My Tumor Is Not Gone

We traveled up to USC for my post-op MRI on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, my tumor is still there.  It is about half the size that it was before surgery so we don't know if the surgeon only cut out half or it grew back quickly.  We think the surgeon only cut out half.

My tumor from nine years ago just fell out so the surgeon did not have to try and cut anything away.  This time the tumor is still classified as a grade one, slow growing tumor but it didn't just fall out.  In the ICU, my surgeon came to me and told me he got out what he felt he could comfortably remove.  He wanted me to be able to sit up and talk to him and not disable me in any way.

The tumor is located in a very delicate area called the sella turcica, the small boney socket behind the bridge of the nose that normally houses a dangling pituitary, the master hormone control gland at the base of the brain. The tumor is covering the carotid artery, smushing my pituitary, and just below my optic nerve.  The surgeon couldn't dig around these areas without potentially killing me or debilitating me for life. The tumor is made up of diseased dura cells that have infiltrated the healthy dura cells and you can't differentiate the tumor cells from the healthy cells with the naked eye.  

Obviously this was very devastating news to us.  We go back in a week to see a radiologist oncologist to see about radiation.  This isn't a cancerous tumor but a meningioma in a very hard to get to area.  I am a rare case with very few documented meningiomas growing up out of the base of the sella pituitary region.

Our next course of action looks like it will be radiation which will most likely kill my pituitary and may make my vision worse the doctor told us.  I will keep you posted on what happens next.  In the meantime, I am going to continue running this blog as much as I can.  I have heard with radiation, one is just tired.  This blog is a good distraction for me and I love writing when I am up to it.

Continue to email me problems and asking me for advice.  I will answer when I am up to it.  I would appreciate prayers for wisdom as we search out the best therapy, for my gut and sinus infection and headaches to be healed {all the result from brain surgery}, and peace and strength from the Lord.

It is definitely a scary time for us but we continue to place our faith and hope in the Lord.  He is carrying me right now.  He has been faithful in the past, and I know He will continue to be faithful and give me His strength.  For when I am weak, He is strong.

Much love to all of my faithful and supportive readers,

Lori

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God,   the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint,   and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary,and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;   they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary;   they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31