I got a surprise call from my favorite nurse in Radiation Oncology yesterday (Tuesday), leaving me a message about my Monday MRI. I thought I would have to wait untold weeks and weeks to find out about the results, since I don’t have an appointment with anyone until next week (the neurologist) or the week after (chemo Day 1).  Of course I wasn’t going to patiently wait that long, not being a good “patient,” but here was Joanne leaving me a message that went like this: “Dr. Chandra looked at your MRI and it looks good.  Everything is either stable or smaller. Give me a call, I want to talk to you in person.”

So that was a really nice message to get yesterday afternoon, for sure.  Especially because what with the continuing headache, which is dogging me as I taper off the dexamethasone finally, I was wondering if maybe I had, unexpectedly, a new crop of 12 mets or a re-growth of the original biggest one with lots of associated swelling.  But no. Nothing to explain the continuing headache, and unfortunately the headache seems worse now that I’m on the last week of the latest taper–1 mg dexamethasone per day.  I think from my experimenting with splitting up the larger doses (like 4 mg per day taken as 2mg in the AM, 1 mg at 1 PM, 1 mg at 7 pm), 1 mg is effective at keeping away the headache but not at making it stop.  So taking 1 mg when I wake up in the morning doesn’t seem to do anything.

But the only way to get my own adrenal glands to re-start making enough corticosteroids (? haven’t read up on this again lately) is to not ingest exogenous steroids.  Thus the taper.  I have been on some level of dexamethasone (Decadron, steroid) since my brain zap in mid-April.  It’s time to get off them!  But having a headache a lot of the time really sucks.  Even if it is not a really bad headache–sometimes more of a nagging one. This morning, more of a real headache.

Anyway, off to call Joanne!