MRI and A Bit of Good News

Sounds silly, but Aaron and I were so relieved when we learned he only has 7-10 small, slow growing tumors in his brain (the largest being about 1/4"). Maybe the relief came knowing they were growing slowly. Maybe we are just trying to look on the bright side wherever we can. Maybe it's because his lungs are in such dire shape that we can't focus on the brain right now. Whatever the case, his MRI reveals the cancer has moved to his brain. Brain cancer is treated with radiation because our miraculous brains have a blood barrier that keeps foreign substances out of the brain (very technical description I know, but I'm not a nurse so you get the layman's version of medical things on this blog. If you want more than that you'll have to do a google search or ask Aaron's brother Jeff:). Aaron starts chemo tomorrow morning. One treatment a week, break for three weeks, another treatment, break, treatment, scan, repeat, radiation.

The bit of good news made its way to us last night via a text from our oncologist, Dr. Gray (we are very impressed with him for a number of reasons). It read:

Aaron this is Dr. Gray. I am trying to reach you because the pathology office was able to get me the molecular test results this evening. This was quite remarkable that they were able to do this but nonetheless your tumor carries the EGFR mutation on Exon 19. This is very exciting because that means treatment options include the new drug afatinib.

Lung cancer is not curable. We were told with lung cancer it's about time-buying as much time as you can-and not a cure. I think we were ok hearing that news. That's how it is with our children with cystic fibrosis. We have never held out for a cure, but time, please give us time and quality time, and a lot of it since we are being bold in our requests.  However, I could not even bring myself to ask the dr. how much time we are looking at with Aaron. At that point I couldn't have a statistic thrown at me and then having it dictate to me how much time Aaron has. In my mind that is known by only one being and He is the one I have to take my direction from. Aaron's life is in the Lord's hands and I will trust he will allow Aaron to stay for as long as He chooses and not how long cancer chooses, but we've got to do our part.

Back to the bit of good news. I talked about the markers, actually called mutations, pathologists were still looking for in Aaron's lung biopsy when we got the PET scan results. Dr. Gray's text confirms that Aaron actually is one of a very small percentage of people who have the mutation. There is a very promising drug that is quite successful at treating the mutation Aaron has. This doesn't mean a cure. Cancer eventually finds its way around drugs, but this means a good enough chunk of time that we need for other treatments to be approved and become available to us and perhaps an even greater miracle. The drug afatinib is a pill that Aaron will take and we do not know if it will be done in conjunction with chemo or if he doesn't need chemo now. We will get more answers this afternoon. For now, we feel tremendously grateful for this piece of news.

We want everyone to know that at a time when it is logical to be feeling despair we feel incredibly blessed and buoyed by your faith and prayers. Each of your prayers is a scared offering to us and we want you to know how very much they mean to us and how much we love each of you. Thank you for taking the time to follow up on us and to help keep us going when we know so many of you carry heavy burdens of your own.

Love to all, Lorraine