lunhs cancer

I am not new to the world of cancer. I survived childhood osteogenic sarcoma , and have been living with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer for two and a half years. I have had my share of chemotherapy drugs (adriamycin, ifosfamide, methotrexate, carboplatin, Alimta, Avastin), I have had several radical surgeries to save my right arm, and I have been benefitting from a cutting edge targeted therapy . But, with all of these treatments, the one I have never experienced is radiation. Until this past Monday, that is. As I wrote about in " The Other Shoe ," my regularly scheduled MRI showed that while the targeted medicine I take for my ROS1 mutation is doing a fabulous job controlling the cancer in my body, some sneaky cancer cells made it into my brain. So, on Monday, I had the super fun experience of stereotactic radiotherapy. The morning started bright and early with a 7:00 a.m. check-in. I was told to take my Valium and Norco in the parking lot, so that they would start work...

Ha ha - I couldn't help myself. My dedicated readers will recall from my last post, " The Other Shoe ," that although Xalkori continues to be totally amazing at controlling the cancer in my body, it is not doing so hot in my brain.  So, as I predicted, I have amped up my participation in the medical appointment world, and have seen a radiation oncologist, a neurosurgeon, corresponded with several lung cancer specialists, and had a high-definition MRI. Having cancer is definitely a part-time job. But on the upside, I now have a RAD onc! Both the rad onc and the neurosurgeon expressed some skepticism about the two tiny spots that the MRI picked up, questioning if those were even brain mets at all (there was no question on the 9 mm one). The repeat MRI used 1-2mm slices rather than the standard 5 mm slices, so that they could get a very high definition picture of what was going on in my brain. The stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is highly precise, so they need to know detail...