Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Mighty Scan Day

Well, well, well here we are in that all too familiar place. Scan day. Just in case you have forgotten, I don't particularly care for scan day. I would think that is a pretty common reaction for a parent of a child with neuroblastoma. I don't care how long you have been in this game. It sucks.

Maybe I just need to start looking at scan days a little differently. Perhaps, I just need to be thankful that we have made it to another scan day. In that sense it is a milestone for which I am incredible thankful. But, on the other hand, scans always hold that fear and that terror. It comes down to what I say at almost every scan. It feels like a switch. Is it on or off. Will she live or will she die? It is a stomach turner no matter how I try to look at it.

So, I said much of this yesterday but here we sit on the dawn of two scans. To be honest, we still have no idea when they are going to be today. After 2 phone calls and 2 promises to call us back we still know very little. We just know that they are today. Regardless, at some point today she is scheduled for a bone scan and MRI.

The bone scan will be looking at her from head to toe. This is the same technology that we used when we originally found the spot in her arm. A bone scan is good for picking up abnormalities. However, it is not specific for neuroblastoma. It can pick up any kind of trauma whether it be from injury, infection, tumor (malignant or benign), or anomaly. Basically it can show us areas of concern but it can't tell us whether it is neuroblastoma for sure. So the characteristics that we are looking for is that this spot has not spread to other bones or other parts of the body. That would really increase the odds of this being some type of metastatic process consistent with cancer. Although, if your are a glass half full type of person, it could also just be that she injured herself in two separate parts of her body. I guess what I am trying to say is that if we saw that it had spread it would be pretty likely that it was cancer.

We will be using the MRI to just look at the spot on her arm. We are of course hoping for resolution but short of biopsying the spot and taking a vitamin a day we have done very little to fix whatever the problem was that caused the spot in the first place. We are hoping that the MRI will not show significant growth of the lesion or any more intensity in the marrow space.

Honestly, if I could have two wishes for Sydney it would be that this was something completely benign and that we could get some clarity as to what it is. Of course I want this not to be cancer but I also want to find out what it is so that we don't have to continue to put Sydney through all of these tortuous scans and tests. She deserves a break. She has been doing this every 3 months for 5 years.

Today's purpose is about hope, prayers, and clarity.

2 comments:

linlassie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Carolyn Wing said...

I am saying extra prayers for you during scans. Hugs and prayers. Carolyn Wing grandma to Laura Stage IV neuroblastoma carepages.com page name LauraVDB
carolyn_wing@yahoo.com