6 Month Update

I can barely believe it's been 6 months since Scotts surgery. It really seems like it was just yesterday sometimes, and those emotions are still pretty raw for Kevin and I. Scott too. We have been doing MRI in 3 month increments and had the last one last Monday. We headed back to Primary Childrens today to speak with Scotts neurosurgeon about the results.

Pretty much in a nutshell the tumor is unchanged in all ways comparing to the last one he had in January. It's still showing itself about the same as the last one, which is better than in the begining. He said it's going from microscopic to macroscopic in his words (whatever that means) With this MRI in some of the slides you can see the tumor is a perfect oval, and then from a different angle on a new slide you can see how it's completely intertwined with the brain stem. And the part especially in the brainstem that deals with your balance, it's wrapped around. So that's why Scott is always getting dizzy and a bit clumsy you could say. He pretty much only gets dizzy when he runs. He wanted to take a break from soccer this season, so that really just means he gets dizzy in PE. He is also a little clumsy with the "drunk test" standing one foot in front of the other, but he's always been. They always do an exam on him at these appointments to make sure nothing has changed. 

The neurosurgeon always tries to add a little humor like telling Scott his teacher better not be easy on him just because he had "brain surgery" or anything like that. And he wants to make sure we know that if he himself were to die tomorrow, to not let any surgeon near Scott because of the risks. 

He still wanted another MRI in 3 months again and then hopefully if that one shows no growth we can space it out 6 months from there. Most importantly we are just watching Scott for symptoms of headaches, nausea, worsening in his dizzy spells or vision, or weakness in one side which would all mean the tumor is growing or hydrocephalus. Those are the worse case scenerios. We continue to hope and pray that it stays the same or can go away on its own. 

He did say you can see on the imaging some inflammation where he is guessing the body is trying to fight the tumor, but that has been on the other results as well. He said we wouldn't want the body to attack it too much or that can be dangerous too...so if his body does take care of it, it's going to take a whole lot of time. 
We are grateful he is doing so great and I am thankful every day I was entrusted to be his mom. He is such a good kid. Side note on the picture: he picked those sunglasses out himself. He said "well these are the darkest and I think they look pretty good on me too". I agree :) 
Love him to pieces.