Back again

Spoke with the doc yesterday and it looks like I have to go back again. There is another branch of the tumor just a bit deeper that seems to be starting to grow. It may have been there before and we couldn't see it until now. The whole process of this is a bit confusing at times.

Initially the doctor cut a bit beyond the original tumor in hope to get anything that may existed that we could not see out as well. The concern with this was that it may effect my speech/language. So to minimize the risk, he just went a bit beyond the original tumor. Since it did not seem to effect my speech, we are going to go a bit deeper in hope again to get this piece of the tumor and anything just a bit beyond. The thought is that since it didn't effect the speech, that the speech part of the brain must be sitting higher then where the tumor currently sits. There are other risks but we are just going to have to see how things work out.

The plan for now is another surgery through the same entrance of my head on Nov 17. During the surgery they are going to place strips similar to a wafer in the effected area of the brain to treat it with chemotherapy. By doing chemo this way they are able to have a direct contact with a higher dosage then what you would be able to get out of the normal injection into the blood stream, that would still have to travel through the body up into the brain. This should keep me from getting very sick and losing my hair. It will cause some swelling and possibly some headaches but it sounds like it will be better then the conventional method.

After surgery and the chemo process, its sounds like we will be doing radiation as well. The theory on this is that the tumor will be mostly removed or reduced. Hopefully we can catch any cells left trying to divide and multiply and treat them with a daily schedule of radiation for a while.

That's the plan for now. Looks like we will end up being at our place for Thanksgiving.

Thank you everyone for all your thoughts prayers and best wishes. Sorry that we haven't been able to contact everyone but this seems like a good way to stay in touch with everyone. It takes a lot out of you and others to verbally communicate all that's going on to everyone.

Brenton