Tuesday, September 9, 2008

MRIs, Doctors, and Tumors... oh my!

Mommy and I were having memory loss after the accident. Confusion, crying, pain.

Dr. B orders us to get brain MRIs. I have suffered with migraines for well over 10 years and have had an mri before. Mommy hadn't.

The 1st MRI was fine. In a lovely Radiology Center with an open mri, in a huge room with a great window and a cool mirror so you can see outside when you are getting your scan.

Mine was first, and mommy held my feet and rubbed them the whole time. Mommy's was next, I did the same for her. Everything was peaches and cream.

Until.

The next day Dr. B got the results while my mom was in the office. They found a mass in her head. Mine was fine. Could this be accurate? I have the migraines, she doesn't get headaches, well not that she told me. I see a copy of the report, words like aneurysm,chordoma , and metastatic lesion jump off the page.

Aneurysm? giant aneurysm? "Don't shout, don't scare her, don't upset her" What if it ruptures? Oh my god, what am I going to do????


2nd MRI:
Ugh, closed mri, in a trailer, with Retched Radiologist. Mommy is claustrophobic, and has a history of panic attacks. Great.

She saw the room, lay down for a second and got up. RR said that she wouldn't be able to have the MRI because of the way she was reacting. RR got ripped a new asshole and Mommy had a visitor in the MRI room. I stood there for 45 minutes with one hand stretched up to hold her hand, and the other rubbing her feet. The whole time she was in there I was checking to see if her chest was moving... to make sure she hadn't passed out in the tube! I knew how scared she was to have the MRI but I also knew how important it was to have it. That day. I couldn't wait 2 more weeks for her to go to a place that had an open MRI. I still feel bad about forcing her to stay there, but we needed to know. She understood, and that's why she was so brave to do it. I am so proud of her!


Fast forward to the next day.. next report.. suprasellar tumor, glioma ,metastatic disease

I call the Neurologist at AEMC , get an appointment Tuesday (we got the report on Friday). I googled him. Fabulous! Philadelphia's Top Doctor's list.

We meet with him, Troy comes with us. He's friendly, comforting, and most importantly doesn't seem worried. He schedules her for a CT Scan of the chest and abdomen, I had already scheduled her for a mammogram, ironically, and blood work.

Her test came out great. For a 58 year old woman it was amazing, even her primary care doctor said so. No cancer anywhere, which ruled out metastatic disease. Thank god!!

Next was an vision field test with a neuro-opthamologist as this tumor was on her optic chiasm . The series of nerves behind the eyes. The MRI report said that it appears to be attached to it. A grape sized tumor behind her eyes. Those beautiful, caring eyes.

Dr. M told her after the exam that it was affecting her vision a "tiny bit". Which at this point was as important as the other testing. When we heard that, it sounded good, like we could just check the tumor in 3 months and make sure her vision was still fine and call it a day... not so.

The report that Dr. M wrote recommended that she have surgery. Surgery. We knew it was possible, but from what he told her in the office it didn't seem that serious. He said it was probably a meningioma which is a benign tumor.

We saw Dr. Kotapka (the neurologist) again and he said it was up to Mommy. She could decide. She had already told me that she didn't want to have surgery, but I knew that it was important because Dr. K. said that he couldn't fix any vision loss but he could keep it from getting worse. My decision was made. Apparently so was mommy's. Before the elevator came to leave the office, she said that was going to have the surgery.

That was a week ago, or less. She is scheduled for September 29. 20 days from now.

And we wait.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I feel so bad for you!!! My older sister was diagnosed with an Optic Glioma when she was in fourth grade. I was in second. Her tumor is currently stable after chemotherapy and radiation therapy. I can't imgine having to see her go through surgery!