Brain Tumor and Pogo are both doing well

Okay, is that title a misprint or is it a play of words. Actually, it is an extremely accurate statement. As far as I go, I still feel very good physically and mentally. My left hand really hasn't improved much, but I am able to golf, play softball, and tennis. I also found out that if I take shorter strides, I can run faster and not fall down.

On May 5, I had an MRI done and was told of the results on May 8, by my chemotherapy doctor. The area where I had the surgery looked good, however the deeper areas where there were two smaller tumors had gotten significantly bigger. I guess this is a fine example of how much of our brain that we actually use, because I really haven't noticed the difference. Obviously, the doctor was concerned and I do have to admit that it didn't make my day but that certainly didn't change who I am, or my demeanor. I think everyone was a little surprised, because they said don't expect much change in the MRI as far as improvement, but didn't expect to see so much growth from the tumor, ergo the tumor is doing very well. He immediately called the other two doctors involved in the case and moved up the appointments. So it is extremely safe to say that Plan A, did not work and now we formulate Plan B.

I was able to see the radiation oncologists that same day. He wasn't quite as panicked as the chemo doctor. He mentioned that the tumor growth had a definite margin around it which is a good thing for his next plan of attack. Enter the Cyberknife. What a cool name that is, and it sounds invasive. What it actually is is a robotic real-time radiation device that sends a high dose of radiation to the tumor cells over a two-hour session and is accurate to within 2/10 of a millimeter. You can probably Google this procedure and get more info. We got the info packet and got to see it. I would literally be in and out of there in about two hours with no side effects. They are presently trying to expedient this process with my insurance company, so hopefully it will be done in the next few weeks.

On the following Tuesday, I saw the Neurosurgeon,, who I affectionately call Dr. Doom. I think he is an excellent surgeon, since the MRI looked good in the area he worked on, and I never had any postoperative pain, but he is no Knute Rockne. If you are up by three touchdowns going into halftime and he gave the big speech in the locker room, you would probably lose the game by 50 points. He is extremely pessimistic and literally gives me no hope. I think the only speech he ever memorized was a quality-of-life speech. If I hear that speech one more time, I am going to have to rent a gun and either shoot him or myself. Being a typical surgeon, he may think that if you can't cut it out, then it can't be cured. The good news is that I mostly deal with the other two doctors from now on.

If you noticed the delay between the dates of this news and when I actually did the blog was because I wanted to make sure I informed my kids so they didn't have to find out about it from the blog or from other people. I also didn't want to ruin Mother's Day, or my daughters wedding shower. They seemed to handle the news okay, and a lot it, hopefully had to do with my positive attitude and never changing personality.

POGO

PS I got a surprise e-mail last night, which I'm not going to mention at this time. But if it pans out, I will let everyone know as soon as possible. Just a little something to keep people guessing.