Update

Hey everyone... Sorry for the delay in blog updates. I've been pretty tired and am just now feeling alert enough to type. Oye! Thank goodness for caffeine, right? Here's our latest update:

Last week, I had my follow up C.T., which came up looking fine. I also had my follow up appointment with my surgeon to get the results of my pathology report. The report showed that the tumor was more "aggressive" than they originally thought. Instead of a meningioma, it's actually a hemangioperisytoma (say that ten times fast). DO NOT google that term... Wait for the next update so that we have some firm facts on where we're at with this. I made the mistake of googling it the night after our appointment and had a panic attack because all websites, testimonials and chat rooms say it's cancerous. In fact, one of the chat rooms I found had a girl who asked this question, "My doctor only told me my tumor was more "aggressive" than others. He never said it was cancer. Is it?" This was the exact same situation I had w/ my doctor. The answer is one that would make anyone flip out. (I know, what's the point of telling you not to google it if I just told you the scary part? It's just scary and sometimes conflicting so I don't want you guys to get lost in it like I did). My doctor never said that it was cancerous, he only said the term "aggressive". But he was also only in the room with us for maybe 6 minutes, and when he got up to shake our hands and leave, I was only 1/2 way through my list of questions. You bet your bottom dollar Jake almost ninja chopped him and made him wait while I finished going through my list. But we were so lost and actually wanting to get out of there so bad (because of the last experience we had there) that we hadn't processed a lot of what he had just told us about our next steps.

I'll try to give you the short version as far as our next steps go... First, I had another MRI yesterday. No results yet, but I hope to get them today. They ordered the MRI to see if anything has regenerated (because a hemangioperisytoma is a rare type of tumor that regenerates faster than others). The good news is that my surgeon says he got all of the tumor during surgery, so (and this is my fact / assumption, not his) the likelihood that anything has regenerated since 10/27is low. Because the tumor is one that may come back and can be cancerous (we'll find out more when we meet the specialists) we are going to meet the radiology oncologist at St. Luke's, and an oncologist at Northwestern University in Chicago (we were referred to these doctors by our surgeon). These specialists will review my "case" from day 1 and decide what they believe we should do in terms of next steps (radiology perhaps, possibly chemo, maybe neither if my MRI shows nothing) and from there I'll just have the facts and will continue on having MRIs, well, probably forever).

We are continuing on with our original Thanksgiving Day plans, which is to travel up to Osceola, WI to see Theresa ("Tee Dawg") and her friends and family. Theresa is some sort of genius who works at 3M with other geniuses, including a neuroscientist who studied the brain and various types of brain tumors while in school. Theresa was kind enough to pass my most recent diagnosis on to him on Friday, and he spent the weekend researching it. He also has a very good friend who, believe it or not, is the head of pathology at HCMC (Hennepin County Medical Center). We will be bringing a copy of the pathology report on our trip with us, as Theresa says the head pathologist (sorry, I don't remember his name) might be able to meet with us on Friday. It never hurts to get a second opinion right? Jake also called our primary doctor (who is amazing) today, who explained that although this particular type of tumor is might be cancerous, there's still a chance that my tumor could be benign. We'll know more after we see the specialists. In any event, that was a ray of hope for us. :)

We hope to have the results of the MRI today, at which point I may or may not post to the blog. I suppose it depends on how I'm doing emotionally... And, I tend to forget things a lot lately (yep, even more than I used to), so if you don't see an update, don't panic. Feel free to text or something. :)

Please just send out good energy, think positive and pray (if you do that). ;) That's what we're doing.

More to come...