Official Official Diagnosis

After further analysis by the neuro-pathologist at St. Jude, he came to the same conclusion as the NYU neuro-pathologist and they completely agree that it is a malignant glioma. We are not even going to bother waiting for the Johns Hopkins pathology results. Isabella is scheduled to begin chemotherapy immediately, tomorrow, Saturday, December 13.

Isabella also had another MRI today and it showed that her brain stem is shifting back to normal (remember that it had been shifted by the original tumor). More importantly, it showed that the remaining tumor cells left in the stem were not growing at any noticeable rate. This is probably one of the first pieces of "good" news we've received since they removed the tumor. If the remaining cells had been growing at a fast rate, it would be a much poorer prognosis.

We're a little disappointed because the rehab doctor said Isabella was doing so well, that he was going to let us take her home on a "day-pass" on Sunday. Since she'll be doing chemo on Saturday and Sunday, she won't be able to go home now. But we are mostly relieved that we definitely now know what we are dealing with and know how we are going to treat it. We will still have many anxious moments over the next several months as we see how the remaining tumor cells react to the chemotherapy.