You take the cake

I discovered a couple of things today. First of all, I had a conversation with Sahara's doctor in Houston that both renewed my faith and totally surprised me when I thought I couldn't be surprised any more. Second, I found out that Sahara was paying attention in Mrs. Parker's class last year. Who knew????

The verdict: Sahara's tumor is still stable with NO new growth. No fluid buildup, no swelling...YEAH!!!! We of course want to hear that it is shrinking into oblivion, but that will come in time.

The shocker came with the next part of her report. The radiologist brought her the MRI reading and said, "This is a low-grade tumor, right? It appears to be dormant." She was as stunned as I STILL am by that statement. She told him that it had been graded stage 4, glioblastoma multiforme when it was diagnosed last July. Well, right now it is NOT behaving like a GBM.

Could it BE that everything we have done to this point has actually had enough effect on the tumor to stop the activity within it????

It looks like the answer is...YES!!!!! I just couldn't wait to get to the other room to tell Sahara the incredible news. I explained everything, first about the tumor remaining stable (which does not impress her), then about the fact that it seems to be in a stage of very low activity, or even dormant. I asked her if she understood what "dormant" means, to which she replied, "Yeah, I learned what dormant means back when we were studying volcanoes in Mrs. Parker's class last year. If a volcano is dormant, it's not moving. It's not active."

I thought, wow, what a PERFECT way to explain it, and I didn't even have to! LOL. So, Mount Tumoria is quiet. It's still in there, in all of its lumpy, ugly glory, but right now it doesn't have much to say. We are going to continue exactly as we have been doing and keep waiting for it to do some serious dissolving. Today we reduced her decadron again, down to 3 mg per day, and as long as she doesn't develop any problems we will reduce it again in another few days. What a blessing it will be if she is able to stop taking it entirely.

She was geniunely happy this afternoon - the happiest I've seen her in ages. She even felt like going outside and playing with LuLu for a while. She and Shannon stayed out for about an hour, which is the longest time she's been in the yard since last summer. This is the fourth day in a row that she has felt pretty darn good - and I'm praying that with this amazing turn of events that she will be feeling good for many days to come!

I went in to work for a couple of hours this afternoon, and on the way home I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a small chocolate cake in the bakery. I had them write "Sahara, YOU ROCK" on it. She was really glad to have cake for dessert tonight. LOL. It was truly a day for some celebration.

OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD...let no one ever forget that!

With love, Amy