The Best Encouragement Yet
One reason why I love blogging on Posterous: While Bryan in having his radiation treatment, I can sit in the waiting room and start a blog. All you have to do is start an email (the blog post) and when you're ready, send it to Posterous. It formats and posts everything real-time.
Now, while writing this post was originally in real-time, the 100% lack of reception in the underground radiation center prevented me from posting it right then and there. Instead, you'll just have to imagine we've just had our "week #1 treatment update" meeting with our radiation oncologist, secretly dubbed "Dr. McHottie" by the nurses. I almost fell over with laughter when I found this out. It turns out real-life hospital drama and nicknames are more similar to TV than I ever thought. If I see Dr. McSteamy or Dr. McDreamy, I'll be sure to let you know.
Now, Dr. McHottie is awesome. He is fun, easygoing, and most importantly, beyond smart. Luckily, Bryan and I have a few brains between us so we're able to keep up. This was our first of six weekly meetings with the radiation specialists. Since we won't know the true effects of the radiation until at least six months after the treatment ends (we're talking Christmas time), these meetings are an opportunity to get some face time with the doctors, whether we've asked for it or not.
We got some incredibly encouraging news from Dr. McHottie today. While our first pre-treatment meeting (two week ago) was all down to business, e.g. fitting Bryan for his radiation mask, bringing MRI CDs, etc., we hadn't gotten a true reaction from Dr. McHottie about his thoughts on Bryan's tumor.
That changed today, and I wanted to hug him, high-five him, chest-bump him, or whatever it is the kids do these days. He told us that when he was looking at Bryan's MRI, and tumor specifically, he was really encouraged by what he saw. He said he has seen "much, much, much worse brain stem gliomas." Further, he said we are lucky that we caught Bryan's tumor early enough to make a true difference with treatment. As it turns out, Bryan's tumor is centrally located and it's pretty small (compared to other brain tumors), so the radiation is literally only hitting the tumor and nothing else in his brain. He said that the brain itself is extremely resistant to radiation, which is great for us because that means that any beams that may touch his "healthy" brain won't cause harm. That said, the seven beams of radiation are meant to (and hopefully will) "pulvarize this tumor." Hell yeah, it will.
Overall, Dr. McHottie is thrilled with Bryan's treatment plan and the state of his tumor is general. He was excited to talk to us and to share his professional opinion of our tumor.
We walked out of there and almost had a skip in our step. Well, technically not because I was wearing heels and Bryan isn't very good at skipping, but you get the idea. We're just starting down a long and windy road, but it's conversations like today's with Dr. McHottie that put - and keep - the wind in our sails.
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