The Plan... now at least

Our plan is to go down to see Dr. Gilbert (neuro oncology) and Dr. Lang (neurosurgery) for the next few days at MD Anderson. We'll see if they have trials that sound legitimate to me.

psssst!!

I don't know if anybody noticed... but it's a happy b-day for my counter.

after dr b

Hmmm... So it turns out that Dr. B didn't really know anything at all, but then again, neither does anybody in the rest of the world. (If you think I'm being facetious, I'm not.) The tumor IS bigger; it IS pressing on the other half of my brain; and it ISN'T giving most of the effects you'd expect. (This is part of the reason I'm so confused... or is that confusion a portion of my symptoms?!!?!?! -- AH!)

Okay. So Dr. B did say the most effective things he knew at this point were his knowledge of the people doing trials. I have run out of things to do here at Loyola. He told us about neurooncologist Dr. VDAGERereaaASDggher at Duke (I'll try to get that later) and Dr. Gilder/ Gilber/ Glildablater neurooncologist at MD Anderson as the range comes into play. Meaning, one tends to take on more aggressive trials and one tends to take on less aggressive trials.

So, sometime in the next few weeks, we'll go see them. And some brain surgeons to see if they want to take a whack at my head.

That's where we are now. Yup.

m

ah the bloggg...

My poor blog... left all alone to rot in this silly remote corner of the internet where few people wander and zillions of programs play for my stuff. Sadly I've largely left it alone for a while, but since I just had an MRI and the point of the whole thing is to keep you up to date on all of that... so here I go... although it's reaaally late here.

I had the MRI about 10 days ago. I got the images myself immediately, but didn't yet have them "interpreted" by the neuroradiologist. The neuroradiologist saw the thing as did most of the other physicians and their interpretation is that the cyst is smaller but the tumor is slightly bigger. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this in my appointment with Dr. B last Monday. He honestly didn't know what to do either and promised to do research into what is out there. (This may seem disappointing to some, but he didn't claim to know what he didn't and he just got back from vacation. Two facts that I did like given his ignorance on the day of my appointment.)

Anyhow, so this coming Monday, our plan is to see Dr. B again and hopefully he'll be more clear, be the news good or bad.

That's all,

M

PS... Congrats to Laura and Matt tomorrow night!

AMAAAAAZZZZINGGGGG!!!

Yes, yes indeed I had an excellent time at the inauguration. I have never been so excited for me and my Dad hanging out, squashed in lines for sooooo long in the freezing, but thank God, dry weather. Either way, it was a blast, and I know my Dad would say the same.

I talked to the peops about the MRI's and they generally felt the same way that I did. That is, the cyst is shrinking and everything else we're not exactly sure about. So, onward we go with the Avastin as we did before. So there ya go.

Oh yeah!... and I've started selling my pictures! Shortly (meaning as soon as I make it) I'll have a website for you to go to look at and perhaps buy the pictures.

Unfortunately, I'm going to end on a down note. A high school friend in her maiden name, Amy French, lost her brother and father recently. May God be with them all.