Today we endured Annie’s fourth MRI in her short life.

Its a tough day when we spend it at Children’s Hospital having an MRI.

‘Tough’ being somewhat of an understatement.

As her mom I agonize over every minute detail of it, from whether the toys in the waiting room have been sanitized, to whether her IV will leave a bruise, to whether the anesthesiologist will know exactly how much drug to give her…

I swear, I age 10 years every time she has an MRI.

But not Annie…. she shakes it off. She’s tough. She doesn’t even cry when they insert the IV. She makes friends in the waiting room and entertains the medical staff by checking her doll’s blood pressure.

And I’m glad; because I really don’t want her to think she’s some sort of ‘victim’…. this is life. And we play the hand we’re dealt. We get what we get and we don’t throw a fit. We do not get presents when we go to the hospital: its what we have to do, and we do not get presents when we do what we have to do.

But enough with the chit-chat; I know what you all want to know is the results:

The tumor has grown.

Not by much; maybe 3 millimeters.

And, the edges are no longer as defined; where as before the tumor was a confined little marble, the edges have now begun to fuzz a little. ‘Fuzz’ isn’t the word he used; it was a more scientific word, but due to brain fry I can’t remember now what that word was… I just know it means that the tumor has started to fray around the edges, and if that continues, it will be more difficult to pop the tumor out in one piece.

Those are the ‘cons.’

The ‘pros’ remain the same: the tumor is still small, measuring 13 millimeters; still encapsulated and ‘easy’ to remove (per Dr. Sacco); Annie is otherwise in excellent shape; and the tumor is slow-growing and causing no symptoms.

Well, very few symptoms; I have noticed lately Annie seems to be getting clumsier. She trips, stumbles, and falls down easily. I wasn’t sure whether this was due to her being three, or due to the tumor… Dr. Sacco nodded and said those are exactly the types of symptoms we’ll start seeing more of the longer we wait.

Dr. Sacco STILL stated that he saw no PRESSING reason to cut into her brain at this point (usually before he cuts into a brain there are life-threatening issues or serious debilitating symptoms, neither of which we have), but again left it up to me as to whether or not I wanted to schedule surgery, or continue to wait and watch for a few more months. Dr. Sacco seems to advocate the ‘waiting’ (though he didn’t say it in so many words, he did talk me out of scheduling surgery today) and again listed several reasons why waiting makes a lot of sense, reasons which I think I’ve already listed in past posts.

So there you have it. Please pray that we’ll make the right decision.

Click here to read the beginning of Annie’s story and click on search label ‘tumor’ to read all updates.