MRI Looks Good

We were at the Huntsman Center this morning. I had another MRI and met with Dr. Jensen. We looked over the latest MRI and there isnt any sign of tumor left. It looks like the surgery was a success. It turns out that we just needed to give it more time before getting another MRI in October. I will be getting regular MRI's every 3 months for the next year and then every six months for the next year. Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, generousity, help, and kind words. Looks like it all helped out. I owe you all so much. Thank you for everything. I'm a very lucky person to be surrounded by so many great people. We wish everyone the best and a Happy New Year!

Brenton

Update

We hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving. We got to go to California to visit Trinis brother. Trinis parents gave us our Christmas present early. We had so much fun and enjoyed getting to be with family and really liked getting to all hang out like we use to when we all lived in Utah. It will be a trip we will always remember. Our kids got to see and go to the beach for the first time and we got to see seals. They thought the beach was pretty cool. Upon our visit I got information from Duke University on our second opinion on the pathology report they did. They agree with St Alphonsus hospital in Boise that it is a Grade 2 Astrocytoma. They don't feel its necessary to do any additional testing on it. This again could be good news that this suspicious new tumor is just inflammation from surgery done in September. Or it could mean is this suspicious tumor something new and different. Were hopeful its nothing but inflammation. I guess will know for sure on Dec.29th and will let you know shortly after. Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Brenton and Trini

Change of plans

This could be very good news. We got two different opinions on what could be tumor on his last MRI. One from Huntsman Cancer Center in Utah and One from the Brain Tumor Center at Duke University in North Carolina both places had more than one Dr looking at his medical records. Both places stressed that waiting a few more months would be best than doing surgery on the 17th of this month. There is just nothing proving this is really tumor the only thing that could be throwing these to places off would be miss diagnosis on his pathology report. With that said I don't want to take any chances on that either so I'm currently looking into having another pathology done at Duke University. Were both very excited and staying hopefull we got it all and hope not to encounter any other tumors in the near future. His next MRI will be done at the Huntsman Cancer Center in Utah on Dec. 29th. Thanks again for all the support we love all of you and hope you all have and enjoy your families this holiday season.

Brenton and Trini

Thanks

Brenton and I want all of you to know how much we care and love all of you. Coming on here and reading all your comments really help us get through this especially on our down days. I was also wanting to give you all a little update. As we believe we have a really great neurosurgeon we feel the more knowledge about his cancer the better we can fight it and beat it. So we are seeing a Dr at the MSTI Tumor Institute here in Boise to get his opinion on treatments. We are also interested in getting an opinion in Salt Lake City at the Huntsman Cancer Center. Were hopefull picking Dr's Brains for as much knowledge as we can will bring us the best options and outcome. Having all the support and love you all give us is going to be so powerful that we believe we will and can beat this and say I BEAT CANCER and inspire others they can too.

Trini

Back again

Spoke with the doc yesterday and it looks like I have to go back again. There is another branch of the tumor just a bit deeper that seems to be starting to grow. It may have been there before and we couldn't see it until now. The whole process of this is a bit confusing at times.

Initially the doctor cut a bit beyond the original tumor in hope to get anything that may existed that we could not see out as well. The concern with this was that it may effect my speech/language. So to minimize the risk, he just went a bit beyond the original tumor. Since it did not seem to effect my speech, we are going to go a bit deeper in hope again to get this piece of the tumor and anything just a bit beyond. The thought is that since it didn't effect the speech, that the speech part of the brain must be sitting higher then where the tumor currently sits. There are other risks but we are just going to have to see how things work out.

The plan for now is another surgery through the same entrance of my head on Nov 17. During the surgery they are going to place strips similar to a wafer in the effected area of the brain to treat it with chemotherapy. By doing chemo this way they are able to have a direct contact with a higher dosage then what you would be able to get out of the normal injection into the blood stream, that would still have to travel through the body up into the brain. This should keep me from getting very sick and losing my hair. It will cause some swelling and possibly some headaches but it sounds like it will be better then the conventional method.

After surgery and the chemo process, its sounds like we will be doing radiation as well. The theory on this is that the tumor will be mostly removed or reduced. Hopefully we can catch any cells left trying to divide and multiply and treat them with a daily schedule of radiation for a while.

That's the plan for now. Looks like we will end up being at our place for Thanksgiving.

Thank you everyone for all your thoughts prayers and best wishes. Sorry that we haven't been able to contact everyone but this seems like a good way to stay in touch with everyone. It takes a lot out of you and others to verbally communicate all that's going on to everyone.

Brenton

Next MRI

We got a hold of the Dr office to find out when his next MRI should be and they suggested waiting a little longer than then they had originally told us. They wanted to make sure he is fully healed to make sure we know for sure if it would be swelling or tumor. So we have it scheduled for Oct.21st then we visit with Dr Andersen on the 27th to go over the finding if there are any. Every thing is going good. His progress has been slower but is slowly getting better. He still doesn't like long walks and can't be out for long periods, rest is still key to his healing.
Thanks for caring.

From:Trini

Back to work

For all of you who know Brenton he is a very strong person so every day is better and better. He went to work for the first time yesterday the 24th and did ok he felt a little dizzy at times but overall did very well. He wanted to go back to see how he would do, he promised he wouldn't over do anything and if he wasn't feeling well he would let me know and I would come and get him. I'm not letting him drive to work quit yet it's far and I don't want to take any chances. You all might be thinking he's crazy and should be resting more but when you have a family to take care of and your the main source of taking care of that family and he feels pretty good he will always do what he has to for our family. We all know thats why he's so special to us he is huge on family and will do anything for people. I hope you all know how much I love him and I hope I'm taking good care of him. He's also back to coaching the boys football he's staying more on the sidelines than in the game but he knows to take it slow, and of course he has gone to Brenton Jr soccer game to support him and cheer him on as well. So slowly he's getting back into his norm and in only more time he will back to his norm on everything. I believe his next MRI is in about 2-3 more weeks we haven't called the Dr yet to see exactly when it is. So keep prayin it comes back clean. Thanks from all my heart for all your support, I know we can get through this.

From:Trini