Hi Everyone,

So much has happened since this last post.

MD Anderson is now leading my treatments with support from my local team. In early December the neurosurgeon recommended open brain surgery rather than LITT. The primary advantage is that he would be able to use brain mapping to minimize side effects. Plus, he would be able to see the extent of the necrosis and, hopefully, identify any potential tumors. That was the plan, anyway.

Instead, I needed emergency bowel surgery due to massive scar tissue in a place I'd never had surgery. There were complications. It was over a month before I recovered enough to return to MD Anderson.

Last Monday I took a nice nap which good authority has told me was actually over 5 hours of open brain surgery. Instead of the extensive necrosis the surgeon expected to find, he found tumors - lots of tumors. He is confident he removed most of the necrosis and my brain should be able to clean up the remaining on its own. As to the tumors, the plan is, after a month cooling period, to have my local team apply 10 rounds of low level radiation as specified by the MD Anderson radiation oncologist.

The biggest change has been a loss of right hand function. For example, I'm typing all of this with my left hand. The right hand has already demonstrated post-surgery improvement, and I'll keep working with it every day.

Sorry for not personally responding to all the messages I've received, but I don't log in most days. I hope everyone is making progress in your own journey.

Kind Regards,
Matthew