Diary of a Brain Tumor Patient's Wife

Feb. 24, 1998


Renette Davis

Paul had his MRI today, and the preliminary report seems to indicate that the tumor is about the same size as it was in October, which is very good news. A couple of the radiologists looked at today's films with us and compared them with the earlier ones to give us an "unofficial" report. By the time we left work the official report still hadn't been done (or at least not transcribed and in the computer yet.)

Dr. Nicholas (the neuro-oncologist at U of C) called the house while we were on the way home and left a message with Karen that the scans look good and we're supposed to follow up tomorrow. I presume that means he wants us to come in and see him, so we should get the "official" results then.

There did appear to be quite a bit of swelling around the tumor, which may be what's causing some of the symptoms that Paul's been having. It seems like he's had more difficulty with words this past week (not being able to think of a word he wants or saying the wrong word.) He's also been having problems reading. He can see ok, just can't process the words sometimes.

The radiologist who looked at the films with us today said they can't tell whether the swelling is from the tumor or from the radiation. One of the women who I correspond with, whose husband has a brain tumor like Paul's and whose son is a doctor, said that necrosis (dead tissue) can cause the brain to swell like your finger swells if you get a thorn in it. Anyway, my understanding is that it's easier to treat the swelling than it would be to treat increased tumor growth.

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Created: May 24, 1999
Last updated: July 18, 2010