Another Exceptional Outcome

I checked into the same day surgery area just before 6 AM and was quickly surrounded by my radiation team.  An unexpected added little bonus was that both of my prep nurses - Marilyn and Connie - were repeats from my first gamma knife.  It was nice to interact with folks I already knew rather than complete strangers.

After an MRI confirmed that enough post-surgical swelling had subsided to proceed with the gamma knife treatment, I was sedated and the 4 screws were placed in my head.  This time when I woke up there wasn't the shock of waking up to a large halo on my head that I could not have dreamed up in my wildest imagination.

Even though this tumor and tumor bed were much smaller, it took almost two hours for Dr. Kim, the radiation surgeon, and Dr. Chen, the physicist, to plot and chart the course, then program the machine.  The blessing is I was not two days post lung biopsy and dealing with that discomfort.  All I had to contend with was trying to find a way to be comfy with my weighty and unwieldy halo.  Ultimately, once they connect my titanium halo with the much larger stereo-tactic frame (pictured on the cart below) that slides into the radiation machine, I don't have to support the weight of the entire conglomeration.

Biggest Bonus: I could eat while I waited as a distraction and I was starving since I hadn't eaten since the night before due to the anesthesia.  Best of all, it was all the good food my daughter instructed be packed.  The tricky part is getting the food through the maze of metal and into your mouth before it falls off the utensil (but where there is a will, there is way).


The treatment was finished in just under two hours.  Keith and I were headed to the car by 3 PM and I was home in my own bed icing down my screw holes before 4 PM.  If I am to experience side effects, they should manifest within 72 hours. So far, so good: 32 hours have passed and I have not exhibited any of the harsher potential side effects from the radiation (only fatigue).  Only 40 more hours to go. 


FYI: The transport escort pushing my wheel chair when we departed wanted me to know that even though there are patients with every kind of cancer down at Karmanos, I helped him complete his 'bucket list' of various cancers as I was his first brain cancer patient at Karmanos.  So glad to be of service to him!