Matthew MRI Update

Matthew had his MRI on February 25th at Lucile Packard (Stanford). It went very well...he tolerated the anesthesia much better than last time. We were suppose to meet with his doctor the next day but, fortunately, he met with us in the recovery room afterwards. The spot they had found on his rib with the last MRI is stable, meaning it has not changed at all. This was very good news since we don't know what that spot is. The doctor said if it were going to grow he would have expected it to do so by now. The area where they removed the vascular malformation last June did have some changes. There are two areas where the malformation has begun to grow back. The surgeon wasn't completely surprised to see this. He said that one of the areas is near a nerve root that he didn't want to try and manipulate with the surgery. The other is between two vertebrae where they avoided removing any bone and only shaved the surface to cut off blood supply. Both spots are very small, less than 1 cm, and not causing a problem at this point. We will monitor him for any symptoms and do another MRI in a year. Worst case scenario would be he would need surgery again to remove these growths. But the doctor was very optimistic that this wouldn't be necessary. He doesn't expect them to grow very much more if at all. My feeling is...at least we know what these are and why they are there. It was much better than to have seen the rib lesion growing - we don't know what that is. So, for now, we thank God for the good news and the good doctor he provided us with. And we are prayerful and hopeful that things will stabilize and no other surgery will be needed. Thank you to all who continue to pray for Matthew and send their love our way!!