Ver Beek Blog

My cancer has been deemed “pokey”.  That’s a good thing.  While the scans from Saturday show that all the tumors are growing, they are growing slowly or as oncologists call it “slight progression”.  They did not find any new cancer.  Praise God!  What they did find, however, was a slightly enlarged lymph node in my abdominal region, but they’re not concerned about it right now.

Dr. Schott has recommended that I do stereotactic radiosurgery  on my brain.  This is the as Gamma Knife which I did at Mayo in 2010.  She is impressed with how I responded to that surgery and she would like to do it again on the new spot in my brain.

As far as chemo is concerned, she doesn’t see the need to start chemo right now because the spots in my lungs aren’t large enough (thank you pokey cancer).  She would prefer to save the chemo options for when I really need it.  As you may or may not know, the more chemo drugs a person is exposed to, the more immune the cancer cells become to the drugs, thereby becoming less effective.  I hope I’m explaining that right to all you medical people out there.

I’m going back to U of M Monday for a very specific MRI, to meet the neurosurgeon, and to meet the radiation oncologist.

I believe the next step will be the procedure.  Just thinking about the procedure puts a great amount of fear in me.  Call me a wuss, but having screws turned into your skull while awake isn’t fun.