My titanium colander is bigger than your titanium colander

So I went to the ER day before yesterday, with a nasty, nasty headache.

Preliminary diagnosis - new brain tumor. Number two in a set. Six millimeters.

Thank goodness for a week of being able to report in cancer free, last week.

Dust off your titanium colanders, everyone.


Well, we saw the PA in the neurosurgeon's office who kind of gets up my nose, but she's smart. Showed me the piccie, and I'm scheduled in for another gamma knife surgery on November 11, with the same team. The lesion is 6 mm, fairly small. I'm supposed to get a call back from Laptalo's (my regular oncologist) office, and apparently this is not as schitzo as it feels - the chest stuff IS looking really good, and once a cell has crossed the blood - brain barrier it can start to grow really quickly. So I'll have a PET scan, and then an MRI on the day of gamma knife. No chemotherapy in the offing, thank goodness.

My auntie Pat and uncle Jimmy are coming to visit from the 3rd to the 9th, and I'm going to ask them if they can stay a few extra days.

I'm hanging in, not sleeping wonderfully, but whatever, about like usual. I recently got on touch with Stanford to participate in clinical trials, since I'm rapidly becoming a statistical anomaly. I'd really like to be able to help out other metastatic breast cancer patients, and people like me they can use for trials are a relatively small pool. I'm on deck for one a sleep study - where I go down and sleep in a fauncy hotel in Palo Alto with sensors all over me. Not too rough. Apparently insomnia after chemo and such is a really, really common problem. Then I can be in line for new chemotherapy trials as well, if we need it down the line.

I'll put updates on the blog, as well.