Half

Ok so half is a bit of an exaggeration but I figure you'll cut me some slack - yesterday was a pretty exciting day of KNOWING.  If you haven't heard the new MRI scans from Monday showed that the lesion in my brain SHRANK almost 40% from 15.1 mm to 9.6 mm thats 36.4% smaller if we are being precise.  When we saw Dr. Vaillant he said 'your scans look great, it's smaller by almost half" - Ben said he thought I was going to leap off the exam table and wrap him in a bear hug.  That is about the way I felt.  I was nervous - we all were, stressed, anxious, wondering what these pictures were going to show.  I was pretty confident it wasn't going to be bigger but an almost 40% reduction?  I think that was beyond all our biggest hopes.  Mom and Dad came down on Sunday so it was fun to have them there and share in the good news. He also said it appeared that most of the swelling and inflammation was also gone.  Yahoo!!

So what now?  We WAIT of course.  If it is resolving on its own we just stay the course because it's not good to dig around in the thalamus.  So we still don't know what it is.  The tumor board meets next Wed to discuss my case and my primary care doc will join by conference call.  I will see him next Thursday so he can fill me in and let me know if anyone had other good ideas. There is also a good possibility  that a lot of the improvements are due to the steroids I've been taking and I can't keep taking them forever.  So I will taper those down and we will see what happens with the symptoms.  They could come back/get worse.  I have another MRI scheduled for May 31 so we can see what's going on. 

So keep praying for shrinkage, for the symptoms to continue to improve even without the steroids (or not get worse), for continued patience, grace and good attitudes. 

I made an executive decision last weekend that whatever the news yesterday we would need a great meal so I made a reservation at Lenoir - which has been open almost a year and a half and we had not been.  They do a 3 course prix-fixe menu and you can see there are 12 options. There were 4 of us, 3 courses each - you can do the math we just asked them to bring us one of everything on the menu and pace it as the chef/server saw fit.  So fun!  We love to eat that way!!!  It was amazing and I've no doubt the good news made everything taste better. 

all of us after an extremely satisfying dinner and day!

Land courses - the goat (front) and rabbit (middle) were about our favorites of the night!

Dream (dessert) courses.  The baklava with blue cheese (back left ) was amazing!

Today is a relax day - I'm feeling kind of exhausted - i think all the anticipation of what we'd learn yesterday really wore me out.  Moab is patiently waiting for me to come take a nap with her so I'd better get on that.  Thank you for all your support and for celebrating with us.