I spent all afternoon in doctors offices, mostly of our youngest though. Usually something mom can do, but you dont want her on the roads yet, at least not if you are with her in the car or have the chance of crossing paths.
I got the call from Laurie when we were at Rocky Mountain Youth, and all she said was, 'you need to call Dr, Lillehei'. not the sort of words you want to hear when you are waiting for biopsy results. I asked Laurie if the results were in, and she said yes, but I did not have the guts to ask her what the results were. I hung up and called the doctor, who called me right back.
The surgeon told me the pathology report on Laurie's tumor showed that it was mostly benign. For those of you who have been reading for a while, this is THE day. In a ranking of things all important, the surgery, where the tumor lived in teh brain and the pathology report are probably the top three. What struck me was the words 'mostly'.
Laurie's tumor was mostly type II which is very low malignancy or benign but there was evidence of some type III, although how much was not evident. Actually it did not matter. Since the vast majority of the tumor was removed, we have to assume what remains may be the type III that was found.
The doctor told me that 50% of these type of tumors return even with treatment, so right off you know we need to be on the offense. Also, this type of tumor, if left untreated with type III, could get very ugly quickly. Also, some of teh type II could promote to type III. Lots of reasons to at least KNOW what we are dealing with. Up to now we did not know; now we know.
Monday, 9 days atfer we left, we report back to the hopital to meet with the neurosurgery department again:
a) To remove Laurie's head staples (did I ever tell you about how all that worked? No? Next post....); and
b) To review the pathology report and determine a treatment plan for:
i - Radiation, and
ii - Chemotherapy
I always wince at that last one. I imagein saniflush or something just eating away at anything it cmoes in contact with, until it meets what it was designed to shake hands with and then destroy.... I know that is an exaggeration, but I am not sure how far off.
What I do know is that she will be treated with some very conventional, proven treatments - the same as Ted Kennedy. I know that Dr. Lillehei was trying to lend credibility to the treatment by mentioning this.
Well, for the last few mights I have really slept like crap, as my mind was doing its convulutions in the middle of the night, guessing what might be the case. Well, now we know, so I know to sleep well.
No, the fight is not over, and there are still some questions I have, and we don't know (and will never know) all things about this. Thank God for that. We know Laurie can take on this stage and very likely win for a very long time. I am going with that!
Thanks for continuing to pray with us. I hope my adhoc style of writing is not too rambling....it's all I know.
We love you all.
I got the call from Laurie when we were at Rocky Mountain Youth, and all she said was, 'you need to call Dr, Lillehei'. not the sort of words you want to hear when you are waiting for biopsy results. I asked Laurie if the results were in, and she said yes, but I did not have the guts to ask her what the results were. I hung up and called the doctor, who called me right back.
The surgeon told me the pathology report on Laurie's tumor showed that it was mostly benign. For those of you who have been reading for a while, this is THE day. In a ranking of things all important, the surgery, where the tumor lived in teh brain and the pathology report are probably the top three. What struck me was the words 'mostly'.
Laurie's tumor was mostly type II which is very low malignancy or benign but there was evidence of some type III, although how much was not evident. Actually it did not matter. Since the vast majority of the tumor was removed, we have to assume what remains may be the type III that was found.
The doctor told me that 50% of these type of tumors return even with treatment, so right off you know we need to be on the offense. Also, this type of tumor, if left untreated with type III, could get very ugly quickly. Also, some of teh type II could promote to type III. Lots of reasons to at least KNOW what we are dealing with. Up to now we did not know; now we know.
Monday, 9 days atfer we left, we report back to the hopital to meet with the neurosurgery department again:
a) To remove Laurie's head staples (did I ever tell you about how all that worked? No? Next post....); and
b) To review the pathology report and determine a treatment plan for:
i - Radiation, and
ii - Chemotherapy
I always wince at that last one. I imagein saniflush or something just eating away at anything it cmoes in contact with, until it meets what it was designed to shake hands with and then destroy.... I know that is an exaggeration, but I am not sure how far off.
What I do know is that she will be treated with some very conventional, proven treatments - the same as Ted Kennedy. I know that Dr. Lillehei was trying to lend credibility to the treatment by mentioning this.
Well, for the last few mights I have really slept like crap, as my mind was doing its convulutions in the middle of the night, guessing what might be the case. Well, now we know, so I know to sleep well.
No, the fight is not over, and there are still some questions I have, and we don't know (and will never know) all things about this. Thank God for that. We know Laurie can take on this stage and very likely win for a very long time. I am going with that!
Thanks for continuing to pray with us. I hope my adhoc style of writing is not too rambling....it's all I know.
We love you all.
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We are upholding you all in prayer.
Love you guys and I'm standing with you in the battle...God absolutely gets the last word here and I'm counting on a victory!