I am a day late in writing to you about Hunt’s biopsy results. Yesterday, Hunt started experiencing some symptoms that he had prior to the tumor being removed. He couldn’t feel his left arm, had a migraine, and was very nauseous. I gave him so zofran but it didn’t seem to help. Thankfully, we already had a doctors appointment set up. 

We met with Dr. Mohler yesterday to go over the final pathology results. Dr. Mohler confirmed that the tumor is a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, which Dr. Mohler said less than 20% of patients that have gliomas have, so it’s pretty rare. This tumor is associated with much better prognosis than an astrocytoma, which is what they originally thought the tumor may be. The doctor shared with us that this tumor is low grade and has most likely been growing for years undetected. 

Since oligodendrogliomas are so rare, there is not a whole lot of information out there on them, as opposed to astrocytomas, which take up a lot of space on the internet. Dr Mohler said that low grade tumors are more unpredictable than high grade tumors because treatment can be a little more tricky. With a low grade tumor like this one, he will be taking the “watch and wait approach,” having Hunt come in every three months for scans and monitoring from there. Contrary to what they originally thought, he will not have to do chemo and radiation.

The doctor said chemo and radiation at this point would do more harm than good and we should wait until the tumor comes back. The cancer cells in Hunt’s brain are not actively dividing, so technically the cancer is not active right now. He confirmed that the tumor will recur, but we don’t know when it will. When gliomas — even the oligodendroglioma — come back, they come back more aggressive than before. He also confirmed that oligodendrogliomas can still morph into glioblastoma, but this is less likely than if Hunt had an astrocytoma. He described an astrocytoma as being a clear path to glioblastoma and an oligodendroglioma being an alternate path to it. 

I mentioned earlier that Hunt was having his symptoms come back again. Hunt just finished his course of steroids two days ago, so we were wondering if this was withdrawals. The doctor is still confused about these symptoms and can’t make sense of how they relate to the tumor, since the tumor technically should make his right side weaker, not his left. He ordered a CT and suggested we also get an ultrasound of Hunt’s left arm to rule out any blood clots. He had a CT yesterday in the emergency room and the scan came back clear, no visible hemorrhaging. 

We have an appointment for an ultrasound on Hunt’s arm tomorrow in the morning. I will let you all know how it goes. 

This waiting is so hard. It’s not fun knowing that Hunt still has cancer cells in his brain that are waiting to grow. This tumor has definitely changed our lives. But once Hunt recovers, he should be able to take his certification test and start working. We anticipate this will be in the summer and in March at our first CT scan appointment, we expect that they will give Hunt some more information on when he can be taken off his anti-seizure meds.

Thank you everyone for your prayers. This is definitely a victory, let’s keep praying that it continues!