CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC

Mom got a CAT scan while in the ER last night. The on-call neurosurgeon read the CAT scan, then he read the MRI results she had brought with her to the hospital. He says the tumor is almost definitely benign, has probably been there for about 10 years (based on the calcification of the tumor), and is very slow growing. He agrees it's most likely ependymoma. Based on where it's located, the area that affects coordination and involuntary movements, the tumor may be affecting her movements and may be causing myoclonic seizures, which are rare with a tumor but do happen - especially if your cerrebullum is particularly sensitive. He gave her some seizure medicine that he believes will work.

The good news is that as far as brain tumors goes, this is very small, most likely benign, very slow growing, and should be fairly easy to operate on. We were VERY encouraged hearing all this about the tumor but we are worried about her crazy blood pressure.

My SIL got home from the hospital at 1:00 a.m. They kept Mom because her blood pressure was very high - it went up to 170/100 over the previous reading of 162/111. Her face was puffy and she wasn't feeling well, but after they gave her a diuretic and some other meds, she started feeling a lot better.

They can't figure out why her blood pressure is doing what it's doing - the doctor was perplexed (never, ever a good sign) and said he's only seen it do that when someone was on steroid treatments or chemo. She was also still having minor twitches.

She was discharged from the hospital at 6:15 this morning - almost 16 hours after she got there. The main reason for the extended stay was because of her high blood pressure. They were afraid she might have a stroke and wouldn’t discharge her, and rightly so. It remained high every hour they checked. They wanted it below 140, so they eventually gave Mom some pills for her blood pressure and it dropped very low. In fact, she actually read a systolic 55 at one time. Of course, she was very groggy and they weren’t going to discharge her at that point, either.

The nurse later said it could potentially be that the part of the brain controlling blood pressure was affected by the tumor. Her blood pressure has been fluctuating greatly and was the highest it has ever been when she was having the tremors* caused by the tumor. After the blood pressure medicine wore off, and she had some coffee and walked around, her bp reached up to over 100 and they let her go.

She and Dad are extremely tired today, and on top of that, Mom's trying to adjust to her new meds. Next Monday is her official appointment with the neurosurgeon, at which time we'll hopefully learn beyond a shadow of a doubt that the tumor is benign. That's what we're all praying the hardest for.
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*Tremors. That's what they're calling the episodes she was having yesterday. That term sounds a whole lot less scary than "seizures" or "convulsions."