I had my 3-month MRI up at Cedars Sinai this past Tuesday. Boy, the injection of the dye really hurt this time around. I think it might have been injected a bit to fast. However, as usual, I still fell asleep. Something about the steady vibration and the beat of the machine that just knocks me out.
Well, I met with Dr. Hu afterwards and upon examining the MRI scan, the tumor is remaining stable. No growth or shrinkage. I had somewhat expected that Dr. Hu might recommend moving onto a 6-month cycle so I went ahead and asked him what his typical parameters are in making that decision for his patients.
He informed me that of course it's really case-by-case specific. The usual things he looks at include the type of tumor someone has, the progress someone is making, and the time that has lapsed since surgery.
He typically likes to keep his patients on a 3-month cycle for up to two years after surgery. When I asked him that it'll be two years for me a couple weeks from now, he said that in my case he would still like to keep me on the 3-month cycle. The reason primarily is because I am still having issues. The past month haven't been the greatest as there's been an uptick in my bouts of wooziness/dizziness instances of my mind just "shutting" down likely due to fatigue. I've had to take a few days off because I just couldn't get my brain to do any sort of advance critical thinking. There were a few days where my brain would just be literally buzzing and I would have to just "veg" out. It might be because it's been pretty busy at my work and things may be catching up to me. However, I'm not sure.
Anyway, Dr. Hu said that because I'm still having these symptoms, that he would like to remain on the side of caution and have me stay on the 3-month cycle to keep monitor of whether my continued symptoms may or may not be related to new tumor growth. I completely agree with this. At least if I continue to have symptoms and my tumor remains stable, it's something that can be ruled out.
A frustrating aspect of this is that I feel as though my issues with my brain are an equivalent to someone being diagnosed with "irritable bowel syndrome" or "fibromyalgia." My doctors seem to know that I have problems, but aren't sure what the root cause is and are not sure how to possibly treat it. I guess it's hard to treat something when the root cause is unknown. I'm slowly accepting the fact that I may just have plain old brain damage and there's nothing that can be done. I'm almost there, but plan on seeing another neuropsychologist at UCLA this time. I am not placing too much hope, but I'd like to try just one last time to see if there might be something out there to help me with my brain processing issues.
