I could write a whole book on my biopsy results, because this turned out to be an epic saga. That said, the preliminary results were an important beginning.

My results came back in stages, with the information from the pathologist who looked at the cells directly under a microscope coming back first. This report’s results were quite unexpected for me. They said that my cells looked abnormal, but the pathologist could not find any evidence of malignancy. Specifically it said “Mildly hypercellular brain parenchyma.  No definitive tumor identified,” and went on to say that in order to exclude a tumor the DNA sequencing results were required. Those were in progress, so I had to wait for them. Stains of the slides for tumor markers were negative.

The next set of results were further negative stains. At this point my surgeon called me, excited, and said he didn’t think I had a tumor. I asked him about the sequencing results and he said we would have to wait and see about those.

During this time I had met with two oncologists and picked one. I asked the oncologists about the preliminary results, but they were not convinced this was not a tumor. I remember multiple doctors in this process asking me, “well what is it?” when I suggested it might not be a tumor. I thought that is what they were supposed to tell me. Needless to say I went from hope to anxiety pretty quickly.

After three weeks my sequencing results came in and they were almost entirely negative. There was one abnormality that they pointed out, a suggestion of monosomy 9. That means that some of my cells seemed to be missing one copy of chromosome 9. The report said that this was of “unknown significance” and my research indicated that though it was sometimes seen in tumors, it was not considered a driver mutation. My surgeon thought I was ok.