I've been up since 5am this morning, which I guess isn't really different than any other day lately, but it's been such a lllllooooonnnngggg day! Of course Brenden couldn't eat because he would be under anesthesia for the MRI, but he was such a trooper the whole drive to UVA this morning. We arrived an hour before we were scheduled, as they requested.....but do you think they were on time? Of course not. So we had one tired, hungry little boy that was almost 2 hours late going in for the MRI, but he did great. One frustrated mama and daddy, though! And knowing that he would wake up and want to eat NOW we got to eat while he was in the MRI and got him a grilled cheese to go, which he ate on the trek to neurosurgery!

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In addition to the MRI Brenden also had to have plain film x-rays done. The last MRI in September raised some questions about some minor instability in his cervical spine. This was caused by the laminectomy he had as part of the surgery back in May. It wasn't enough to do a spinal fusion, but Dr. Jane wanted to check it again this time just to make sure it hadn't gotten any worse.

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Well the cyst is still there....but it hasn't grown! It's exactly what it was this time last year, so we avoid the OR for now. The spinal instability is also exactly the same....so we dodge that bullet for now. Dr. Jane admitted that he has never seen this as a result from a laminectomy so he wants to continue to monitor with x-rays every 6 months for now. We get to go a year before another MRI since the cyst seems to remain stable, unless of course Brenden has a change in function at some point.

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Thank you all for the prayers....they definitely were felt. Now to make it through preschool drop-off tomorrow morning......