"An Awesome MRI Report"

This post is #131 in a year-long series ... Through this series of posts I plan to share our family's experiences during our 17-year-old daughter's year-long battle with brain cancer, which began in February of 2008. My desire is to process through the events of that year from the perspective that a decade of time has brought ... for myself, really. But if you'd like to follow along, you're welcome to join me.

November 10, 2008

Hannah's facebook status on this date:  "Hannah is so glad not to be hooked up to an IV and that I got an awesome MRI report!"

"Greatly improved."  The two most beautiful words in the English language ten years ago today.  There were still a lot of questions ... Would Hannah still need additional radiation?  How would this new chemotherapy affect her?  Did the fact that the treatments were working mean that a cure was actually possible?  There was so much we didn't know. 

But for one day, at least, we were given a blessed reprieve. 

My email ...

I just got a call from our oncology nurse at Children's Hospital a few minutes ago, letting us know that there is no need for us to come to Little Rock for Hannah's appointment today. She said that since we'd been there all week last week and they just did blood work yesterday, there was no need to come back today! 

I told her that we had been looking forward to meeting with the doctor to discuss the results of the MRI with him, and she said that he had told her to tell us that it was "greatly improved" from what it had been previously, and that he was very pleased with the results. She said that he had been looking at the two scans side-by-side this morning, and that he kept remarking about how good this new one looks. So, that was great to hear, and we will get to talk with him more specifically about the results next Monday. She also said that we will be starting the chemotherapy as soon as Hannah's blood counts are good enough to begin, and that will just take a little time. 

We will be meeting with our doctor at CARTI on Thursday, and he should be able to tell us if any more radiation is needed (we pray that it is not!) and will have a blood draw at Children's that afternoon to check the status of her blood counts. In the meantime, we are enjoying a quiet day at home ... praising God for all of His many blessings. Isn't it amazing how good He is, all the time?

Jill and Brad