Test Shows No Tumors on Long Valley Teen's Brain

Three years may not seem like a long time, , it can feel like a lifetime.

But for Glenn Lightner, the best news in three years came recently, when an MRI at Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center showed all tumors were gone from his brain.

Lightner was receiving treatment in Europe, as scheduled, shortly after having eight tumors on his brain removed by laser and gamanize procedures at the New Jersey hospital, when he sat for the imaging session.

“I hopped on a plane back to New Jersey and went to (Robert Wood Johnson),” Larry Lightner said. “(Dr. Shabbar Danish) looked at the MRI for a while. He spun around in his chair and had an ear-to-ear grin and said Glenn’s brain was clear.”

To see Glenn Lightner's journey throughout the year, go here. 

Danish, who performed the laser procedure on Lightner, instructed the family to continue its scheduled treatment in Germany and Belgium, however.

“All the doctors are communicating with each other now,” Larry Lightner said. “There’s no way to tell which piece is working, or if it’s a combination, so we’re sticking with all of it.”

Cautiously Optimistic

While the news comes as the best surprise in three years, the family knows the battle isn’t over.

There was a sigh of relief when the results came in, Larry Lightner said, but the next MRI–scheduled for Sept. 19–can be full of surprises.

“We just made the appointment (Wednesday),” Lightner said, “so the anxiety is kicked up a little bit again, and now we’re counting down to that day.”

As for the basketball-loving 13-year-old, Glenn Lightner is pretty happy, too, his dad said.

“Glenn’s perspective is that for now there aren’t any operations on the horizon,” Larry Lightner said. “He doesn’t have to worry about being at the hospital and surgeries and those kinds of things.”

For the time being, Glenn Lightner will work with a tutor to catch up on his schooling, and is scheduled to head back to Belgium at the end of October.

The family can now breathe a little more clearly–even if just for another week or so–as they continue to battle this disease.