Robbie and I got back from the New England Gamma Knife Center in Rhode Island two weeks ago where she went for treatment for her non-cancerous brain tumor. Each day (for five days) she had a series of gamma knife treatments where she got 23 shots of radiation. Each one took from 1-4 minutes (depending on the location/dosage), but it took 5-10 minutes for them to set up her head for each dose, so the whole thing took about 3 hours each day. I took some pictures because her head gear was pretty funny looking. The screws that go into her skull to hold it on were a bit gruesome, tho. Definitely Frankensteinish.
The gamma knife radiation machine was very cool looking, right out of Star Wars, and the software that her doctor used to set it all up is really amazing. He’s quite the neat guy, and after he went through the whole plan with us, we were more convinced than ever that she made the right decision to go there.
She’s doing pretty well since we got back. She tires easily and her symptoms are pretty much the same, some days worse than others. They put her on some steroids for a couple of weeks to see if that helps. She’s also going for acupuncture twice per week.
We’re glad to be finished with this phase, so now it’s just wait for 6 months till the next MRI to see if there are signs that the tumor’s dying and shrinking.