It's back

I have had to take a couple of days to process the information, stop freaking out just below the surface and gather my thoughts.

My stepdad's brain tumour is back. Again...in the same spot they had treated with the gamma knife radiation a little less than a year ago. Yes...it is still malignant. I immediately flashed back to last year when I had gotten the call from Val saying..."Your father is sick...he has a brain tumour. We don't know if it is cancer or not" Then a couple of days the dreaded call..."It's cancer." Many MRI's later we found out "Mr. Manfredi...you also have lung cancer." Thankfully both cancers were unrelated and we weren't dealing with a trail of tumours but when you hear the word cancer you panic...when you hear the words brain cancer you freak the hell out.

Well after talking to various oncologists, specialists, neurosurgeons etc Dad and Val came to the decision of trying a fairly new procedure as far as treatment goes. It is called gamma knife surgery. The gist of it is they put a helmut of sorts on his head. This helmut is full of pinsized holes through which they shoot high levels of radiation to very specific parts of the brain. He had this done followed by many rounds of full head radiation...5 hours of travelling a day for 12 treatment days in Winnipeg. He was so tired...his appetite was shot. But he made it. Many MRI's later the tumour was disappearing! YAY!

Just shortly after his radiation treatments were finished it was off to surgery to remove the lung cancer tumour. Thankfully that was caught in the early stages and they felt they got it all with no need for chemo. They wouldn't have found the lung tumour if it weren't for the million MRI's he had to have after they discovered the brain tumour. Talk about a double edged sword.

Well less than a year later here we sit again...the tumour is back. Smaller this time. The surgeon and oncologist are optimistic that this round of gamma knife surgery and radiation therapy will be THE one to kill the cancer for good. I am TRYING really hard not to think about "what if it doesn't work again?". If he can be possitive about it and say "This is IT this time" then so can I right? I keep having to tell myself this.


So....



THIS IS IT THIS TIME!!!!!!!!!!

*This picture of Dad was taken after his gamma, radiation and lung surgery.