2005

More radiation, but there was no rush. The tumor was still small, so there were really no side effects. We went to see the radiation oncologist. He was a personable man with a good bedside manor. The machine we have here in town, was just a newer version of cobalt radiation. Instead of the cobalt intersecting at the tumor. the beams would encircle the tumor. This would allow a more accurate pinpointing of the tumor, and a lesser risk of damaging good tissue. The doctor explained to me his stone in the pond theory. If you throw a stone in a pond, the stone would create a lot of damage where it hit. But there would still be a small wake, that could create some damage, as it moved away from the point of impact. So there was some risk to radiation. Other than the side effects that Marie had from her first radiation, she was handling the treatment very well. She was a model patient. And I was certain that this treatment work.

I was asking more questions, though. It appeared to me that, the medicals were treating each tumor, one by one, as they showed up on the MRI. Obviously, they hadn't gotten the entire tumor. I wanted to know what could be done so any microscopic cells, that we couldn't see, could be killed before they became tumors.

You would have thought I was speaking a foreign language. The medicals knew this was rare to have all these recurrences, but, they said, she may never have another tumor. There would be no reason to subject Marie to whole brain radiation. I asked about chemotherapy. No, they said, chemotherapy is not a normal treatment for a benign tumor. It wouldn't affect the tumor because of the blood-brain barrier. For now we would proceed with the radiation treatment.