From James:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” — 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
When we got home from Johns Hopkins today, Audrey ran to the door and grinned expectantly: “What’s the good news?!” We’ve become so used to good news recently. Unfortunately, today we were surprised by bad news.
The tumor has grown again, and significantly. That is the cause of So Young’s new symptoms over the past few weeks. Now it is especially affecting her brain stem, which explains the balance and coordination problems she is experiencing. We knew from the beginning that the tumor had infiltrated the brain stem, but most of the tumor is in the thalamus, so the brain stem seemed like an afterthought early on.
Dr. Redmond said that we lost most of the ground we gained from radiation. The tumor shrank 30% before. It has regained most of that and is close to its pre-radiation size.
The tumor board at Johns Hopkins will discuss So Young’s case on Monday. Dr. Redmond said that they will most likely recommend chemotherapy, which So Young has not received yet. We were waiting until it became fast-growing. The hope was that it would not.
The news brings up new questions and fears. Is the tumor really slow growing? Now there is significant doubt about that. It doesn’t “light up” on the MRI, but they didn’t get a good sample during the biopsy, and for it to increase in size so quickly seems strange. They have her on big doses of the steroid dexamethasone to see if her symptoms abate if the swelling in her brain goes down.
So Young’s symptoms seemed so vague before, but now everything seems to have an explanation. She complained of weakness on her right side, a loss of coordination in her right hand, trouble swallowing, slurred speech, etc. My reasoning was that the tumor shouldn’t affect the right side of her body, because the tumor is in her right thalamus. But the brain stem controls motor function, so now her symptoms make sense to me.
So Young took the news quite hard — understandably so. She is shaken. I think that this is almost as hard for us emotionally as the initial diagnosis in November 2010.
The perspective that we are trying to take is that this is only round two of the fight. Or perhaps a more apt analogy is mile 20 of a marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles long, but runners say that the race doesn’t start until mile 20 or so. I have seen So Young several times at mile 20, and it isn’t pretty. She can be completely bereft of energy and the will to go on. But you have to stick through it, or you won’t finish the race, even though you are so close!
I really appreciate the encouragement we are already receiving from our loving community of family and friends. You are so dear to us to pray, call or write, offer and provide help, or to even just listen. Some of you have taken some pretty raw, tearful phone calls from So Young today. All I can say is that you are amazing for handling it so well and being there for her.
In the end, as my friend told me today, it isn’t the medicine we’re going to trust in this situation, but God. He alone has the power to restore So Young, and whether or not He does, we trust his love for us. We won’t lose heart.