There's still a lot going on, but I wanted to give you all a quick update from this today:
1. MIBG scan showed less uptake; that means it matured
2. MRI shows little to no shrinkage; so it looks about the same size.
3. No more chemo!!!! They said it does more harm than good at this point.
4. Surgery not really a viable or necessary option right now. More risk than reward.
5. Port coming out soon; hopefully this week.
6. Going into a period of monitoring; MRIs every 3mo.
So, we're glad she's done with chemo. With this kind of cancer, we'll never get the 100% clean bill of health, unless it were healed. So it's hard to have closure with it, because we can't declare "cancer free!" or anything like that. The only way to know for sure would be to go back in surgically and resect more of the tumor. Not worth it.
I asked the oncologists if this downgrades the cancer to a ganglioneuroma (benign) from the ganglioneuroblastoma. They said, yes, in their minds, that's how they're looking at it, but it can't be reclassified as such for sure...unless they went in and took out more. Not worth the risk for a name change, they say. Agreed.
So, that's just the details. We're still reacting, obviously, but It's good news. They're not expecting her to have issues, but it all depends on how her body grows and develops. As it stands right now, the chemo wouldn't do any more than it already has, so we're off!
So, up next is the scheduling of the port/"robot" removal and a few months continued on antibiotics. Because of the chemo, she's still considered immuno-compromised. I'll update this post with images as soon as we get them, and I'm sure we'll be posting again once we've processed more.
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