We traveled to St Jude Children's Research Hospital on September 25th. We were very blessed to have friends generously offer to fly us to Memphis. We drove from the airport to the hospital and as we made our second wrong turn we heard tornado sirens and noticed clouds forming a funnel! We made it into the hospital and got Dillan registered. After we had him evaluated by a doctor and received our 3 inch binder of information we would need to know as a St Jude's family we headed over to our home away from home at the Memphis Grizzly's House. The next morning we got up ready to start our full day of scheduled appointments. As we waited to meet Dillan's doctor some of the medical army came in to meet us and ask various questions. While his nurse was going over things with us there was a knock at the door. The person was fairly insistent she needed to tell her something real quick so our nurse apologized and stepped out. What happened next again is a moment that changed our lives. When she reentered the room she was very excited and then she told us "This only happens a few times a year and most times it is not in the good direction, however, Dillan's diagnosis is being changed to a Pilocytic Astrocytoma. I honestly did not know how to take this news as odd as that may sound. During the course of the week I tried to digest everything and when we sat down with our doctor to review the MRIs I still had mixed feelings about this new diagnosis. As a mother my heart wanted to take this new information and run with it but my mind kept thinking if it changed once it could change again and I couldn't let my hopes get up completely. At this point I had learned Tim and I are Dillan's biggest medical allies so I voiced my concerns to Dr Wright. The entire staff at St Jude's is beyond helpful and kind so she gladly went through everything with us. She assured me she understood my concerns and explained when the tissue samples were examined by a St Jude's neuropathologist it was discovered that the cellular structure was not that of an ependymoma. A neuropathologist specializing in identifying ependymomas was asked to examine the slides and he said 100% positively Dillan did not have an ependymoma. His doctor let us know if you are going to have a brain tumor (cancer) this is the best one to have as weird as that may sound (I assured her at this point that did not sound weird at all). I fully believe God changed Dillan's diagnosis! We have witnessed such miracles during this journey!
Pilocytic Astrocytoma Characteristics
Slow growing, with relatively well-defined borders
Grows in the cerebrum, optic nerve pathways, brain stem and cerebellum
Occurs most often in children and teens
Accounts for two percent of all brain tumors
Treatment
Surgery is the standard treatment. If the tumor cannot be completely resected, radiation or chemotherapy may be given. Chemotherapy may be given to very young children instead of radiation therapy to avoid damage to the developing brain. Some of these tumors can progress to a higher grade, so it is important to be diligent about following up with the medical team after treatment.
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