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I didn't take long, after we returned from Houston, to hear from MD Anderson. The spine MRI showed no sign of tumors. We would proceed with surgery. That was the good news. The bad news was, that didn't rule out the existence of microscopic cells in the spinal fluid. They could be there, which meant, even after surgery, the tumors could come back at any time. The radiation oncologist had explained to us, that whole brain radiation could reduce the possibility of recurrence, by 50%. That's if the cells were present, which no one knew. The tumors had been coming back almost every year. By cutting the chance in half, would that mean every other year? All these treatments were starting to sound less like a cure, and more like a delay. But a delay of what? Were they trying to buy time, waiting for research to come up with a cure? Was doing something, more reasonable than doing nothing?  I do believe the medicals were doing everything they could think of.

The trouble with this tumor is there is no owners manual. This was all so rare, there just wasn't much for the doctors to go on. Normal benign brain tumor procedures were being followed. Surgery, radiation, radiation, radiation, radiation, more surgery. Chemotherapy was talked about, but ruled out at that time. It just wasn't reasonable to do. They told us that chemotherapy just didn't have much  success against benign brain tumors.


We spent our time filling out leave of absence and FMLA paperwork. Arranging care for the dog. Putting jobs on hold. In three weeks we would be back in Houston, for Marie's surgery, and we didn't know when we would be back.