I'm Ready

I've been working pretty hard lately, trying to get the business rolling again after my stimulus check for graphic artists never showed up.

But today I think I'm going to kick-back, relax a little bit, and just get myself ready for tomorrow's Gamma Knife radiation treatment. I'm not making any promises though, I am knee-deep into a Web site right now and may find myself working on it again.

The Gamma Knife is quite an invention. It allows doctors to treat tumors in the brain in a very non-invasive way, compared to the alternative of traditional surgery. Dozens of tiny radiation beams target tumors in the brain, poisoning them with radiation, with minimal damage to surrounding healthy cells.

The whole procedure seems like something straight out of a science fiction novel.

I always forget that the radiation does not just instantly kill cancer cells. It poisons them and they slowly die over time. Since I've already had a couple of Gamma Knife treatments, this is where the doctors' attention to detail becomes so important.

The worst part of the treatment is having a metal frame literally screwed to your skull in four places. They do give me a pill or three to make me feel relaxed, then suddenly a group of doctors and nurses enter the room I'm waiting in and go right to it. They stick me with medicine to numb my head up then fit the metal frame over my head and screw it in.

Once the staff is happy with the frame's placement on my head I'm wheeled to MRI where they inject me with double the normal amount of dye and take a quick scan of my head. From that scan the doctor's and engineers plan out the treatment.

Once the treatment has been programmed into the computers I am taken into the large spooky room where the actual Gamma Knife resides.

The frame attached to my skull is attached to the table so my head cannot move even a millimeter. It's a strange sensation.

Everyone leaves the room and closes a big radiation proof door behind them (an unsettling thought). The table glides me back into the machine. I always expect to see Luke Skywalker or Han Solo at this point.

Once my frame locks into the machine everything is very quiet. You would expect a machine this large to make some kind of noise. Nothing. Complete silence.

Someone will inform me through a microphone that the treatment is about to start. Still no noise. Nothing.

The activity in my brain is very small. The largest tumor on the last scan was only two-millimeters. That has been the kind of things I have been dealing with so far. I've never had a tumor that was measured in centimeters. Typically the Gamma Knife treatment will go through a series of three or four different sets of approximately five-minute radiation periods. There is never a sound. It's all so strange.

Eventually I'll hear someone over the microphone say, "OK James, that's it. We'll be right in to get you." Nurses ease me off the table, quickly get me back into a treatment room and quickly remove the frame from my head, patching up the small holes left behind.

All in all, as crazy as it all sounds, it's not that bad. I've certainly endured much worse in this fight against this disease.

In all honesty, I could probably drive myself home just fine if it wasn't for all the drugs they pump into me before hand.

I can't thank Barb's Mom enough for volunteering to drive us in tomorrow morning for the treatment, which starts at 7 a.m. I'm happy about the early start, hopefully I'll still be half asleep when we get there.

I'll let everyone know how it goes. I'm confident it will go well. Results of the treatment, though, really won't be seen until about six-weeks afterwords when I'll have a follow-up scan.