Oligo Woe Is Me

Morning folks.

So…not so much of good news on Friday.  Here’s the lowdown:

A) The swelling from the radiation is that of a likeness that my doctors have never seen.  And it may miraculously go away.

B) The original shot they were radiating is dying, but the ”flair” is profoundly larger.  Which means the tumor has grown so significantly that, well, you know.

I go in for another MRI on June 3rd.  And if the miracle didn’t happen then they need to open up my skull for another deeper biopsy so they can try to see what’s going on.  Although I think they already know.  Clearly the Temodar was not working to stop anything from progressing.  Nobody “said so”, but it appears that I’ve now progressed from Oligoastrocytoma Grade 3, to a Gliobalstoma Grade IV.  The most cursed of all brain tumors.  The biopsy (unless the miracle happens) will tell that.  Although the scans pretty much show that already.  It was the size of a quarter.  Now the flair is a large egg.  Yeah.  Great.  Did I mention that having a brain tumor totally sucks?  I think I might have.

So now what?

I plan to enjoy this summer as much as we can.  While I won’t disregard anything the docs want me to do, I say “damn the torpedoes”. 

It’s going to be a great summer.

R

So here I am in Boston for my first MRI post radiation and post initial chemo. I could find out:

A) Good news where it appears that the chemo was working
B) No news because it’s simply too early to tell
C) Not so good news where it appears the the Temodar chemo wasn’t doing it job.

I’ll wait and hope. But no news would be better than bad news. If the Temodar wasn’t working, the new chemo starts getting ugly.

I meet with my neuro-oncologost at 10:30am where we will review the results.

R

Drum roll please….

The winner is

Andrea Sharp from Essex Junction, Vermont

Congratulations.  We are grateful to everyone who joined in and all the folks that organized it.  THANK YOU!!!!!!!!