3 Month Update on Scott:
(Read previous updates on the left sidebar)
Last Monday we went to Primary Childrens for Scott's 3 month post-op MRI. He never has to get sedated, and always holds still perfectly. He just hates the IV they have to do for the contrast, and unfortunately they had to stick him 3 times before they found a good vein with the flow they needed. :( So that was a bummer for sure, but a little package of Legos from the nurse, and a viewing in the MRI machine of How to Train Your Dragon, and Scott was a happy camper.
So we went back to Primary Childrens yesterday to meet with our neurosurgeon to go over the results. The surgeon gave Scott the green light to resume all his normal activities. His incision is all healed up, and the MRI showed there is still no blockage in his ventricles (the hydrocephalus I talked about previously).
The little bit of bad news is that the tumor did seem to grow a little according to the radiologist reports. The good news according to our surgeon is that the tumor seems to be showing itself better. That sounds kind of weird, but this ganglioglioma tumor is just hidden and inter-meshed inside of Scott's brain stem and on the other MRIs, there were no direct lines of where the tumor was vs. the brain tissue- it was all just a blur. And even when the surgeon thought there was a small indication in some spots, once he was in there during surgery nobody could tell brain tissue from tumor. SO that is why it's a good thing to see it start to show itself better. So to me, I wonder if that's why it showed bigger. Maybe they didn't measure it all the first time since they couldn't tell where the lines were and it was actually bigger to start with.
The surgeon also said this could mean that the tumor might be starting to separate from the brain making those lines clearer too. It made our surgeon really hopeful that if it does continue to do be less concealed and inter-meshed with the brain, surgery may not be off the table. Not that we are wanting to put Scott through that life-threatening surgery again, because we don't. But before (just 7 weeks ago) they were telling us that there is no possible way they would be able to operate on him, and basically pray like crazy that it never grows. This is a lot more promising to just know that if it does grow and starts to cause him troubles, we may be able to get at least part of it out if it continues to do what it's doing.
Those are all really big hopes and so much can change over the next 3 months when we get another MRI. Our surgeon is an optimist (I guess you would have to be to do what he does). He makes us hopeful at all the possibilities, and even said that the body can take care of it/kill it off too. With the other patient he had with a spinal cord ganglioglioma he only removed about 70% of it with surgery, but on the post-op MRI it was completely gone. Her body had taken care of that other 30%. We are are trying really hard to keep with the optimism and have a positive and hopeful attitude about it. I know Scott prays daily that this tumor will just go away and disappear. He has so much faith. I know he was a little discouraged to see that that didn't happen. It's hard to see your kids prayers not get answered right away, or how they want them to, but we still have faith that it can happen in the Lord's timing. I think if it can keep separating itself, the body might be able to do it's job. The body is an amazing thing, and along with faith, even more powerful. That I know for sure.
