Well, we have been on quite a roller coaster lately. It has been an exhausting week.
For the past 2 or 3 weeks Tori has been feeling much better in terms of no nausea or headaches and it has almost seemed like she was getting alot better. Then she started getting more and more tired and worn out everyday and requiring alot more sleep. Then last Tuesday she passed out at work and when we took her to the doctor, he said she is pushing herself too hard. He says that she is physically exhausted from the radiation and has to be very careful not to overdo it. He gave her 4 days off work and put her on a 30 hour work week restriction with no more than 6 hours of work per day. Then on Thursday she had her first follow-up MRI and a follow up appointment with her neurosurgeon which took the whole day. And then on Friday she had another follow up with her radiation oncologist in Bloomington, which also took the whole day. So now she is even more exhausted. Poor girl!
The MRI shows no change in the tumor area except for some slight swelling & a little bit of irritation. Both doctors seem to be positive about the fact that the tumor has not grown at all and they say that this possibly could mean that we have stopped the tumor from being able to reproduce its cells. And in fact, if we have stopped it from growing, we have been successful. The oncologist said that if it were a high grade tumor it would have basically ignored the radiation and continued growing. So we are encouraged by the fact that it is not any bigger. Also, while neither of them can say why Tori's headaches and nausea have subsided, even though the tumor is the same size, they do consider this a positive sign.
Although the doctors are giving us no reason to be discouraged, it has been very difficult emotionally not to have more dramatic news. What we want to hear is that the tumor is gone or almost gone and the radiation has worked! ... YAY! Time to celebrate!... But both doctors have told us that it will take time to know the full effects of the radiation. Overall, I guess this is going to be a much longer process than what we had anticipated. In fact, it could be up to a year before we can actually tell for sure what the radiation has done for her. As much as we hate it, right now we just have to wait. There is no reason to pursue another form of treatment at this time because the tumor is not growing.
What Tori needs now is just plain old tenacity. She is feeling very tired emotionally, physically, and mentally and has days when she just feels like giving up. So we are trying to keep her encouraged and trying to make sure she gets enough rest so that she will have the energy to keep fighting this battle. I recently made her go buy a massage package to help in this area; in addition, she is still getting some exercise on a regular basis.
I bought her some amino acid protein powder to help give her a boost of energy and to help her hair grow back. Both Doctors say that we need to wait a little longer for hair regrowth....although there are just a few tiny little hairs growing there around the edge. This is, I think, what bothers Tori the most, of all the things she is going through. So we hope to see some more hair regrowth soon.
The Doctors did say that we should expect for Tori to have some possible increased symptoms of nasuea, exhaustion, headaches, & tiredness as the tumor cells may begin to die off over the next few months. Since this may cause even more swelling in the brain she may even experience some right sided weakness again. If this happens they have told us NOT to assume that the tumor is growing back, but instead to assume that the tumor is dying off. If this does happen, they may end up putting her on a steroid again in order to keep the brain from swelling too much and to prevent any seizure activity.
I guess that is where we are at for now. She will be getting another MRI in 3 months. When we have more new information, we will do another update. Thank you again to everyone for their support, love, and prayers. We love you all.
