next tumor

The next MRI was three months later. the tumor was gone. Marie's eyes had cleared up, and she was good to go. Well as good as can be. She still had the memory loss from the surgery. She still had the cognizant deficits. But other than that.....she was good to go. The doctor told us that this type of tumor did not recur very often. But he did caution us, that side effects from the radiation could take up to a year to have an effect. Of course, we just wanted to think about... she was good to go.

Three more months passed. I began to notice a tired look on her face and a drooping left eye. Marie was scheduled for an MRI anyway so I didn't need to call the doctor. Guess what? The tumor was back. When I asked about the tired look and the drooped eye, the doctor didn't think those would be signs of the tumor recurrence. I didn't agree. I thought I had noticed a sign of her tumor.

Since this is a slow growing tumor, it was small, after only six months. Time for another Gamma-Knife treatment. So back to Lincoln. More medicals having team meetings to plan the approach. Not as many intervals were needed this time. But Marie hated having the macaroni strainer thing screwed into her head. Don't worry this was going to be the last time. This tumor just doesn't act like this. It's just a benign tumor anyway.

I just hated when people said that, this tumor is benign, so no big deal. This was the third procedure to handle three brain tumors, in a year and a half. She had many deficits. And no idea if life would ever get back to normal. But don't worry, its just a benign tumor. No big deal.

What the medicals didn't say was that, the first radiation treatment was just six months ago. The full effect of possible side effects was still ahead of us. Now another radiation treatment being given during that time period. Would that increase the chances of side effects? Since this was pinpoint radiation, the chance of side effects was supposed to be low. At least that's what I seemed to have thought. I just don't know if someone told me that, or if it's what I talked myself into. But it didn't matter, it was just a benign tumor anyway. No big deal.