Josiah "Josh" Quincy Hamilton, Sr., age 51, died peacefully on February 3, 2020 in the presence of his wife, loving family and friends at Houston Hospice after a long battle with brain cancer.
Josh was loved by many due to his gentleness, sense of humor, and constant support of others. We are so lost without him.
The memorial service will be on Friday, February 14, 2020 at 11 a.m. at Christ Church Cathedral, 1117 Texas St. Houston, Texas, 77002.
Funeral arrangements are being coordinated by Bradshaw-Carter.
Please follow the link to view his obituary. There you may share memories with the family and sign the guest book for the memorial service:
This is Josiah and Meredith, Josh's son and daughter-in-law. While this may be a sacred first person blog, we wanted to hop on and give y'all a life update.
Unfortunately since October, his vocabulary and ability to operate electronics has diminished. After nearly eighteen months on an eleven month prognosis, Josh has begun hospice (in-home for the time being). Treatment has been stopped, and comfort care started, as keeping him comfortable and in a state where he is most able to regain strength is the doctors' #1 priority.
He is always around family and loved ones, and my wife and I, my sister and her husband have all been able to visit over a dozen-odd weekends last year to date, and despite everything that has happened, my dad has been able to breathe new life into our family relationships.
For further updates, please feel free to text either of us, Jane, or Bethany (Josh's daughter).
We'd like to thank you all for your prayers, visits, texts, and phone calls. They have meant a lot during this difficult time. If you are interested in visiting with Josh, please text Jane to arrange that. Josh is able to recognize most people, and even a short visit would mean the world to him.
So long, and thanks for all the fish! (Josh would appreciate this!) Josiah and Meredith
It's Saturday in Houston, TX - we had a lot of rain recently, but it seems mostly over. So far the day is nice and not too hot, which it has been recently.
I don't have much news about me -- I'm still working, and it's more difficult than it used to be, but do-able. My two prescribed treatments are still Optune and Avastin. I'm getting *tons* of support from family, friends, coworkers, and people I barely or don't at all know. Very grateful for all that!
A good friend sends me links to articles, and I've found these very helpful. I don't have the energy or the stomach to read about glioblastoma on the internet too much, but this friend and some others have filtered the search results in a way that works for me - thanks!!!
That doesn't sound positive, and it's kind of not :) But it brings some very interesting and for me compelling views about what's going on -- really encouraging, actually.
One of the things that I find challenging -- and I think other GBM patients must also -- is describing the symptoms of the cancer. It doesn't help that the symptoms are wildly different depending on which parts of the brain are being messed with.
As I mentioned, I have disseminated GBM (mgmt: unmethylated, idh-x: wild-type) currently with three separate tumor areas which appeared in this order -- left temporal lobe (I'm right handed), left parietal lobe, and right temporal lobe.
My first tumor (left temporal lobe) had the most symptoms prior to surgery -- things I couldn't and really still can't describe because of the impact of the tumor on the main language processing portion of my brain. Doctors call these symptoms "seizures" - haha :) - to me this seems simpler than maybe it should be. Maybe I'm wrong.
I found the article difficult to read because it hits home. It says that thinking brain cells - neurons - are communicating with cancer cells through synapses. This jumps out for me, and I wonder if it helps explain some specific GBM symptoms. Probably it helps explain why the symptoms can be difficult to talk about (and to listen about!).
One of the reasons I tend to stay out of GBM discussions on the web is that (I think) I've seen patients get blackballed from discussions when they describe GBM as a "demon". Does the article help explain why someone would say that? I kind of think so.
After talking about how neurons communicate with each other through synapses the article says: "Researchers and physicians ... have now discovered that neurons in the brain form these kinds of direct cell-to-cell contacts with tumor cells of aggressive glioblastomas ..., thus transmitting impulses to the cancer cells."
(that describes one-way communication, I guess, but my experience really feels like two-way communication, mercifully silenced with a scalpel -- at least so I can't hear it very well anymore (even though cancer cells talking to neurons doesn't really make sense -- I don't think neurons get cancer, so it wouldn't be GBM-neurons on the other end of the phone line? (ugh -- getting a headache)))
In this state, the prospect of getting brain surgery is scary - it is - but not nearly as scary as not getting brain surgery. Even if the result is only temporary.
Hopefully this and additional work will empower treatment. With my three "demons", I'm hoping the medical community keeps moving fast like it is.
Overall I find the article very positive (but very difficult for me to read :) ) -- sounds like progress to me.
josh: Hey everyone - I'm still here :) - I've been busy at work and sleeping more than usual.
Not much to report -- I will see my doctor again in a couple of days, followed by another infusion on Saturday. I have a light headache from time to time, but not bad.
Here's a recording I made close to 9 years ago - no name for it. I think I intended it as a lullaby for my youngest daughter, who was like 4 at the time. I thought it would be a nice follow-up to the last aggressive music post. I don't have a name for the song.
This is me on all the instruments. The electric piano thing is something we had bought for her to use - very small, and I think it was something we bought at a toy store. It had a setting that would add a second note to any note you pressed on the keyboard, and that's what's in this recording.
josh: Hello again! I'm having a great weekend and I hope you are too.
I've crossed the 2 week mark since I completed radiation, and I seem to be on the up. Back at work last week -- a little tiring, but hopefully that will improve as I recover from the radiation. I got a spine MRI yesterday but haven't seen the results yet.
Worked on getting some more of the music studio stuff active recently -- much is still unplugged. I recorded another guitar riff that I never did anything with - it was maybe too aggressive for a lot of things, and I wasn't sure how it would relate to anything.
But when I think about pushing back on GBM, it doesn't seem too aggressive anymore :)
I've been timid about bravado when it comes to terminal brain cancer - not sure it helps and I've read about the futility of it. That said, it feels good to put some energy into guitar playing. Feel free to apply any context that seems appropriate - doesn't have to be brain cancer -- could be recovering from a bad relationship, or shyness, or I dunno, upcoming elections :)
production notes: I recorded this last night, so I think it's the first post-cancer-diagnosis recording of me playing that I've posted (I've been posting post-diagnosis mixes of prediagnosis recordings).
I planned on using a real British kick drum, but it was too much work to get the recording equipment set back up around the drums right away, so this is a "virtual instrument" drum - I'm not a drummer anyway. I did manage to get some old German microphones cleaned up and working again. I used them for the guitar.
The acoustic guitar is real. It was made (and played) in Texas.
