Tomorrow we are off to see the radio-oncologist. I am feeling very anxious about this visit. This visit is just to get an opinion on whether radiation would be suitable, so I don't necessarily expect to come out with a treatment plan. But I am hopeful.
Of course I have been doing some Dr. Googling about gamma-knife radiation. It is possible to find some scholarly articles that give alot of information and are reliable on google. One article I found was published quite recently (alot of what I have found is older, or if published recently, uses old data. I find this interesting - meningioma's seem an under-researched area). This article found that 60% of patients receiving radiation reported a decrease in symptoms, and they had a 85-90% success rate in stopping tumour growth. Fantastic! Then they went on to say that there was a 10% mortality rate. Bugger. Don't plan on dying from this thing though, so I might choose to ignore that fact.
After reading this article I was getting very excited that it may be an effective treatment to get rid of blobby. Then I found another article which discussed that radiation is not suitable for tumours near the brainstem or those that cause vertigo symptoms. Bugger again. I guess I really need to just wait and see what the specialist says.
However while looking around at things I did find a term that better describes my symptoms - Disequilibrium. While I was reading about it, I just about burst into tears as it exactly explains how I felt during the pregnancy. It is a relief to put a word to how I've been feeling as "vertigo" isn't quite correct.
Hopefully tomorrow will bring some more answers and an action plan!
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