Cautious Optimism

Dallas here with an update.

We had our appointment with the oncologist today and got the results of the CT scan from last Wednesday. The scan showed some smallish spots on Pam's lungs but were otherwise clear. This is obviously not a great result, but could have been much worse, so we will take something positive where we can.

The oncologist explained that the primary treatment for stage IV metastatic brain cancer, which is what Pam has, is the course of radiation she just completed last week. That type of cancer apparently does not really respond well to chemotherapy and the many small tumours were not suitable to remove surgically. So the upshot is that what has been done so far is really the recommended treatment.

This means that the next step is a wait of about six weeks for the radiation to have its full effect, then a re-scan to see what effect the treatments had. If the tumours have shrunk or disappeared,that's great, or if only a few of the larger ones are left they may be candidates for treatment by "gamma knife" (focussed local radiation). Once it's been established that the treatment of the brain cancer was successful, we will re-assess at that point and determine what's to be done about the lung spots. For now the oncologist thinks that they are not a real threat and that the focus should be on the brain. He speculated that the cancer may have been growing there for a long time before any symptoms showed, and the ones Pam had were not really that clearly indicative of metastasis. In essence he seemed to say that if the CT hadn't been done and showed it up there would really be not much indicating it was there. Not surprising because she'd seen a senior neurologist in the week before she was diagnosed and he told her he didn't think there was anything wrong.

Before we left, the oncologist told us that in his long experience, he has seen cases of Pam's type of cancer respond well to radiation and that we should be "cautiously optimistic" of a good result on the re-test. We really have to keep positive.

Otherwise the updates are that Pam's weight has stayed about the same from last week despite McDonalds breakfast again on the weekend ;-) Her hair is really going now and we are off to the hairdresser tomorrow night to get the rest cut off. Pam's eyes have been bothering her a bit with a vision change that is making it difficult for her to read, so we have an appointment for an eye test to get her some new glasses. This will help.

Anyway, keep sending the positive waves and I will update when we have more news.