Well, here we go again. Once or twice a year I travel to Houston for a check up on my brain cancer.  Each time I have an MRI and then go to chat with the doctor about my progress. Each trip is like going to the chopping block – one of these time the ax is going to fall – but I don’t know when. For the last decade, I went to see the doctor and each time was told that the brain tumor was stable – until January 2018 when the ax fell. The doctor told me that they couldn’t see any progress from 2017 to 2018, but they could see a difference between 2013 and 2018 MRIs.  That means that my brain tumor is growing – but very slowly.  The doctor recommended that I consider radiation in the coming years. It was a kick in the nuts.

In February of 2019, I went through the program again.  I traveled to Houston, MRI and then chatted with the doctor.  Again, couldn’t see much – but there is still a difference. The resident said the difference was on the size of millimeters or less.  She recommended radiation for the tumor.  Another kick in the nuts.  I asked for a timetable of radiation.  They recommended soon rather than later.  Sooner as in 2-3 years from now or sooner as in 2-3 months from now or sooner as in don’t leave the hospital?  Doc said sooner as in 2-3 months from now.  Another kick in the nuts.  They recommended I do proton radiation therapy – different from regular radiation because it is less penetrating (using protons instead of photons – I guess I studied chemistry in college for this reason).

I would be content for radiation therapy if my brain tumor was in my knee.  Or of my brain tumor was in my stomach.  But the idea of getting blasted by radiation in my brain is a little daunting.  As the nuerosurgeon who noodled my brain in 2010 told me, “We are working with the high-priced real estate here.”

So here I am again. More accurately, here we are again. Jenn and I are again headed down the road of cancer therapy.  I am fairly sure this is going to suck my butt in a whole new way.

I am going to try and blog about this stage in the journey.  If you want to read about the previous road of discovering the cancer, surgery, chemo and such, go to meandmybraintumor.wordpress.com.