What We Know and What We Don't

Although I've been silent these past two weeks, there's been a lot going on over here in Cancerland (not to be confused with Disneyland). At the time of my last post, we had learned that the shoulder pain I've been having since early December is actually cancer in my shoulder blade/scapula, and since then, I've been going for radiation to kill the cancer and alleviate the pain. Today was my final of five treatments (woohoo!), and I'm counting the days until the hoped-for pain relief comes. I'd really like to get off these prescription painkillers!

At the time of my last post, we had also learned that I would need to switch treatments, since the cancer growth in my scapula meant my current treatment was no longer working. The plan was to start a new treatment, probably Xeloda, after getting a brain and neck MRI to check out a few symptoms I've been having. 

What has happened since my last post is that I've had the brain MRI and, unfortunately, it shows a 1.2 cm tumor in my left eye and another on my pituitary gland. It seems like the eye tumor is almost certainly cancerous, and I've been referred back to radiation oncology for potential treatment of it, but the pituitary tumor is harder to determine. It could be cancer or it could be an adenoma (not cancer). To figure that out, they ordered a second MRI, this one focused on my pituitary gland. The findings of that were also inconclusive. 

So I've been referred to a neuro-oncologist at UVA, who is going to address the treatment of my eye tumor and also figure out what's going on with my pituitary gland. We are scheduled to see him in the morning and are understandably nervous about what we'll learn. As always, we appreciate your prayers, especially for grace, strength, courage, and wisdom for both the doctors and for us. I'll post again when we know more. Thank you for being such an amazing support to us! We are so thankful.