BRAIN SCANS (To date)
Ahead of Jack’s pending scan - I wanted to share some images to show what we are looking for.
In my last post, I mentioned that our next MRI is September 26th.
That will be 9 months since his last scan and 16 months into treatment.
That is the LONGEST we’ve gone without a scan, and we are really, really hopeful that significant shrinkage was achieved. Stability in brain tumors is good too - but please pray for shrinkage!
Image above is Jack's first sedated MRI w/contrast on February 14th 2023 - at 2am.
Our second MRI in just a few hours after finding the original tumor in the Emergency Dept.
This was to prepare for the craniotomy on February 15th.
The report said that the tumor size was;
"Largest AP diameter is 4.12 cm, largest transverse diameter is 4.1 cm" - this is considered a very large tumor
This image is from Feb 20th, 2023 - post craniotomy. The orange circle is the tumor - the blue circle is the tissue they removed. This relieved pressure on the cerebellum which was causing his gait issues. This tissue was sent for pathology. During the surgery, they had to stop because as they removed more tumor, Jack's heart stopped. This was the most that they felt safe removing.
This was the tumor in April 2023, prior to beginning chemotherapy.
The tumor remained stable for the 3 months we were waiting to begin treatment.
This image is from September 2023 - approximately 4 months of treatment. This is where we saw our first sign of shrinkage. If you compare this image to the one above - the tumor is skinnier and has more dark areas, that is where the tumor is "turned off" due to the targeted medications shutting off those signals.
The size was written in the MRI report differently but it was smaller;
"medullary measures 2.2 cm , previously measured 2.8 cm"... I took that as a win.
And our last scan, January 2024. The tumor is exactly the same as it was in September.
About 9 months into treatment - we were still at the same place we were.
Stable is good - but we really hope that we see shrinkage this month.
