Oligoastrocytoma.\u00a0 Sounds more like something the Starship Enterprise would encounter in the Delta Quadrant rather than an offensive growth in my head.\u00a0 And if Picard and his crew were handy, there would be no problem here at all.\u00a0 Dr. Crusher would just wave that little flashy thing over my left ear and I\u2019d get back to my duty station.\u00a0 Which would probably be a gold shirt position in Engineering middle management I\u2019d think.\u00a0 I’d hopefully report directly to Geordi LaForge.<\/p>\n
My initial results post from Friday pretty much went into a tailspin starting\u00a0when the second consultation of the day began.\u00a0 So pretty much forget that one.\u00a0 Consider it obsolete.\u00a0 Just another opinion really.<\/p>\n
The specific makeup of my particular style of tumor occurs only with about 2.3 percent of all primary brain tumors.\u00a0 So, like many things about me, it\u2019s a rarity too.\u00a0 Adding the complexity of where it is and what it\u2019s dancing around with makes the whole thing \u201cspecial\u201d.\u00a0 Hurray.\u00a0 I have a \u201cspecial\u201d brain tumor.\u00a0 Go figure.\u00a0 I can\u2019t just do anything simple.\u00a0 Never could.\u00a0 I always have to take it over the top.\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s just the ABC\u2019s of me.<\/p>\n
From a treatment and prognosis perspective, there is no question that getting it out-out-out is by far the best possible situation.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that is not a simple task.\u00a0 In fact, there are only a handful of surgeons that even practice the resection of a tumor like mine.\u00a0 The most common treatment is blast it with chemotherapy and photon radiation.\u00a0 And hope for the best.\u00a0 And hope for longevity and ultimately survive as long as possible.\u00a0 There are a whole lot of statistics out there that propose to estimate the survival rates in a timeline format.\u00a0 But unfortunately, the statistics are simply not accurate enough to really take with any accuracy because virtually every situation is different.\u00a0 Brains are different.\u00a0 Each of our functional junctions are slightly different.\u00a0 Different pathways.\u00a0 Different densities.\u00a0 Different clusters of synapse areas.\u00a0 It\u2019s quite elaborate as you might already imagine.<\/p>\n
Based on a very strong opinion of our primary neuro-oncologist and others from Mass General, we are gathering and sending all materials that we have in hand such as the multitude of MRIs, CAT scans, biopsy results, etc and sending it all to a Master Jedi Brain Tumor Specialist in San Francisco.\u00a0 This surgeon and his team are considered among the very best on Earth when it comes to \u201cinoperable\u201d brain tumors.\u00a0 Let\u2019s call him Master Jedi Mitch.\u00a0 Master Jedi Mitch will look at the materials and make a decision if he thinks there is a potential for getting it out.\u00a0 If he feels the potential is there, Kasey and I will get out to San Fran post-haste and I\u2019ll undergo a day or two of very intense brain function mapping down to the superfine detail.\u00a0 If that information shows the likelihood of a successful extraction without serious collateral damage, then things will quickly go in that direction.\u00a0 If not, then the following steps are the same with or without the surgery.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been recommended for proton radiation to avoid the more common photon radiation based on the various elements of the overall situation.\u00a0 You can Google if you want the fine detail, but proton radiation is a far more focused and accurate method of delivering the helpful radiation without damaging the surrounding healthy brain stuff.\u00a0 And in my particular case, the surrounding healthy stuff includes some mighty important functions such as speech, fine motor skill, and control of half of my torso.\u00a0 Other things like logic and multitasking are linked in as well.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to hang on to all of them as much as possible.\u00a0 But that is not saying that I wouldn\u2019t make the trade-off of some function(s) in trade for longevity.<\/p>\n
The proton radiation would happen simultaneously with chemotherapy via Temodal, which is a newer pill-based treatment which thankfully avoids the daily intravenous bummer.\u00a0 I would be spending six weeks in Boston for this treatment since proton radiation therapy is only available in 8 cancer centers in the USA.\u00a0 It won\u2019t be fun, but I will commit to use the time wisely.\u00a0 More on that down the road.<\/p>\n
So, to summarize:<\/p>\n
Best option:\u00a0 Master Jedi Mitch extracts this thing from my skull, I get proton radiation and Temodal chemotherapy.\u00a0 I go into perpetual remission and live out my normal life with just the black cloud up overhead somewhere with the ever-present knowledge knowing\u00a0a storm\u00a0could build up again.<\/p>\n
Second best option:\u00a0 No surgery, just the proton radiation and Temodal chemotherapy, frequent MRI\u2019s for monitoring what progress is being made, and hoping for as much longevity as can be had.\u00a0 Which will simply be an unknown until the end of my time.\u00a0 There would just be no way to predict something like this.\u00a0 The regular MRI scanning would be the only tell-tale of if things are growing or shrinking or reaching out to other more\u00a0vital parts of my central computer.<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s about all I\u2019ve got in me for now.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be sign off on this entry by assuring all of you that I am feeling strong in mind and spirit.\u00a0 The future really is unknown for each and every one of us.\u00a0 I just happen to have a little hint of one possibilty that may be my ultimate demise.<\/p>\n
And now a quote from one of my favorite fictional characters:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like, in general, to treat people with much more care and respect. I would like to climb a tall hill, sit in the cool grass and feel the sun on my face.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0~R<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oligoastrocytoma.\u00a0 Sounds more like something the Starship Enterprise would encounter in the Delta Quadrant rather than an offensive growth in my head.\u00a0 And if Picard and his crew were handy, there would be no problem here at all.\u00a0 Dr. Crusher would just wave that little flashy thing over my left ear and I\u2019d get back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-entries","category-medical-and-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172,"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bromee.com\/zen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}