The MRI results are in! Well, not exactly, because I'm not really a radiologist. But, I couldn't help but sneak a peak at the images before we overnighted the disc to the clinic. I'm just a little bit excited, because to my untrained eye it looks kinda good.
The top two images are from early February taken at the Houston Imaging Center. I won't show you the pre-op images, because they are just too darn scary. Anyway, you are looking at Adam's brain, but flipped around so the cavity looks like it's on the left side, but actually resides on the right side of Adam's head. That big black hole on the left bottom is the cavity remaining after the humongous tumor was removed. That cavity will probably always be there. It's actually much smaller now than it was immediately post-op, but I don't think it's shrinking anymore. In the top two images you can see a lot of angry white stuff around the rim of the cavity. That is swelling/fluid, and most likely a result of the body trying to repair itself after the surgery. However, in the right hand image, there is a little ball of really bright white matter on the right side of the cavity that Dr. Burzynski said is a recurring tumor. It's roughly the size of a chickpea in real life. The two images below are from today. So you can compare top-to-bottom. A lot of the angry white stuff is gone. It looks like there is less swelling and/or fluid around the cavity at this time. And (drumroll, please) you can see in the right-hand image that the really bright white ball of tumor appears to be gone. I could be misinterpreting the images, but I couldn't help but get really really happy when I compared the old images with the new. There really is a change, and it looks like it's definitely for the better!!
The disc should be in the hands of the radiologist tomorrow, so hopefully we'll have a more professional interpretation by the weekend. Adam is still feeling good, and we are getting the hang of this whole cancer-treatment-thing. Thank you so much to all of you who have brought meals and are helping with blood transport and getting Ali to his therapies. I honestly don't know if I could do this without you. By about 3:00pm, my body powers down for the day, and I'm a useless lump on the sofa for at least an hour. And I'm a woman who NEVER sits down. Knowing that I don't have to try to prepare dinner is an absolute God-send. My mother is helping with dishes and laundry, so we are actually able to keep on top of those. And the first week of blood-runs went off without a hitch. We're moving forward, and it's all good!
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