Lloyd might be Pearl

"Grossly stable size of the enhancing lesion centered within the right caudate. No evidence of disease progression."

Medicine is not science.  I feel like most of my questions today went unanswered, except for the most important one:  Lloyd is not bigger.  Huzzah!  Lloyd is also not smaller, and Dr. SRS Expert, as I'm going to call my University Dr. Radiation Oncologist (who was very knowledgeable and had terrific bedside manners, by the way.  Glad to have him on team hbomb!), said that Lloyd might not get any smaller.  When I asked about the February scan, when Lloyd WAS smaller, he had no explanation.  When I asked if it was normal for tumors treated with SRS treatment to show this kind of dynamism as they resolve, Dr. SRS Expert said that to give it to me straight, no it's not normal.  I reminded him of the different steroid doses associated with each of my scans; he did not comment.  I would imagine that MRI frequency would also play a role in visualizing tumor dynamism in patients.  Lots of variables here, and I'm only an N of 1.  Not going to focus on that awesome February scan, I guess. 

With Lloyd being no smaller, and with the brain swelling still being there, I wondered out loud if my steroid dose might need to go up a little bit?  If the goal is to reduce Lloyd and swelling?  In fact, the opposite is true:  Dr. SRS Expert wants me to start the steroid step-down again.  This gets merely a baby huzzah, not a big huzzah, because I am apprehensive about how this will make me feel.  My spouse and dad are thinking that I'll feel much better to be off the steroids.  Of course eventually that will be true, but I don't understand how that can be true in the immediate future, because I still have head pressure and occasional headaches with my current steroid dose, and the only solution for those has been the steroids (and naps).  I asked Dr. SRS Expert if there's anything else I could be doing to help with the healing process, and he just smiled really big and said, what do you mean?  Then he turned away and pointed at something on the screen, and I don't really remember what he said.  What I meant was, once the steroids are gone, how are we going to control the swelling/pressure in my head?  What can I do?  He said, if my left arm starts to tingle, give him a call.  Ugh!  It seems like there should be something in between where I'm at now and presenting with neurological symptoms.

Then it started to crystallize for me that perhaps Dr. SRS Expert thinks I'm nearing the end of healing Lloyd, but that "healed" might continue to include brain swelling.  So, I asked if the swelling would ever go away?  And the answer was a resounding maybe yes and maybe no.  Oh my, that rattled me.  I had been operating under the assumption that the completion of healing would be turning Lloyd into Pearl AND the resolution of brain swelling.  Boy, if the swelling doesn't ever go away, that'll be a big bummer.  I suppose I'll get used to it, and learn how to function through it.  Well, I'm not giving up my healing goal of swelling resolution yet.  I'd like to believe that it'll go away once Lloyd is truly done becoming Pearl.

We also met with Dr. Neurosurgeon today, and he was again reassuring in regards to his ability to perform surgery on Lloyd should the need arise.  He was glad that I was getting Dr. SRS Expert's opinion.  I have no further appointments with Dr. Neurosurgeon at this time, huzzah!

The doctors continue to seem surprised that I am not having any neurological symptoms.  I continue to be delighted that I am not having any neurological symptoms.  Two different physicians gave me neurological tests today (touch finger to nose, now touch his finger, back to nose, etc.), both of which I passed with flying colors.

I will have another MRI and see Dr. SRS Expert in two months.  That'll be one month of steroid step-down (Dr. SRS Expert gave me a specific steroid step-down protocol that'll take one month), and one month of no steroids.  Fingers crossed!   

Thank you all for your love and support!