Focus on these results

So I got my MRI results back! Follow-up from this post: http://www.yourharts.ca/2019/02/13/focus-on-this-seizure/

A lot of people have asked me about the results. Sorry if I came across as rude by telling everyone to wait for my blog post, it’s just a lot to digest and hard to respond to every person individually. I know you all ask because you truly care and I truly appreciate that! So let’s get to it shall we?

Results:

It’s good news! Not great news, but better than I was expecting.

• The good: 
  • Most things got better!
    • That scary leptomeningeal tumor in my brain (http://www.yourharts.ca/2018/10/22/danger-close/) got smaller! The doctor was surprised and impressed! These things don’t respond well to treatment, but it seems like the chemo is working well!
    • All but one of the other lesions in my brain got smaller.
• The not so good:
  • One spot get a little bigger. This is the spot that affects my walking and brings on the seizures.
  • Around this spot the image showed a lot of swelling. The image is also inconclusive – it could be disease progression or it could be just an edema caused by tumor necrosis.
• What’s next?
  • Keep doing chemo because I’m tolerating it well and it seems to be effective!
  • We do a Perfusion MRI in 2 months to see what’s around that tumor.
    Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast-Enhanced MR Perfusion. DSC MR perfusion, also known as bolus-tracking MRI or perfusion-weighted imaging, is a technique in which the first pass of a bolus of gadolinium-based contrast agent through brain tissue is monitored by a series of T2- or T2*-weighted MR images.
• Options:
  • 1 Continue with chemo 
  • 2 More gamma knife radiosurgery. Highest risk with a 30% chance of tissue necrosis. This risk is much higher than the 7% that’s acceptable!
  • 3 Physical surgery – a surgeon goes in and removes all the icky stuff. Due to the location of the tumor this guaranteed to make my mobility much worse in the short term.
  • 4 Whole brain radiation again.

That’s pretty much it.It was a brief appointment and overall the doctor was happy with the scan. Last night my wife, two good friends and I went out to celebrate at The Keg but unfortunately while there I had 3 seizures. 🙁

It was so overwhelming being in a crowded environment, we think it caused too much anxiety that brought on the seizures. But who knows?

As usual, thanks for reading and all the support!

-Ya boy