Head Games Part the Second

It says something about the course our lives have taken when the loss of our Internet/TV access for 14 hours (more or less) causes less more consternation and hand-wringing than the fact that one--maybe two--teeny slivers of new brain lesions have appeared inside Karen's noggin.

Karen had another MRI this past Monday and that was how we discovered the new met(s) there. While the sites she had treated previously continued to appear dormant, there was a brand new 5mm lesion on the front left portion of the brain. Another even smaller possible lesion was on the right but we'll need to wait for the star chamber of the hospital's ominous-sounding Tumor Board to determine just what the hell might or might not be happening there (it will involve fancy computer software that compensates for changing patient head positions in successive MRIs).

But that one lesion is pretty definitive so Karen will need to have it treated. And if that other one needs attention, it'll need treatment as well. As before, the course of action here will be zaps of radiation. The lesions are small enough that they could probably murder death kill those suckers in a single shot but to minimize any collateral damage to the surrounding brainmeat, the treatments will be spread out over three treatments. These will start the day after tomorrow, Tuesday the 7th.

Now, tumors in the brain are, as you'd imagine, no joke. I think if there's one thing that Karen is especially fearful of it's brain metastases. The lingering effects of her first and significantly larger radiation treatment (compounded no doubt by "chemo brain") are frustrating for her: struggling occasionally to pull the right word from the fog clouding the vocabulary chunk of her brain, some short term memory issues, and some general forgetfulness. And it's hard not to remember with a degree of dread what it was like the first time these mets appeared. Struggling to recall how to play a DVD. Wanting to say something but not finding the words. Having to nod or shake her head to yes/no questions we posed to find out what was on her mind that she couldn't say. All of that is not something she wants to return to. Who could blame her?

And yet...we took it surprisingly in stride. Because the mets are super tiny and we've been down the radiation road before and really there's no point to wetting our pants until, well, there's a good reason to urinate like firehoses. This seems totally manageable and not an especially big deal, all things considered.

So....yay?