One Year Later: A Winter Celebration
We travel to the wedding of a dear friend's daughter in snowy Vermont
Fifty-four (54) weeks ago, Julie received her diagnosis of GBM. After an eventful year of ups-and-downs set against a backdrop of COVID, Julie’s MRI scans and clinical data made a strong case for attending the wedding of a dear friend’s daughter in Woodstock, VT. A room at the Inn was booked in September and our eyes were set on the horizon.
At this juncture, the astute reader is wondering: A winter wedding in Vermont; what can possibly go wrong?
Answer: A perfectly timed Nor’easter!
As we drove north from Boston, the 40mph wind-driven rain gave way to 40mph wind-driven snow. Visibility and road conditions were poor. Vehicles spun out and slid down embankments on I-89. We turned west from the highway near Lebanon, NH and carefully picked our way along a rural VT road to Woodstock, arriving just before the 12 inches of heavy, wet snow toppled trees and blocked the roads.
Falling trees have a targeting mechanism that allows them to efficiently take down any power lines in their vicinity. The power lines feeding the Inn were no match for the trees, and by 9:30pm the Inn and all of Woodstock were plunged into darkness (along with 50,000 other Green Mountain Power customers). It was dark, increasingly cold, and we wondered if we had enough Optune TTF battery capacity to hold out.
Useful to consider some perspective here. When you are living each day with an aggressive GBM tumor, the inconveniences of a widespread power failure seem manageable. Plus, our traveling party was composed of two engineers, who can MacGyver their way out of pretty much anything, including temporary power disruptions.
The power was out for 22 hours, but the Bride, her mother (pictured above in the stunning red gown) and all of the guests remained calm. The wedding ceremony and reception began in candlelight augmented by a few lights operating on emergency generators.
An hour into the reception, the power was restored. Certainly an object lesson in the resiliency that is required of any successful marriage, whether it is just starting out or has endured for 33+ years.
We laughed; we danced; we toasted the Happy Couple; and we gratefully returned back to warm rooms at the Inn.
None of this would have been possible without the leading edge science and medicine created by Team Julie.
What’s Next? Stay tuned for 1H2023 announcements regarding things that Scott is doing to scale the key findings from Julie’s N-or-1 treatment protocol to help many more brain cancer patients worldwide. Once an entrepreneur; always an entrepreneur.