A very good day at UCSF China Basin
Posted on January 26, 2007
Filed Under All, Photos, My Brain |
MRI images are like photos: it’s really difficult to take a photo of a living object from exactly the same position months apart. Nevertheless, the 2 images above show the same tumor in my head, left, as of this morning, and right, on December 7, 2006. The angle of the MRI is different, as is the exact depth of the image, which is one reason why they look different in my crude screen grabs. The relative smaller size and density of current tumor view, left, appears to be real, however.
The PACS medical imaging system at UCSF, in the hands of a skilled neuro-oncologist, pulled images similar to these two into a comparison screen, and put same-sized grids around them. The resulting measurement showing that the the tumor may have stopped growing: indeed, it may be smaller, and it’s Magentic Resonance Spectroscopy signature - based on my understanding - suggests it is not growing as aggressively as it appeared to be in December.
I guess some 90 minutes (in what turned out to be a particularly tight, 4-year-old, then-state-of-the-art 3.0 Tesla GE Signa machine) was well worth the slow breathing exercises and patience. I may have overdone the Lorazepam a bit (1mg too much?), but claustrophobe I nevertheless got through an hour-and-a-half in a space tighter than the 1.5 Tesla GE (’it’s how we get the field strength’) without so much as a single hyperventilation, so, all’s well that ends well, I guess.
Anyway, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but this is the first good news we’ve had since the brain tumor was discovered: I feel better, am functioning better and the tumor seems to be responding to a chemo regime that can be home administered (and which will now start up again quickly). My current life plan - return to normalcy - can proceed. We’re about as happy as we can be…..
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7 Responses to “A very good day at UCSF China Basin”
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That’s such great news, Chris! So happy for you both.
Awesome. But yeah, all this treatment definitely seems to have made your head expand. Does that cap feel tighter than it did before?
That`s great news.
Thanks all. I have great confidence in UCSF - couldn’t recommend anyone more highly from the surgeons and specialists down to the ‘angels’ (the therapists and nurses that do the day-in day-out stuff): if anybody could get this done, it’s these guys….
That’s so far beyond good news it goes out the other side…
[…] An MRI at UCSF this morning showed the greatest apparent reduction in both my tumor and the surrounding edema flare as seen in the MRI image to the left. You can compare this image to a couple of earlier MRIs. Our last 2 rounds of chemo have been Avastin (previously we were on Temador) and it seems to be very effective: neuro-oncologists Drs. Chang and Liu were plainly excited by the results. […]
[…] Started with a hard ‘Heidi’ workout, followed by a scramble to be at UCSF Radiology Imaging Center for a 9:00 AM MRI, followed by a MRI review (the news continues to be good on the tumor and Avastin seems to be the reason) with my neuro-oncology team. […]