Recovery

Eric continues to work through recovery very well although it doesn't always feel that way for him. 

We were able to fly home late last week and were able to enjoy a nice, easy weekend at home together. We celebrated Halloween We are slowly starting to do more and more "normal" activities, and it feels good to be able to get into a routine and do the normal things. 

Right before we left Salt Lake City, we had an appointment with Eric's neuro-oncology team at Huntsman. Preliminary pathology reports showed that the mass that they removed this time was 60% necrotic tissue or a collection of dead tissue due to chemoradiation! That also means that 40% of the mass was active cancer cells. While we were wishing for more, we will definitely take 60%! This also settled the debate about what we were seeing on the previous MRIs: was it treatment effect or tumor growth???....turns out the answer is a resounding BOTH. 

Unfortunately, this means that Eric's care team considers his treatment a "failure". It's really hard to stay positive when care providers call treatment a failure. But when we look at it there have been many blessings and we have a hard time calling it a "failure"....after all, 60% of the removed tumor was dead; Eric went through another brain surgery and is recovering well; his body is handling the surgery and recovery without any major deficits; our family and friends continue to show us all of their love and support; and we could go on and on and on! 

This puts us at a fork in the road, and much of the past week has been spent deciding how to proceed. Eric's care team offered us multiple options for continuing treatment. Eric and I are reading, learning, and trying to discern what the best options are for Eric. For now, we continue to ask questions, learn as much as we can, and work toward making a decision with all of Eric's care team providers.