The worst day

Well, the big MRI is over. It was pretty concerning. I could see the booth through the little mirror. It took a lot longer than they said it would, and my neurologist (lets call him Dr.E) was going in and out to see the images as they came up on screen. And I had no roadblocks in getting a consult with him afterwards.

Glioma, aka brain tumor, in the right frontal lobe.

Not only is the mass bigger than the previous scan in 2007 (more than 2 times bigger), it's bigger than the CT scan from 10 days ago. Dr E is "hoping" it's a "low grade" glioma, which may or may not be cancerous. The mass "doesn't enhance much" with contrast which leans towards a lower grade than the really nasty, malignant tumors. Usually this location of this type of tumor manifests as seizures, but I'm already on a medication that is both a mood stabilizer and a seizure suppressant. So this medicine is most likely preventing the tumor from creating seizures.

So what now? He urged us to act quickly. He wants me to see a neurosurgeon as soon as possible and will put pressure on his office to get me seen soon. He recommended Dr J. This person would pretty much be my quarterback, calling the plays, coordinating the different disciplines if/when the time comes. Dr E is not entirely sure what the neuro will recommend. It could be more imaging tests; pet scan, mrspectroscopy, another MRI, other. It could be concerning enough that he recommends a biopsy pretty much immediately. Of course, we'll schedule to see at least 2 neurosurgeons to make sure the approach is appropriate. I'm not willing to jump into brain surgery right away.

There's a lot we won't know until we meet with the neuro. There's even more we won't know until a biopsy and pathology of tissue is done. There's no way to know how fast it's growing, if it is cancerous, or what my prognosis would be. Best case scenerio, it's non-cancerous and can be removed (or mostly removed) during surgery. Then we could just watch it carefully to make sure it doesn't regrow. Of course, anything worse than that is worst case scenerio.

Right now, I'm having a hard time processing it. C and I have been talking about this for the last 6 days, but it didn't take the sting out.