Today's Appointment

Jim, Mom, Katie and I set out early this morning to head to Tampa for Mom's big appointment. We had high hopes of TONS of information and for it to all be good as today would be the first day that she would get an MRI since treatment. It was our first look to see how she reacted to the 6 weeks of radiation and chemo. Today's appointment didn't necessarily go as expected. We thought we would walk away from the appointment with a clear cut feeling of victory. However we found out that we will not be able to do that until the next MRI about two months from now. The brain goes through many changes after radiation, which can make it hard for the doctor to determine exactly how much progress she has made. So, we will now have to wait until her next MRI to determine exactly how well she is doing. The next MRI should be about 2 months from now. They will compare the MRI from today to the MRI from then. Hopefully at that time will we be able to do our victory dance. ;)
As far as the next steps of treatment. Mom will begin a 28 day cycle of Chemo and will repeat it for 6 months. She will take a higher dose of the Chemo than she has been use to.... she will do this for the first 5 days of the cycle and then will have 23 days off. We are playing the waiting game right now as to when she will start her first 28 day cycle. Her platelets are low and she cannot start the cycle until they come back up. She will have blood work done again next week to see how her counts look. The doctor was optimistic that Mom would tolerate this new treatment plan well and hopefully have minimal side effects.
Mom is in good spirits and is overall feeling well. She was happy to hear that the doctor wants to try her on a lower dose of steroids, which will hopefully only help her feel better.
Prayers and crossed fingers that she gets to start her next round of treatment next week. We want to continue to take this bull by the horns and not wait another minute waiting to fight it!