Tuesday, June 30, 2009

More About the MRI

Mom has widespread myelomatous involvement of the calvarium, skull base and mandible. Meaning it is possible that the myeloma has moved into her spinal fluid. I believe what the doctor said is that once it is in the spinal fluid then it can move into organs (but I am not certain). In order to know for sure then Mom needs a lumbar puncture. She will have to lay on her stomach for 10 to 15 minutes while the neurologist draws fluid out of the spine. However, before she does this we need to understand the treatment. Based on what we were told in general it means high dose chemotherapy which I do not believe Mom will want to or can tolerate. If this is the case then there is no reason to do the lumbar punction.