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BRAIN TUMOR CANCERWhen you begin lung cancer treatment the fear is overwhelming. The stories you have heard bang and crash at your brain. When you are battling brain tumor cancer, the brain tumors are often treated with whole head radiation. The experience is a terrifying mixture of hope, expectation, dread, and utter fear. But it's something you must do. That's what the doctor says. This is your chance for survival. So you follow where you are led.EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER THREE "About 3 o'clock, in walks a nice lady with a wheel chair. Ivan is going to radiation. Somebody must have read something to make something begin happening, because off we went with the nice lady pushing the wheelchair. Her name was Ruth. She had such a pretty smile. Her friendly chatter on the way to radiology lightened the weight in our hearts. She was a welcome relief from the no-nonsense, no-time nurses we had been dealing with. We noticed a difference as soon as we arrived in the radiation department. The staff here seemed to understand the terror in our hearts. They briefly told us what they were going to do. It would take about a half-hour. The nurse took Ivan's arm and led him away. I thought of Auschwitz. "Ivan must feel something like those poor souls who were led down the hall for experiment." My eyes filled with tears. My husband, who had seldom been sick a day in his life, who had never been in a hospital, was heading into the radiation lab to get purple marks on his head so they could shoot laser beams at him. He, whose favorite author is Louis L'Amour and whose favorite books are westerns, was walking into a room that looked like it was straight out of a science fiction paperback. He had to have been terrified, but he kept his terror within. I couldn't sit. I began to walk. Because we had to return here the next day, I decided I would try to find the main entrance of the hospital from where we were. It would be easier tomorrow if I knew how to get from the main lobby to the radiation department. I walked slowly down the hall of the radiation unit. A display showed hats and turbans and make-up to make ladies feel more attractive after they lose their hair. I stood at the elevator. The word "Oncology" was on the wall. Up to now, that was a word for other people. Now it was a word for us. I found my way to the main entrance. Slowly I wandered back to the radiology waiting area and picked up a magazine. It was a cancer magazine. Our new world was a one-word world. Cancer. They brought Ivan back. He smiled at me with his special, crooked smile, "That wasn't bad! And, the nurses are sure pretty!" In his hands, he carried a white mesh mask. It had been form-fitted to his face to mark the proper vectors for the radiation beams. It looked a lot like the mask that Hannibal Lechter wore in the movie, Silence of the Lambs. He held it up to show me what it looked like on his face. We kidded and made light of the situation, all the while trying to cover the terror in our hearts." MORE EXCERPTS: Prologue - Cancer Chapter One - Lung Cancer Chapter Two - The Moment Chapter Ten - The Gamma Knife Personal Notes on the Battle with Lung Cancer Chapter Twenty - Cancer Survival  |