Dr. Browd and the neurosurgery team just came in and gave us the overview from the tumor board meeting. Summer's tumor is a craniopharyngioma, as they thought. It's a very slow-growing cancer, and the risks for waiting and watching are smaller than the risks for putting Summer through radiation therapy at this age. Because she's so young, there could be irreversible damage to her cognitive and hormone functions from radiation.
The plan for right now is to just watch it. We'll have a few follow-up appointments to check her recovery from the surgery, and an MRI in three months to evaluate the growth rate of the tumor. There will likely be radiation at some stage, but they're hoping to wait until she's older.
If the growth rate of the tumor indicates that we do need to act sooner, there are treatment facilities we can go to in Texas and Boston which specialize in radiation therapy for young children.
We'll be meeting with the oncologist tomorrow to find out more about what the future holds, and then we'll head home to try and resume 'normal' life!
Yay! Can't wait to see you back at home.
ReplyDeletehappy to hear you guys are heading home and congrats summer on being such a little trooper! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear Summer's up and "running" literally!
ReplyDeleteI went to the zoo yesterday and seriously can't wait to get all the kiddies back there as soon as Summer is able!
Give her (another) hug from me!