Cool Tumor Pics

My mom is obsessive about searching the internet for Giant Cell Tumor information and this week she came across a PDF from a hospital in China that had really cool pictures of a Giant Cell Tumor of the tendon sheath in the ankle.

This woman's tumor is in the tendon sheath on the top of her foot and mine is in the tendon sheath that runs along the outside of the ankle but you can get a pretty good idea of what the surgeon is up against.

The first photo shows the tumor as it appears with all the muscles and tendons and then as it would be if you could only see the bones, major arteries, and the tumor itself (red blob).

Then there is a photo just up close of the tumor around the ankle.

This woman's tumor is actually smaller than my first tumor was.  My tumor now is longer then this but may not be as thick.  Haven't had an MRI in a few months so I'm not sure exactly its size.

My surgeon needs to get EVERY cell of the tumor to keep it from growing back.  You can imagine how hard that would be at accomplish.  Even if you cut out every bit of the tumor you can see, there still might be a cell leftover somewhere.  So, wish him luck on Tuesday.

And I totally showed these pictures at my session meeting last night.  (I'm cool like that)