Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Update

Hey Y'all. We went to the hospital on Monday for a follow-up appointment with Dr. Cameron, one of Tim's surgeons. It was weird... we actually hadn't been at the hospital since the surgery. You go from spending hours and hours there to nothing. And since I have been back to work, life seems almost normal! Anyways, the check up was good. All pathology looks favourable and the slides show that the tumour is showing signs of changing to a ganglioneuroma, which is a benign tumour. (this is good news!) There are still viable tumour cells left, which we already knew because they couldn't get out everything during the surgery. We also found out that the original survival stats they gave us were much too high (90-95%). Dr. Lieberman says it is closer to 70% survival but she is going to get back to me with some stats from the doc in Califormia. I think they really don't know how best to treat Tim because his cancer is so rare and also it is such a weird shape and presentation compared to others, it makes for a lot of discussion amongst his doctors. But for now, he will have scans done every 2-3 months, including another MRI and CT scan as soon as they can book one.
The neuro exam they did was normal. (Tim used to have NO reflexes on the right) but they found a little lump under Tim's scar which is probably just post-surgical scar tissue or something but they ordered an ultrasound just to be sure. So all in all a good report and now we just keep doing check-ups and hope the cancer doesn't come back. That's all for now!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So happy about the Good news. Will continue to pray for all of you.

Katie B

Anonymous said...

So glad to hear all is going well! And I hear you guys have a pretty excellent babysitter these days :)

Anonymous said...

What good news. You will continue to be in our thoughts and prayers

Samantha & Rob