Friday, September 4, 2009

Steve's ok

Steve's doing fine. Was still a bit sleepy when we got to see him last night around 6 and had some blurry vision. Not sure yet about his arm and speech but we think both seem a little better. Fingers crossed! He has a bit of a headache but is in good spirits.

The surgeon got the mass out - it turned out to be two tumors right next to each other. It came out cleanly and he said he was happy with how it went. Apparently, with melanoma, it doesn't invade the brain tissue so much as take up space, so when they take the tumors out they almost just fall right out because they're not attached to anything inside.

One bit of bad news, though - yesterday morning's MRI was much more detailed than the previous MRIs he's had, and it shows what looks to be 12 small tumors instead of the previously thought 5. They're not sure if those are new or just showing up better on the more detailed MRI. The plan is still to get as many as they can with the gamma knife on the 14th and go from there.

Sure hope this aggressive treatment will be able to keep on top of what's happening in the brain. I wish we knew whether those were new tumors so we'd know if things are moving really fast or what.

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