MRI – Carnes Family Web

17Apr201208Dec2016

Day 3: Monday at BJC

Scott Carnes Finding My Way Barnes-Jewish, BJC, BJH, brain surgery, Carnes, Carrie, Hospital, MRI, procedure, roommate, Scott, scotteugene79

Scott hard-at-work blogging from his hospital room. (That’s some great hair, Scotty) -Carrie

You are probably getting tired of my hot air, but I have advice. I’m writing this, so if you’re tired of reading it, stop. For the rest of you, press on because it only gets more monotonous! Are you excited?

Monday I was finally able to have some breakfast and it stayed down. Whoo-hoo! The doctors finally came around and explained surgery and my MRI results and by mid-morning I had this new roommate who is a really nice fellow.

If you’ll remember my meals kept getting pushed back because they didn’t yet know how soon the surgery needed to be. The real question at hand was whether there was an infection and the MRI came back clean. More good news. The down side to this, of course, was that after all the waiting I was in for more waiting. Well, that’s okay. I’m not in a hurry to be under the knife again. I had breakfast and, even tho it was cold, gross and greasy: It was one of the best meals I had ever had. Oh boy was I hungry!

When it came time for lunch, though, (yes this is about to take a sad, unfortunate turn) they said I couldn’t eat for awhile again. They were going to do a procedure to reduce the pressure and swelling by using syringes to pull some of the fluid (and blood) out of my head. It wasn’t so bad. At first Carrie told me it was a spinal tap and that sounded excruciating, but it wasn’t a spinal tap, they just had to get under the skin, muscle and scar-tissue to pull it out. Now, don’t get my wrong, it hurt. I think I nearly squeezed my wife’s hand off, but it was bearable and I finally had some relief once I recovered from the procedure. They did the procedure right in my room and numbed the skin with lanocaine (sp?)

The rest of the day was super-exciting. I laid in bed all day. I had fun little moments like when dinner came, but it was a very long day. On Sunday I slept nearly the whole time, but by monday I found myself not sleeping all that much. You may know something about that yourself, I don’t know. But isn’t it increasingly tough to really rest in a hospital once the newness wears off? Well, it is for me. I think my buttocks begins to get sore from sitting and my nerves get worn by the staff, my family, and other patients and I have a harder-and-harder time truly resting!

That’s really all that is fit to print for the moment. After my minor procedure I was pretty well out of it for the next hour or so. It really left me tired and sore, but once I began to sit up I realized that I felt tremendously better.

18Feb201208Dec2016

Up-close and Sort of Personal: the Pathologist’s Report

Scott Carnes Finding My Way astrocytoma, doctor, glioma, MRI, neuro, neurosurgery, pilocytic astrocytoma, soup, staples 1 Comment

View of a Pilocytic Astrocytoma

The past few weeks, Scott has been doing a great deal of blogging but I have been sort of MIA. I’ve felt like I was so busy running from one task to the other that when I sat down; well, I just wanted to sit. This morning I realized that my blogging was not the only thing over due, we had also failed to share with many of you about Scott’s doctor’s appointment Tuesday at which we got the results from the pathologists examination of Scott’s tumor. Now, Scott is convinced that blogging should be relational and emotive in content rather than informational, so I’m giving all of you the warning that this blog is most likely going to be more informational in content as I want to explain to you how the visit went and what the doctor said, answering as many questions as I can along the way. Later, when I have some more time perhaps I’ll share something more relational with you all 😉

Anyway, as I said, Tuesday Scott and I went to meet with Dr. Dacey to get his staples out and for a follow up. Dacey was very pleased with how well Scott was doing (of which I had no doubt); he did his whole battery of fancy neurological tests: walking in a straight line, running your foot from your knee to your ankle, touching your finger to your nose and then the doctors finger, standing with you eyes closed ect. Scott passed them all, and Dr. Dacey declared that he saw no neurological effects from the surgery, which means that his brain seems to be working just like it should be.

Dacey then went over the reports from the pathologist. The short story is that he thinks that Scott had a benign Pilocytic astrocytoma and that he needs to get MRIs in the future but nothing else. We are very happy, that is good news.

If however, you want to know more about what that all means, here is the long story:

When we first met with Dr. Dacey a couple of months ago, he said that he thought that this was most likely a slow growing glioma. A glioma is any tumor that grows from the glial cells, which are one of the types of cells in the brain. Glial cells make up the non-neurological parts of the brain. That is, they do not transmit information but give structure and support to the brain so that it can do everything that the brain does. For more on gliomas. Now, where it gets kind of confusing is that there are many different types of gliomas. It’s like the soup aisle at the grocery store. If I just asked Scott to go pick up some ‘soup,’ who knows what I’d get back from County Market! Just as we know what kind of soup we’re eating because of what we find in the soup, so too do doctors categorize tumors based on what makes up the tumor (ie. the types of cell, structure and how quickly it seems to be growing).

After they removed Scott’s tumor, they sent it to the pathologist, a type of doctor who cuts up the tumor, and studies it under a microscope. The pathologist concluded that the tumor is what is called an Astrocytoma, a type of glioma. (Of course there are many different kinds of astrocytomas just as there are different kinds of chicken soup.) So we will continue to get more specific as we progress-o. These are the tumors that grow along a type of glial cell called astrocytes. Astrocytes got their name because they look like stars. They are most commonly found in the cerebellum (the area of the brain where Scott’s tumor was and in the spinal cord). Astrocytes support, or keep alive cells that line blood vessels in the brain). Though there are many different kinds of astocytomas, the good news is they do not typically spread out side of the brain, meaning they don’t usually metastasis causing tumors in other organs. For more on astrocytomas.

An Astrocyte

Dr. Dacey and the pathologist think that Scott’s tumor was what they call a Pilocytic astrocytoma. For more on pilocytic astrocytomas. This is one of the slowest growing of the astrocytomas, which means that of all the different kinds of brain tumors Scott could have had, this is one of the better ones. (We lucked out). These are usually considered benign (non-cancerous). The biggest concern with these is that they can become large, causing damage and problems. We were lucky because we found this before it caused symptoms and real damage. It was small, remember we found this accidentally. Because of all of this, and because of Scott’s age, Dr. Dacey is of the mindset that there is nothing more we need to do; he does not think that Scott needs any radiation or anything of that sort.

Now, when the pathologist was looking at Scott’s tumor, it looked a little different than most pilocytic astrocytomas. There is a kind of fiber they normally find in these tumors called Rosenthal fibers, and his tumor did not have many of them. Now of course when they classify tumors, this is not always as much an exact science as we like to think, just as sometimes its hard to tell the difference between chicken noodle soup and chicken and dumpling soup (one can morph into the other as its noodles become bigger). Dr. Dacey did not seem concerned about this, but he did say that he would present this to his tumor board. So, he will take all of these findings and discuss them with all the other doctors in his department to make sure that they are all in agreement. This means, that rather than getting a second opinion, we will get 10 opinions all working together. When we have our next appointment with Dr. Dacey he will tell us how this discussion went. Scott will also have another MRI in 6 months and then most likely every year after. This is all very good news for us.

05Feb201208Dec2016

Yes, this is my MRI from two months ago and that is my tumor.
We still don’t have a proper name for it.

In just a few hours (at noon) I will be undergoing a special MRI. The doctors are going to be placing small sensors all over my head and doing a scan that will let them see what they are doing during the surgery. If you’ve ever seen Dr. Shepherd on Grey’s Anatomy doing a TV version of brain surgery, I imagine it will be a lot like that: without all the distractions, sex and death. This MRI will be loaded into their equipment on Monday morning and they will be able to see what they are doing inside of my head.

What we were not aware of, until Friday, is that these sensors are kind of like green lifesavers. That’s not the good part. Wait for it. They stick them on my head before the MRI at noon on Sunday and I have to keep them on until (and throughout) the surgery. Okay, I know that in the grand scheme of things that doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but we planned a big dinner out with some of our family Sunday night. You know, a last nice meal before the surgery. Now it appears I’ll be going to a nice restaurant in Saint Louis looking like some sort of Star Trek alien.

Well, at least I won’t actually see anyone that I know. That’s the upside. Oh- and it’s the Super Bowl, so we’re likely to be alone in the restaurant, so no one may see me anyway!

On a related note I learned something else recently. One of my mother-in-law, June Berry’s, friends had a brain surgery and had a stressful experience as she was coming out of anesthesia. As she woke up she found that she was being put into an MRI. You can imagine that it was all very disorienting for her! It was a very stressful experience and June’s friend wanted me to be warned about it, especially because it was a similar surgery with my same surgeon at the same hospital. I have good news. Well, they do it differently now. This is the cool part: They now have an MRI right in the operating room so when they are finished with the surgery and I’m still on the operating table (and still knocked out) they will do an MRI right there and then to make sure there is no swelling, bleeding, and to make sure that no part of the tumor remains.

Isn’t it remarkable that we live in an age where my surgeon can scan my brain and see what he is doing as he operates? Isn’t it remarkable that we live in a time when we can have MRI’s, which were on their own so rare even just two decades ago, right in the operating room?

Anyway, I just wanted to share a quick update. I hope that this note finds my friends and family doing well and I will be praying for all of you! May God’s blessings be evident o you all on this Sunday morning!

I am especially praying for those of you at First United Methodist Church Pontiac who are working through the Fruitful Congregations material in my absence. I pray for the Holy Spirit to be upon you all in this discernment process, to show you a way forward, and to build up your passion and excitement for ministry in our church, community and the world!!!

Blessings & Peace!

Scott