24 January 2012 Biopsy Day

A 4.15 alarm gets us both moving after a restless nighs sleep. I lean over to Brady and ask him if he is ready for this. He jumps out of bed and says "dad, let's go and do this. We have to get this thing out of my head". I kind of sheepishly drag myself out and almost feel like saying" ok boy, I'm coming don't leave me behind". I felt like it should have been the other way around. I am still astounded by his courage.

Once again the Stanford Medical Centre has amazed me. For an institution so large everything works. When they say he is going in at 7.15 it is 7.15. The specialists cycle past you like clockwork and before you know it Brad is prepped up with MRI stick things ( sorry forgotten the technical name - something like feducials) and a whole lot of marker pen marks on his forehead.I will tryband post some pics so look out for that.
Before we know it, it is time to say goodbye and off he gets wheeled - waving as he goes. All of a sudden the clock slows down. Time just seems to stand still and as much as you don't want to ,your mind starts to wrestle with you as you want to shut out any negative thoughts but you are human after all and these little thoughts kreep in. All of a sudden Griff is in front of us and explains what he has done and what his findings are. Lots of technical jargon but this is the lay mans version.
He inserted the scope into the upper ventricle where the cyst was sitting. They did a biopsy and this proved to be purely a cyst which was holding some fluid - good news. They passed through the cyst and we don't need to worry about that anymore. They then progressed down to the tumor and extracted a piece of tissue for biopsy.
He explains that Brad has a Pineal tumor which sits in the Pineal region - pretty much in the middle of the brain. These tumors are graded 1-4 with 1 being benign and 4 being malignant and quite aggressive. Griff and his team think that Brads is a 1 or 2 so that is comforting. We will only know once the biopsy tissue goes for further testing and Griff tells me has got the head od pathology onto this. We will know tomorrow about lunch time.
The options of treatment are as follows but again one thing that you learn quickly when it comes to treating cancer, things change as the professional team explores different options.
If it is a 1 then they will resect the tumor surgically. If it is 2 they will either do it by using a combination of surgery and cyberknife or surgery and radiation. It all rests on the outcome of the biopsy so we wait until tomorrow midday to find out.
In the meantime Griff returns to theatre and comes back 5 minutes later to tell us that Brad has responded to him telling him to move his eyes and to squeeze his hands- great news. 15 mins later the recovery doctor tells us to come in and see Brad and there he is sitting up , a bit groggy, but cracking a joke or two. We even managed to let him have a chat to Al. Quite remarkable.
Griff then tells us that he will be able to come out this evening - who said brain surgery was hectic - unbelievable!so round 1 is behind us and we are optimistic. It has been a long day. As I write this a lady pitches up and starts playing a harp - maybe this is a dream!!!