Biopsy Results

On Thursday 7-21 my mom met with the doctors at the hospital to discuss what they had found with the biopsy. To be honest the news was not quite what we were expecting to hear. The tumor was malignant with a very rare disease. I am not sure about specifics quite yet, but it is an HCG-Secreting Germinoma. In addition to that there were also abnormally high levels of HCG in her spinal fluid. With this  disease being so rare there really isn't much information on it and there are hardly any statistics. One thing that they do know is that it is a fast multiplier and so they want to take a really aggressive approach in treatment. Hope will start Chemo on Aug 2nd, she will spend 5 days at the hospital and 2 weeks off over the course of about 6 months. It will probably be the highest dose of Chemo. After Chemo they will do radiation and then another surgery. Hope is aware of everything that is going on and she understands that she will be losing her hair and will be very sick. Hope will also not be able to go to school in the fall, and it will be difficult for my mom to work because she will need to be there to care for Hope. They will be doing another MRI, this time on the full body to cover all the bases. I will post the results of that MRI shortly.