And The News Was Good!

Apparently there is high demand for the latest update. Jason has had me running around so much that I just haven't had time to sit down and write the post. We arrived in Houston on Friday and spent time with family and friends up north. We then drove down to see Bob & Lois at the condo on Saturday. Sunday was our first appointments. We had a difficult time finding where to get the blood draw for the research protocol on a Sunday. The appointment was for 9 AM and we finally found the right place (on complete accident) at about 3 PM. That's the great thing about MDA, you are always learning something new. Helps spice things up a bit! We also had an MRI Sunday.

On Monday we got the results from Sunday's MRI. The oncologist just said everything looks good, the inflammation is continuing to decrease, and there's no sign of tumor growth that can be detected. As we briefly looked at the scan, however, Jason and I both were concerned about a nodule that has been hanging out in the tumor bed. We didn't talk about it at the time but later discovered that we both had the same thought, that nodule just sits there and it's round and it looks like a tumor to amateurs like us. Overall, we were coming to Houston on edge since this checkup was 6 months out from surgery. Unfortunately, the oncologist told us that the research stats are normed for 4-5 months from the end of radiation. We are currently 3 months from the end of my radiation. On the bright side, we did tell him that we have nicknamed him "Dr. No Naps." He took it well and we are considering giving him a lab coat with Dr. No Naps embroidered on the lapel. 

On Tuesday we got a copy of the MRI report and talked with the radiologist. The report states, "Area of marginal enhancement has slightly decreased but also the intensity has decreased." This is good, this is an indicator of inflammation from treatment- more damage that is healing means more chance cancer cells were damaged. My favorite part is where it says, "Central nonenhancing area within the solid nodule likely represents early treatment related necrosis." This means it's likely dead tissue. 

So the best part of the entire trip was when the radiologist told us about a recent experience he had when he spoke at a GBM support group. Two women approached him and started giving him a hard time about having made them bald. He quoted a woman as saying, "Look what you did to me! I still have bald spots!" Turns out she was also thanking him because she is five years out from treatment and doing well. Another woman stated that she was also five or more years from treatment and had zero detectable cells. And then he stated to me, "And they were on the exact same protocol that you are on." Jason said his favorite thing about that story was that he shared it after he was discussing how well I am doing, meaning that the doc was purposefully giving us hope. 

So now we are on our way home, we stayed over in Waco to break up the trip over 2 days. Aidan has been texting us non stop about all the things Nana is doing wrong, won't do for him, etc., so I'm thinking she probably is pretty eager for us to come rescue her. We are coming soon, Nana!