A brain abscess

So we have some good news today. Last week, Jaimee had a brain scan. The radiologist (who is on the Huntsman Cancer Institute's tumor board) said it may not be a tumor. It may be a brain abscess. She went in yesterday and they started her on heavy antibiotics and steroids.

Today her doctor confirmed that it's an abscess and not a tumor. So, that's good news. Her doctor said if you had to choose between a tumor and an abscess, you'd rather have the abscess. But that doesn't mean an abscess is nothing to sniff at. An abscess is life threatening if not treated.

We don't know yet how bad her abscess is. The longer an abscess is there, the harder the shell around it gets, which makes treating it with antibiotics less effective. So the key is early detection. Not sure yet how hard this one will be to treat, but one good sign is yesterday Jaimee had a really bad headache, she started antibiotics intravenously, and today her headache is better than it was.

For now, every day she needs to go in for a 3 hour session of IV antibiotics, and then they will do another brain scan to see how the abscess looks. We'll keep you updated.