Finally some news
Just spoke with Dr. Schlenk. We’ve decided to go into surveillance mode for now and get another MRI in 4 months. Summer vacation planning can happen for real now! There are three main reasons for this course of action.
- I’ve improved tremendously. My strength in my arm has fully returned and pain is rare, low grade and short lived.
- There was no growth from the first MRI to the last one.
- The next step is a very aggressive (and somewhat risky) second surgical biopsy. So given 1 and 2 he decided it can wait.
I’m happy with the approach and it’s what I was hoping for.
It was a good conversation and made me even more comfortable with choosing him as my surgeon. Told me “It comes down to 2 things. One, you trust my opinion on when and what to do next and two, I trust you to keep me informed if you have any changes in symptoms.”
If there is no growth in four months we’ll go another four and eventually change to every 6. So more scans now added to my annual schedule. I can live with that!
If I do have to have more surgery they’ll do an angiogram and some other tests first so they understand how well I can handle what they want to do. If it comes down to removing the tumor it’s now certain I’ll lose the use of my right shoulder/upper arm. They probably will have to take the artery too (which is where the angiogram comes in). I didn’t even know the latter was possible at all until this call.
At this point I’m ecstatic I didn’t let the Indianapolis Neurosurgical Group go ahead with their plan. In my opinion it was just plain reckless. A lesson to anyone with a serious medical issue. No matter how impressive and confident your doctor seems, do your own research and get a second opinion. That’s the second time in the last 3 years I’ve had a highly respected doctor recommend a very poor treatment approach.
So, hopefully the next posts on this blog will be about something mundane like Java or cooking! Any changes to the plan I’ll post here but if there are none the next update is in 4 months!