not bad, but not great

The scan results are in. It's similar to the last few: there's an area of dead brain but it is... probably not a new tumour.

 

There is also swelling in the dead -- necrotic -- area. This may be causing me to lose peripherial vision to the left.

 

Interesting medical approach: The cancer doc says, can you see my finger wiggling. Yes & no, depending on where the finger is. Okay, checking my peripheral vision. So... what is the result? Why bother to tell *me* ?! Go home, wait a week, let me know if your symptoms change, she says.

 

How am I now? I wonder. how will I know if anything has changed? Changed from *what*?!

 

Later, at home, I ask Deb to wiggle fingers -- and find out just how little I can now see to my left.

 

Now -- with a base -- we can check to see if anything has changed.

 

How bad is it? Why bother to tell the patient.

 

 

Anyway, I have pills to take. Dex, which reduces swelling. and anti-dex, to stop the all-day chunder side-effect of the dex. So, swallow those for a week, check my symptoms -- not seeing to the left..., contact the

doc.

 

Of course she'd like to see what is really happening on my brain. That makes sense. An MRI is magic but it just shows shapes. So I may have surgery in my future. That's easy, I just sleep through surgery :-)

 

Before meeting with the cancer doc, our deep ENT informant says he has read the MRI analysis and he is not sure what it really means. Then he is reassured when the cancer doc is also unclear on what it means...

 

The MRI analysis was written by an MRI expert. So, for those who do not read fluent MRI gibberish: This is what I understand. Right or wrong? It's good enough for me :-)

 

There is no evidence of a tumour.

 

There is x-ray necrosis -- slow-growing dead brain, death caused by x-ray treatment.

Oh, interesting; mrcosis may also be the remains of a dead tumour. Not likely in my case. My tumour was cut out before it could die.

 

Yes, my radiation treatment was years go but it does take ages for x-ray necrosis to develop.

 

Good and bad news: x-ray necrosis is  a growing problem because more and more patients are living long enough for the necrosis to develop.

 

My necrosis is on the optical-something (no, not nerve) but it does deal with vision. So the necrotic swelling could be causing my vision oddities.

 

Not just peripheral. When I look at a familiar person -- their face looks to be just slightly unfamiliar! I first noticed it with Deb! Other people too, though it's not as obvious. Weird..

After meeting with the doc, we have coffee. Deb asks our expert deep-ENT, Would the swelling cause Nick to be confused? For me, I believe that I look at a crowded scene -- PC screen or room -- and don't see all the detail. So I have to peer and search... and get confused. I'm happy with that explanation -- though still confused.

 

Then Deb says, Nick was in a furious rage this morning, Is brain damage a possible cause of sudden anger? deep-ENT says, He has been seriously stressed lately. He then reverts to his more familiar role and says, "To be fair, Mum, Dad has always been like that. A very good point :-)