Surgery to drain fluid and have a biopsy

For those of you following Nathan's journey, here is a post that I made on Facebook about 2 weeks ago.

It just slipped my mind to post this to the blog! I'm so sorry! 

Here is the latest from Nathan's scans this week.... (week of 12-13-16)

So, everything looked good with regard to the tumor. There isn't any regrowth and it looks the same - Praise the Lord!

However - there is an issue with fluid in his tumor cavity... Let me back up and explain:

After his surgery at Vanderbilt, the baseball-sized cavity in his brain filled with fluid over time. When you have some sort of surgery to remove something out of your body, your body will naturally "fill" that space (or cavity) with fluid. So, that is completely normal.

Now that Nathan is on this trial, the T cells that are being "jacked up" from his infusion are hopefully going to the brain and killing the cancer cells. When these T cells kill the cancer cells, they kind of turn into sludge-y fluid (for lack of a better term!) when they eventually die off. This sludge doesn't have anywhere to go, because it's in his brain (due to the blood/brain barrier). For example, if he were to have cancer in his liver and the T cells went to kill the cancer cells there, they would, again, turn into sludge but go into his bloodstream and die off and break down. This can't happen in the brain. They're stuck there, therefore, creating more fluid in his brain over time.

As the fluid gradually grows in size over time, it's acting like a tumor - creating pressure on his brain - which is causing the partial seizures, fatigue, terrible headaches, and weakness on the right side of his body.

SO - what he's going to have to do is get the fluid drained. They said when he does this, he'll feel a lot better - sort of like when the tumor was removed. We don't know about the specifics of the procedure yet. What we DO know is that they want to take a biopsy from the tumor tissue (while they're draining this fluid) to see if the T cells are really doing their job and that they're in the tumor *hopefully* breaking it down. They said the procedure is not too invasive. He'll likely spend one or possibly two nights in the hospital.

The doctors also said that this is not an emergency. We can wait until after the holidays to go through with it.

Just to be clear, this is what the Doctors are thinking - so it's theoretical. They do truly believe that the T cells are breaking down the cancer cells but won't know for sure until they get the pathology report back from the biopsy of the tumor tissue. Nathan is not exactly "excited" about the inevitable surgery but knows that he must do this to feel better. I am so proud of him for his continued positive attitude and strength through all of this.

Nathan's procedure is scheduled for Friday, January 6th. 

We will go down to UAB on the 5th to have a meeting with his surgeon, Dr. Riley. After this meeting, we'll have more details about what to expect with recovery time, what the procedure will look like, etc...  

Thank you all for your prayers. I will update you all when we have more information in the next week.

Much love and many thanks,

Elizabeth