will get a chance to see her, but stress the need for everyone to be flexible and understanding.

Antonietta, Deb's college friend from Fitchburg State and herself an ICU nurse, will be staying with Deb tonight so Deb's mother can get some rest. From what we hear, Deb has been keeping the nurses on their toes and has even petitioned for longer beds to comfortably accommodate someone of her stature.

We'll keep you up to date on the progress of Deb's surgery tomorrow. We encourage everyone to read the comments (especially for valuable extra information from Kim and family members) and do of course leave messages of encouragement for Deb (please sign your posts so we know who has visited). While Amy (the blog-maven) is visiting Deb this weekend, her lesser half will be home alone (with new baby Andrea for the first time!*$#!) and also be doing the updates. Please feel free to email Brian with any information, and do send in any photos you'd like to see in the blog. Thanks!

No news is good news: 11/15/06, 12:31 EST

Hi everyone, We don't have any updates yet, but remember it's early in LA and I'm sure yesterday was a long day for everyone. At this point, no news is good news.

Thank you for all of the calls and e-mails. Deb's got an amazing group of friends and we're getting her your thought as soon as we can. Also, I know that many of us are headed over to LA to see Deb this weekend. We may need to coordinate visit times so that we don't overwhelm the room and that the family can have their time - it will also depend on how Deb is felling. I'll see if I can get some timelines posted.

Keep positive and check back here at Deb central.

Post-Op Update: 11/14/2006 20:00 EST
As we mentioned previously, Deb made it through surgery and while still sedated did manage to give the nurses "thumbs-up" when she was been taken back to the recovery ward. Her family (Bob, Betty, Jimmy & Amy) is on the way from MA to LA to join her Mom and her college friend Antonietta will visit from San Francisco tomorrow. Deb really appreciates all your thoughts, prayers and good wishes and please do sign the comments so she knows everyone out there is pulling for her. We should have further updates as the day progresses tomorrow.

Deb is out of surgery: Tuesday, 11/14/06 10:58 EST

I've just got the update from Jim, Deb's Brother. Deb did fine through the surgery and is in recovery. Unfortuantely the tumor was not encapsulated and at first look it apears to be a Glioblastoma. Now all of you with medical or oncology study background know how hard it is to write that. A Glioblastoma is the most agressive type of brain tumor. We'll have to wait for the pathology to come back to make it offical but we need to prepare oursleves and be strong for Deb and her family. The good news, if there could be any, is that Dr. Yu has a cutting edge trial going on with bone marrow-derived neural stem cells to treat these types of tumors and Deb has been accepted into that study. She will be getting the best treatment there is and we are going to fight this for as long as we need to. She's going to need our help so stay tuned for what you can do.

Breaking News 11/14/05 7:52 EST - Deb is in surgery now to remove the tumor.

Deb had a hard day yesterday 11/13/06. Dr. Yu and his team decided they needed to get the surgery underway now and not to wait for the MRI that was scheduled today. Deb had become unresponsive over the day and as you can guess that's not a great sign. I had a chance to talk to her briefly yesterday morning and she said that the medication/pain killers were making her very drowsy and that she just wanted to sleep for awhile until she felt better. She didn't know how right that idea was; she spent most of the day sleeping and now when she wakes up we can tell her the surgery is all done. No more waiting, no nerves before they go in, she took a nap to feel better and Dr. Yu will do his best so when she wakes up she won't just feel better she'll be better! Because as I've been saying all along - get that damn thing out of her!

Now the last thing Deb said to me before she hung up was "don't forget to keep your fingers crossed for me". And I said, " we're going to do more than cross our fingers" - so I'm picturing that Dr. Seuss story about the little world in the elephant's hand. It's our job to get a big loud cosmic "We Love Deb" message out there. In other words call your priest, rabbi, shaman, or witch doctor, get on your knees, count some beads or do a few oums but I want all the karma and good will we can muster for Deb and her family. Don't make me write a cheer to get you motivated...and don't' be shy, we all love Deb, and we all need to show it right now.

I'll keep you updated. That's all for now.

Hi everyone,
We're putting this Blog together to keep the information flowing. With everything that is going to happen this week it may be hard to talk to Deb or her family directly, so check this site for the updated news. Please keep in mind that things are moving quickly so things may change at any point; take these postings in context of when they are posted.

As of right now Monday, 11/13/06 Deb has been moved to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to be treated by Dr. Yu and his team. They are monitoring her closely and are running a few more tests before they perform the operation to remove the tumor. At last report, the tumor was the size of a small plum (2.5 cm by 2.5 cm by 3.5 cm) and located over her left ear. The mass is a medium darkness and is apparently not attached, so is operable. The surgery is scheduled for sometime on Wed. 11/15/06. Right now, Deb's Mom, Diane is with her. Over the past week Deb has had lots of visitors, including her brother Jim from MA, Kim from CA, Jody from DE and lots of folks from "City of Hope" and Amgen. Her spirits are as high as you could expect under the circumstances and the nurses are keeping her as comfortable as possible.

As we get closer to the surgery keep the thoughts, prayers and well wishing coming for Deb and her family. Please use the comments link below to leave your messages which will be relayed to Deb.