On Thursday, July 31st I boarded a bus for an eye appointment. In the parking lot at the bus station I had a seizure. I was scared because my seizures are waking seizures and this one came in the middle of the day. Turned out it wasn't my epilepsy causing the problem. The CT Scan of my head done in the ER revealed a 3 cm tumor on the back of my brain. Doctors were optimistic. Just one tumor. Really clear margins. Right on the surface and in a non-vital area. Perfect candidate for surgery, so on August 11th they cut open my skull and pulled out about 99% of the tumor.
The recovery was surprisingly painless and within 4 days I was home and recovering well, at least physically. Emotionally and mentally I'm a little messed up. Brain not functioning at full capacity and I'm struggling with more than my usual amount of anxiety. Apparently, it's all very normal.
The Plan:
Despite this set back, the Herceptin has continued to keep the cancer in remission below the neck, so I'll still do that treatment every 3 weeks as usual. But what to do about my brain? In early September I will have 1 treatment of GAMMA Knife Radiation. Gamma knife is really fancy radiation that targets a specific area rather than the whole head. This is good because there is less chance that any damage will be done to the healthy parts of my brain.
The only problem is that there is no treatment at the moment to prevent more tumors from growing in the brain. They can zap it well and good but something MIGHT escape to do some damage. We already know there's some cancer cells floating around my body or they wouldn't have found a home in my head in the first place.
So I'm on permanent wait and see. Every 3 months I'll get new scans and I'll learn if I'm all clear or if I'll need more radiation. Spot treating is not ideal, but it is the best solution for the present. At some point I might have to radiate the whole brain, but Dr. Lee and my other doctors want that to be one of our last resorts.
That's that. The fight goes on. The cancer just won't die...but neither will I. HA!
The recovery was surprisingly painless and within 4 days I was home and recovering well, at least physically. Emotionally and mentally I'm a little messed up. Brain not functioning at full capacity and I'm struggling with more than my usual amount of anxiety. Apparently, it's all very normal.
The Plan:
Despite this set back, the Herceptin has continued to keep the cancer in remission below the neck, so I'll still do that treatment every 3 weeks as usual. But what to do about my brain? In early September I will have 1 treatment of GAMMA Knife Radiation. Gamma knife is really fancy radiation that targets a specific area rather than the whole head. This is good because there is less chance that any damage will be done to the healthy parts of my brain.
The only problem is that there is no treatment at the moment to prevent more tumors from growing in the brain. They can zap it well and good but something MIGHT escape to do some damage. We already know there's some cancer cells floating around my body or they wouldn't have found a home in my head in the first place.
So I'm on permanent wait and see. Every 3 months I'll get new scans and I'll learn if I'm all clear or if I'll need more radiation. Spot treating is not ideal, but it is the best solution for the present. At some point I might have to radiate the whole brain, but Dr. Lee and my other doctors want that to be one of our last resorts.
That's that. The fight goes on. The cancer just won't die...but neither will I. HA!
