January 2018 MRI

Today Emmett had his third MRI since starting the clinical trial at Children's Hospital Colorado.  The scan showed that everything has remained stable since his last scan -- yay!  Emmett has now had three scans since starting the clinical trial.  The first scan in October showed a significant reduction in Emmett's tumor, and the second and third both showed stability, and that is amazing news.

While we've hoped to hear of continued reductions of this spot, it's important to remember that Emmett has always had scar tissue in this area since his last spinal surgery in 2012.  A few times over the years the doctors have wondered whether this area might contain active tissue, but it's never showed activity until June 2017, and so they've never been concerned about it until then.  Given that he's had scar tissue here for the better part of six years, it's understandable that it may not respond completely (i.e. reduce down to zero) because it wasn't zero to begin with.

In looking at the imaging myself, what remains in this spot looks about the same size as what it was in January 2017 when the doctors had no concerns.  Perhaps it's slightly larger now, or changed in shape slightly -- but overall it's roughly the same size as when the doctors were not concerned.  So maybe he's close to his "non-zero" baseline.

Upon reviewing the MRI results with our doctor she mentioned that sometimes tumors reduce significantly upon treatment but never completely go away, even though they are shown to be clinically "dead" upon subsequent biopsy.  Without a biopsy it's impossible to prove whether residual tissue is benign, and in Emmett's case there's too much risk to do a biopsy, so we'll never know for sure.  But we can hope and pray that this is the case.

Our doctor did mention that spots that pick up contrast in MRIs are more likely to be vascular (which scar tissue generally is not), so that fact that Emmett's spot lights up on an MRI may be a bad omen.  But then again, with each additional surgery / treatment / intervention, the less the traditional rules may apply...so we'll take that for what it's worth.

What we will take (and are extremely excited about) are two more months of life the way we're currently living it -- trips to Denver every other weekend to get more medicine, but otherwise home in Albuquerque living as close to a "normal family life" as possible.  The thought of another two months of this routine is very exciting!!! 

We feel so blessed and thankful to be where we are today and we're praying that this period of our lives may continue.  How thankful we are for everyone who continues to remember Emmett and our family in your prayers.  The miracles keep coming, and each of you play a part in that!