Happy Valentine’s Day!

Well, our updates skipped from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day, so I hope you all had a great holiday season and the New Year is off to a nice start. Gwen, Justin, and Callie took a lovely Christmas cruise with Justin’s side of the family and returned in time to spend Christmas day with the rest of us back here in reality. A few of us got to spend the holiday with a lovely stomach flu, so that was fun. Other than that, the holiday break was quite nice!

Gwen had her latest appointment with Dr. Garst today. The official report is that her lung “cloud” shows no significant change from November, however when you look at the scans, visually it appears improved! Her bone scan results were deemed “Stable.”

The results of her brain MRI showed “spots of unknown significance.” My response was, “WHAT??”

So, apparently there are some spots showing up in her brain… something on top and something in the back. When you look at the scan, these spots appear like cancer spots would appear on a scan, HOWEVER, these spots are not acting like cancer in that they did not absorb the contrast that Gwen took for the MRI like cancer spots normally do. Of course, like much of this journey, the doctor has never seen anything like it.

Thankfully, things are going to kick into high gear to try to figure out what is going on and hence what the next steps will be moving forward. On Thursday, Gwen will have a spinal tap to test her brain fluids. Friday, she has two appointments set up with two different “brain doctors” at Big Duke in Durham. Her scans will also be sent up to Dr. Shaw in Boston for further consultation. I’m not sure how much information we will get this week, but we will keep you posted!

Please keep Gwen in your prayers. Please also add, if you will, our cousin who had surgery last week to remove a tumor in her lung. Boo lung cancer!