Monday, October 31, 2011

Neurosurgeon makes an appearance late this afternoon...

Planning on putting a brain shunt in - one end drawing fluid out of a ventricle in the brain, the other end into her abdominal cavity where it gets reabsorbed. Probably between now and Thursday, depending on availability of a general surgeon and she needs to get her blood counts up so they are going to give her blood. This should do the trick to relieve the pressure. It will have a valve in it that can be opened and closed depending on the need to do chemo into the brain directly and spinal fluid. He is also going to start her on some different meds to draw fluid out. Plus something else to get the nausea under control.

He was not a fan of doing the whole brain radiation - thinks it's pointless if the fluid has cancer cells and the brain just gets reseeded. Glad Dr. Kaplan is back tomorrow to referee. He will be a welcome sight as it is clearly complex in terms of what to do next after the shunt gets put in.

The surgeon did show me the detailed MRI where you could see the teeny cancer cells/tumors lining the walls of the ventricles and also see lots of other teeny tumor activity elsewhere.  Not good at all.

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