Tuesday January 11

Sorry that this is all a jumble, but I wanted to share what we know at this point.

As of 4:00 Charlotte just came out of her MRI, we had a quick talk with our doctors, and she is on her way to the OR. The tumour was bigger than they thought based on the CT done in Cranbrook, with fingers that go a bit into her brain. (The last two times the tumour was more focal.) Surgery will be a little more complex than they first thought, with a greater chance of permanent weakness as a side effect. Her surgeon said he will likely only be able to get 80-90% of the tumour this time. But he was very confident that this will greatly boost the effectiveness of radiation. Her spine looked clean, so their assessment at this time is that it is still a local recurrence. The tumour did have some hemorrhaging and thats what they suspect caused the loss of motor skills that we noticed on the weekend. The tumour is farther into her motor cortex, the worst case for longterm loss from this surgery is that she could lose the use in her right arm/hand... but that her leg-with physio- could recover eventually... thats the worst case more likely is that she will lose a little more usage in her arm, we might not even see it in her leg. Its crazy to think that there is a 4cm tumour since her last MRI.

Our doctors here have swung into motion with getting radiation set up, we are still talking about the focal radiation type- much less damaging than the full radiation. Charlotte had an LP done to check her spinal fluid just to be sure that there is nothing else hiding that would change the course of action. But that will take about three weeks at minimum to set up, then it will be 6 weeks of treatments. And more chemo.

She is in surgery now... please pray for our little girl.