Surgery was a Major Milestone

This past Wednesday Madeleine underwent brain surgery to remove the decrepit remains of the shrunken tumor. The preparation by anesthesia and the OR nurses exceeded that of the actual surgery time! Our surgeon Dr. Lazareff was very happy with the surgery and indicated to Jeff that he had time to explore the surrounding tissues and he believes he was able to resect all of the tumor. She has been doing phenomenally well in post-op recovery these last 36 hours. The MRI to confirm the surgery's progress and serve as a new baseline for chemo was unfortunately not completed yesterday and is scheduled for this afternoon. The new MRI will tell us exactly how successful we have been.

So what does this mean? It has taken me some time to wrap my head around the concept that if the tumor was life-threatening, and now it's gone, what's the purpose of having her undergo additional cycles of chemotherapy? It's not unlike breast cancer where the tumor can be removed but the patient still requires therapy to ensure all of the tumor/cancer cells are destroyed. It's exactly the same with Madeleine. Right now while the tumor cells are responding favorably to the chemo, we need to "knock 'em dead" completely... or risk the tumor coming back AND resistant to the chemo protocol. The disease is what is very aggressive, in turn the tumor became aggressive and grew extremely fast. So while the surgery has been a huge success and huge milestone achieved, Madeleine still has a considerable journey ahead of her. However, because there is less disease and less "bulk" to combat and break down, her body should be able to handle the rest of the chemo treatments as well if not better than her first cycle. We are still very hopeful and faithful in her positive outcome of beating this disease! We are still looking at another 4-5 cycles of chemo and bringing her home in June/July free and clear and healthy.

Today Madeleine will have the follow up MRI and it appears the plan is then to discharge tomorrow allowing her to fully recuperate at home. Perhaps by the end of next week (Feb 18) or beginning of the following week, we will be readmitted for the next 28-day chemo cycle. Until then, we all get the break being home all together, life as usual :)