That’s a conundrum! I travel 3 1/2 hours to MD Anderson. I was diagnosed at a local hospital but had surgery, radiation and follow-up at MDA. I’m two years into their 5 year survivorship program, and will continue to go there for that. But I can drive.

If I were you, I’d consider doing your scans at Rochester every 3 years, maybe? And do the other scans in AZ. That way you might feel more assured that very experienced eyes are looking at your scans every 3 years. The hope would be that if any new lesion grew it would be caught in AZ, but if not you’d still have MN checking it.

A kind of rule of thumb is that it takes a grade 1 lesion 9 years to grow from a cell to a scannable cancer, 6 years for grade 2, and 4 years for grade 3. If you had a clear MRI done in MN, then a new lesion may take a while to show up. Your risk level for a possible recurrence is also a consideration.

My heart goes out to you because I know the feeling of getting such coordinated and comprehensive care. MDA is building a hospital in Austin so I could do scans there. But will I?!