Dates are set

We received the call today - radiation begins May 6th.  On April 27th, Stefan goes in to have his mask fitted (every superhero needs a mask), gets his cat scan, and more info on radiation.

We met with the chemo doctor today.  Stefan's pre-surgery tumour was the size of a mandarin orange, we didn't get the post-surgery fruit, but it was confirmed they removed about 98% of the tumour.  Stefan kind of lucked out again as they called him as he was on his way to the cancer agency to say they wanted to book him in for an MRI this afternoon - he managed to squeeze it in before the appointment with the Dr. 

The meeting was pretty straight forward.  Didn't go into a lot of detail since we won't be doing Chemo (Stefan's genetics weren't working in our favour were the Dr.s words).  But we did get confirmation that radiation now rather then later is the way to go.

Dr.'s comments:

• there is nothing worse then a growing tumour in the brain
• where it is situated in the brain, risk of losing language and memory with tumour growth
• goal of radiation is to stop growth for as long as possible
• eventually - the tumour will start to grow again - we don't know when - but just hope that it's not for a long time
• if/when it does start to grow again, we can try chemo
• main short term effect is fatigue
   - speaking to members within our support group who have had radiation, they were tired for a full year following treatment (ie. didn't return to work for a year), and at their peak of fatigue were sleeping 22 hours a day
• other side effects include:
  -headaches, nausea, vomiting
  -hair loss
  -short term memory loss
• the Dr. didn't get to into the long term effects, we are aware of some of them. 
• the long term effects don't usually impact someone until 5, 10, 20 years after radiation (sobering reality is that they are focusing on getting Stefan there, hence why I don't think they go into too much detail on long term effects)
• radiation will take place 5 days a week for 5 and a half weeks,  he should be in and out of the cancer clinic within 40 minutes

And....the best news of the day, Stefan got permission to drive!  He'll take a test run this weekend.  Of course, once radiation starts, this will probably go on hold again, but he can drive in the meantime.

If you think you can help some days with taking Stefan to radiation, please email me at taleen.lageston@gmail.com

Hope everyone has a great Easter!  We will be enjoying it with our 'walking everywhere' little girl!