Another MRI

Despite an increased steroid dosage, Kevin’s symptoms haven’t improved much over the past few days. This has caused our stress level to rise and the questions to grow exponentially. We decided that the unknown was more harmful than the known; we were so worried about what the tumor was doing that it was difficult to brainstorm new ideas, questions and solutions to the problem at hand. To give us some answers, we took Kevin in for one more MRI today.

The good news: the tumor hasn’t grown much at all over the past five weeks. The mass of the tumor is the same size, but there is a bit more swelling in one area. This may be swelling from an agitated area that arose once the steroid levels got too low—the steroids could no longer act as an anti-inflammatory to that certain spot. This swelling is most likely affecting Kevin’s control of his left side. We hope this swelling will decrease with longer exposure to a higher dosage of steroids.

The MRI answered a lot of questions, and quelled a few of our main fears. We were afraid that this setback was due to tumor growth, and today we learned that is not the case. Therefore, our best guess is still critically low levels of steroids. We have been giving Kevin larger dosages for about 5 days. His stomach has been upset for many of those days, so the steroids might not have been in his system long enough to be fully absorbed. Therefore, even though we’ve been giving him more oral steroids, he may still be suffering from a lack of steroids. Go figure. We will continue to give him the increased dosage of oral steroids, but we may tinker with medications and diet to help his upset stomach and steroid absorption.

In sum, despite the good news today, our minds are still working overtime to figure out what’s wrong and what we can do to fix it. Thank you for keeping Kevin in your thoughts!