Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Great News!!!

Megan, Felix & I spent most of the day at MD Anderson. We found out that her hypersensitivity to noise is normal, and may be caused by the steroids. They are reducing the amount of steroids tomorrow. The Dr's put Megan through a number of tests, as well as question and answer interviews. In one session, they asked her to remember 3 things that they will ask her to repeat throughout the session. The three things were Car, Shirt and Orange. The first time they asked her she popped right back, Car, Shirt, Orange. They asked her to walk on her heals, then change to her tip toes, put one foot in front of the other. They asked her the name of the hospital, what month & year it is. The second time they asked her the three memory words, she was even quicker, Car, Shirt, Orange!!!! They asked her to shrug her shoulders, touch her nose, point at the ceiling, but only after you point at the door second and the floor first. She pulled it off with out a flaw. That one even confused me a little. They then asked her the 3 memory words. She thought for a while, smiled and thought. She is so competitive, she told us not to tell her. She then did something very interesting. She started to name them in reverse. Orange, then she thought for a bit, and said "T-shirt", instead of shirt, but could not remember the first word, Car. The brain is so amazing. She said "it was just gone". The Dr has prescribed a speech therapist to help her regain word recall. She can remember things it just takes her some time. They expect it to take about 6 month for her to recover totally, but she will recover. The pathology report came back with some pretty good news. The tumor is an Anaplastic Astrocytoma. This is a tumor that will be easily treated with radiation, so--- NO CHEMO!!!! Praise God!!! A brain tumor almost always stays in the brain and will not metastasize to any other part of the body. They are not sure why the brain produces a tumor. It could be a virus, an infection or exposure to something, but they just don't know. Individual people are effected in different ways, by different things, so they don't see many similarities, or commonality's between people who have a brain tumor. They have removed a large percentage of the tumor but there could be some single cells or a bundle of tumor cells that are scattered and left behind. The way they handle this is to hit it with radiation. MD Anderson has a satellite center that is about 20 minutes from the house. Megan will be able to go there. They will schedule her treatments 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, for 6 weeks starting in late January. They want her to have a few weeks to heal, and work on her word recall. They will then do a scan every 8-10 weeks to see how it is responding. once they are pretty sure the tumor is under control, they will move to once every 3 months. Radiation may cause slight changes in taste, smell & short-term memory loss. In short she may not taste so good no more, remember so good no more and she won't smell so good no more. :) Thanks to you all for your prayers. Keep praying and don't let up.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah God!!!

Sara Sparks Isola

Anonymous said...

I second the "yeah God!!! Thanks, so much for the updates. We are praising Him anyway, this just makes it more fun!!!

Hugs, hugs and more hugs to the Storks and Martinez families,

Lynda Sparks

Anonymous said...

Praise God! WE just heard the news of your awsome recovery from surgery. You are an angel Megan and I am sure God has much more for you to finish here. Our prayers are with you for a speedy recovery and the stength for you and your family.Love and hugs Barin,Kim Travis, Tyler

Tricia Zody said...

Megan! Sweet girl! I am so glad to hear you are recovering well. I'm continuing to send out prayer requests and updates for you...tell dad, people all over the globe ARE praying!!!

Hurry and get your singing voice back up to speed! The Wednesday bible study ladies want to see and hear you! Love you!!!

Anonymous said...

Wow, megan you continue to amaze me with your beauty, inside and out!! Your a very strong woman and I admire you for that! :)
It's good to hear you're doing good. God is a miracle worker! I wish I could be down there with everyone to help! It's kind of frustrating being in South Dakota and not being able to do much, but I pray for you frequently! I love and miss you like crazy!!

Katie Girard.

Kelley said...

Yay, she is doing so well! I am SO happy to hear that no chemo will be involved! Keep it up, Meg, you are so stellar. :)

Love you!!
Kelley