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Michele’s Luck Continues after St Patrick’s Day.
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Same as before, the MRI shows no sign of cancer.
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Even though Michele may not have a single Irish gene, her luck continues. We had originally scheduled her MRI this week for Wednesday, St. Patrick’s Day (since we Schultz’s are so Irish). However, Michele could not stand the thought of waiting two days for the results, so she rescheduled the MRI for Thursday, allowing us to get the results during her doctor’s appointment on Friday. The doctor insisted upon discussing the results face to face.
Michele’s second surgery was way back on 23 July 2009 and she is now in her eleventh three-week cycle of Avastin and CPT-11. Since it seems to be working, we plan to continue that protocol for as long as it works.
On this MRI especially, we were not expecting such good results. We had two major concerns this month.
Michele’s memory and communication skills have continued to deteriorate. In the past month, she has experienced increased difficulty in speaking and has had extreme difficulty remembering names -- even the names of relatives and close friends. The cancer was located in the eloquent (Broca’s area -- word processing speaking, word selection, word memory) portion of the brain. Back in February 2009, the first sign of trouble was difficulty in speaking and reading. A tumor recurrence in that area could be causing these current problems.
Our second concern was Michele’s “wobbliness.” Mobility has been difficult because she has had serious problems with balance and coordination. In the past month, she has experienced several very painful falls. No bones have broken, but she has some huge bruises. A completely different portion of the brain, the cerebellum, is responsible for the body's balance, posture, and the coordination of movement. If the cerebellum was now cancerous, we would be in real trouble.
Although no cancer was observed in either area, or anywhere else in Michele’s brain, considerable shrinkage of the eloquent area was observed. The doctor believes that this new shrinkage may be the result of the radiation treatment received last spring -- many brain cells were damaged by the radiation and only now are withering. Regeneration of the area will not happen. A study was published last year suggesting that speech functions can shift to nearby areas in the brain.
. [ Plaza M, Gatignol P, Leroy M, Duffau H. (2009). Speaking without Broca's area after tumor resection. Neurocase.9:1-17. PMID 19274574 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19274574 ] . ..Exercising the brain may help develop undamaged areas. We are beginning to work on this.
No explanation was given for Michele’s mobility and balance problems.
In summary, we are alive without visible brain cancer, which is an accomplishment, but continue to have serious language and mobility problems.
We expect the next MRI in nine weeks -- o/a Thursday 20 May.
Next posting expected o/a 22 May.
RKS
