Mayo Followup

We met yesterday with the doctors at Mayo.  There is really no additional news to report, but in general their attitude is a little more subdued I would say.  They are pleased with my progress in recovery overall.  They see nothing on the scans at this point that is a problem.  There is an area on the scan where everyone is unsure whether it is tumor that was missed or scar tissue or exactly what.  The one thing that every single doctor has said is that with meningioma, there is no way to know a tumor is growing other than to see an area increasing in size from scan to scan.  At this point nothing is different in size than the June pre-radiation scan.  I suspect the overall reason they are more subdued in attitude is that the typical behavior of grade 3 meningiomas is not good. They have a respect for them and how serious they are.  Dr Driscoll said he has seen it before where by the first post-surgery scan the tumor has exploded and grown back enormously.

They would like me to come back in 4 months and have the next MRI done there at Mayo.  They want to tweak a little bit the way it is run to suppress the coloring of the fat packing put in during surgery.  The other thing we realized is that the surgeons are really the best ones to read the MRI, not the radiologists.  The reason is that the surgeons know what was in those areas during surgery and have pictures from surgery they can compare to.

So overall we are thankful for the progress so far.  And it is good to be reminded that we still need to trust God for each day rather than ourselves.  Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support through this year.  We appreciate it very much.

Derek & Leann, Lexi, Wesley, & Whitley