After a morning at OHSU talking to the best spine infection doctor in the state, I have mixed news to report about my current status. There is some possible bad news but there is plenty more to be hopeful about so don’t let this first part get you down (I’m not).
First the possible bad news:
– There is still enough mystery in my biopsy results that there is lingering suspicion that this could be more than “just” an infection. Like a tumor that is also infected by this bacteria making the diagnosis so hard. There were several cancer markers that showed up in the biopsy (but not enough to be conclusive either way). We’re also not treating the cancer all this time (and the types this could be are ones you don’t want to let linger).
– They don’t know why my pain is increasing. As a young guy, they expected these antibiotics to start to take hold by now (it’s been 2weeks).
– We don’t know the condition of the bone and whether it needs to be removed or not. (Depends on what the problem is.)
– Putting metal parts in an infected area to stabilize the spine could breed more infection.
– An open surgical biopsy that would tell us once and for all the diagnosis is still very risky. If it’s cancer, it could be spread to other parts of the area or enter my blood and be distributed throughout my body (same with the infection).
But there’s lots of good news:
– I haven’t had any degradation in neurological health (other than the pain and some more numbness in my feet). That’s really good news for as long as we’ve been fighting it.
– The doctor thinks my pain will turn the corner toward much less in the next 7 days.
– She thinks there is plenty of room for this to all be just an infection still.
– If it is just an infection, we’re already doing everything we can to fight it.
– There is hope that the infected bone could heal. There is even a good possibility that once this infection is gone, NO surgical reconstruction of my spine would be necessary.
– Recovery from the infection could be just 6-12 weeks of these IV antibiotic injections. (No lengthy surgical recovery, no radiation, no chemo.)
I go in for another MRI tomorrow to try to rule out a few of the things in the first section in favor of things in the second section. Other than that, we’re back to waiting on the usual blood work to come back. I’ll have another checkup with my doctor in a week to see how I’m progressing.
Please keep me in your prayers over this next week. Pray for the MRI tomorrow (that it doesn’t find any bad surprises). Pray that this is only an infection and that it’s not hiding something else. Pray that it starts responding to the antibiotics and begins to shrink away from my nerves. Pray that the bone can be saved and can heal on its own. Pray for reduced pain and for endurance for my family of caregivers.