I had my follow-up appointment with Dr. Goble today, to go over the MRI results and put a plan in place going forward. Stephen was able to go with me, too!
He walked into the room with a smile and asked if we had seen the MRI. Since we hadn't, he invited us to his office to have a comparison.
"As you can see, it is markedly improved! There are only a few tiny spots, and who knows? If we wait a few more months, they might go away, as the radiation could still have some effect."
Back in the office, he asked me about all other symptoms, checked my strength, breathing, reflexes, etc. Things look pretty good. I have swelling and a fat, round face from the steroids, but I'm off them now.
Moving forward, we will schedule an MRI every 3 months. My cancer is like a weed....really aggressive and grows quickly, but it dies back easily when treated. If there happen to be a few spots that start to grow back, there might be possible radio-surgical options, where Dr. G and a neurosurgeon would work together to tackle those spots. Also, if the whole-brain scan happens to keep the cancer at bay for over a year or more before it comes back, we might look at whole-brain again. "There have been occasions where whole brain radiation is repeated, but we need to know that it will have a durable response."
Dr. G hesitates to give me any kind of time frame. He doesn't think I'm still on the 6-12 months, but he can't promise 10 years, either. We are just taking one day at a time---really 3 months at a time by his monitoring.
3 weeks at a time at Dr. Fleener's office. Scanned every 3 months. I can live season-to-season. Just the fact that I feel like I can LIVE is enough for this week!!
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