This morning a subtle feeling of anxious anticipation mixed in and out of the normal momentum of the day. As any parent can relate, there is enough activity in a home with small children to keep ones attention from settling too long on oneself. However, I did catch my heart jumping periodically throughout the day. Thoughts of the unknown darted into my mind every so often alighting momentarily on all of the “what if” scenarios that seem to crop up each time we are about to meet with Dr. Massullo.

In the end, though, Karen and I had a very pleasant appointment with Dr. Massullo this afternoon. As you may recall from the previous MRI the tumors appeared to have diminished entirely in Karen’s brain and though there was some residual tumor left in her spine these had diminished to a varying yet significant extent.

The results of the most recent MRI showed that trend continuing. At this point there is no noticeable tumor left anywhere in Karen’s brain or spine save for some irregularities in her mid spine. These spots could be dead tumor tissue or scar tissue, but the most important fact to note about the spots is that they have not grown at all. We are hoping that these are simply bits of scar tissue that are the result of the radiation.

There was one “twist,” however. The radiologist did note more spots on Karen’s liver than on the previous MRI. Because the MRI Karen just received was intended to focus on her spine, only a small portion of the liver was able to be seen on these images. So Dr. Massullo consulted with a radiologist and agreed that in order to rule out any potentially bad news he would order an MRI of the abdomen with special attention to Karen’s Liver.

Spots on one’s liver are not terribly uncommon and could be a number of uninteresting things such as what Dr. Massullo called “blood blisters”, or it could be groups of blood vessels, or scaring from the radiation etc. All of these things would be benign and not life threatening. On the other hand there is an extremely rare chance that the cancer could have spread outside the central nervous system. The chances of this are very rare but for our sake of mind he is trying to schedule the MRI for tomorrow.

If, as we suspect and hope, the MRI of Karen’s liver shows nothing to worry about then Dr. Massullo will have Karen’s next MRI scheduled for six months from now and we’ll just have a quick phone call in 3 months to update him as to how she is feeling.

We thank you all for your continued prayers on Karen’s behalf and continue to be ever thankful for the unimaginably longsuffering love you have all demonstrated toward Karen over the past year.

We’ll be sure to update you all when we get the results from the next MRI (hopefully tomorrow).