Clarification

I realized that I never updated the blog with Lisa's official diagnosis from the pathology report.  I did it on facebook, but unfortunately forgot to do it here.  So, for those that aren't on facebook, two days after we returned from our Mexico vacation we received the disappointing news.  We were hoping for a grade 1 or 2 astrocytoma, but we were informed that she has a grade 3 (anaplastic) astrocytoma.  That means that it is malignant and that it is fairly aggressive.  Not what we wanted to hear, but we did receive some encouraging news that week as well.  We learned from the pathology report that she has a genetic mutation (IDH1) that should allow her to respond better to chemo.  Normally astrocytomas don't respond very well to chemotherapy, but people with the IDH1 deletion tend to have better results with chemo and tend to have a longer life expectancy.

It was probably better that we didn't receive the news when we were supposed to or that would have been hanging over our heads while we tried to relax in Mexico.  Since we didn't know the pathology results we were able to really relax and take it easy down there.

You can google it and read up on it if you want.