update
This is a long overdue update but I wanted to wait until we had all the information available.
My last two MRIs, done in Fargo, had a spot that caused a difference of opinion among the radiologists and my doctor. One thought the spot was just changes to scar tissue from my radiation treatments. Some thought that it might be a progression of the tumor. The only thing they were agreeing on was that it didn’t seem to be changing quickly and if there was anything going on it wasn’t anything to get too excited about but my team wanted to clear away any confusion and make certain that it was nothing- so it was recommended that we go back to Mayo for another MRI with perfusion sequences. (Fargo doesn’t have that kind of scan.) That means that they were looking specifically for blood flow to that part of my brain. Active and dividing tumor cells demand more blood flow. We drove down to Rochester on Wednesday and I had the scan done on Thursday morning. Later in the afternoon we saw my oncologist at Mayo and were able to see the new scan in comparison to previous scans and, to our untrained eyes and my doctors trained ones as well, it looks as though there is very little change from my December 2010 scan to the newest one done Thursday and when she pulled up the fancy perfusion scan we were thrilled to see that there was almost no blood moving around in the part of my brain that has residual tumor- so it looks like there is no cancer activity at this time. My doctor thought it looked very good and she recommended that we just keep an eye on things by doing regular MRI scans in Fargo every three months or so. I will see my Fargo doctor soon and I expect that her recommendation will be the same so, no new treatment plan for now and that is excellent news.
My last two MRIs, done in Fargo, had a spot that caused a difference of opinion among the radiologists and my doctor. One thought the spot was just changes to scar tissue from my radiation treatments. Some thought that it might be a progression of the tumor. The only thing they were agreeing on was that it didn’t seem to be changing quickly and if there was anything going on it wasn’t anything to get too excited about but my team wanted to clear away any confusion and make certain that it was nothing- so it was recommended that we go back to Mayo for another MRI with perfusion sequences. (Fargo doesn’t have that kind of scan.) That means that they were looking specifically for blood flow to that part of my brain. Active and dividing tumor cells demand more blood flow. We drove down to Rochester on Wednesday and I had the scan done on Thursday morning. Later in the afternoon we saw my oncologist at Mayo and were able to see the new scan in comparison to previous scans and, to our untrained eyes and my doctors trained ones as well, it looks as though there is very little change from my December 2010 scan to the newest one done Thursday and when she pulled up the fancy perfusion scan we were thrilled to see that there was almost no blood moving around in the part of my brain that has residual tumor- so it looks like there is no cancer activity at this time. My doctor thought it looked very good and she recommended that we just keep an eye on things by doing regular MRI scans in Fargo every three months or so. I will see my Fargo doctor soon and I expect that her recommendation will be the same so, no new treatment plan for now and that is excellent news.