Pathology Curve Ball

We arrived safely at Mayo's today and I was feeling a lot better in general, no dizziness today and my face back to normal for the most part.  As we have learned before in personal experience with pathology, you never can count on things to stay the same for long.

The final pathology results showed that it is NOT thyroid cancer spread to my ear, but rather is a "papillary meningioma".  This tumor originates in the lining around the brain, but can spread to adjacent areas such as bone.  As every theory has been, this is a very rare type of tumor.  Dr Driscoll said these are generally considered benign, but they have a high chance of recurrence.  I think benign basically means that the chance of it spreading to other parts of the body is not very high.  This type of tumor is very aggressive and there will be a high chance of it coming back in the same place again.  The next step is to operate and get as much of the tumor out as possible.  He does think there is a good chance that they will be able to separate it out, these type don't cling real tight to everything around them.

After surgery they will determine the plan for radiation, but most likely there will be some sort of radiation followed by frequent MRI tests to monitor for recurrence.

We are reminded that we don't know the future.  We will count every year we have together as a bonus.  I guess after we thought it was thyroid cancer, we thought "Oh, that's an easy one" and were relieved.  Now we are back again to simply trusting in God for the future.  I'm not discounting the power of each one of your prayers.

We are to report to the hospital at 5:45am.  It will probably take a couple hours for pre-op stuff, they don't give an exact time to start.

Thanks again for your prayers and support.  We appreciate each one of you so much.

Derek & Leann