Cancer Update 4

Cancer Update 4

Cancer Update 4, possibly the most awesomess and definitely the most newestess update yet, brings us back full circle. I am once again having brain surgery, but this time there is the added excitement and very possible possibility, though extremely unlikely, that I will become one of those zombies from the walking dead (paraphrasing doctor here). I would prefer to mutate into a superhero or vampire or at the very least something a little less moldy, limpy and slimy – I just don’t want my face to have any open wounds that ooze cottage cheese and French fries.

Here’s the deal, I am the proud owner of a defused tumor (it is not a solid tumor, but rather it has a kind of chaotic web or net shape), which has become active again. Because it is defused and in a highly sensitive/complicated area of my brain that controls the motor functions of the right side of my body (along with numerous other functions) it is too risky for another resection type of surgery (it would be nearly impossible to not remove brain matter along with the cancer). This obviously limits the treatments that are available to me. There is however, the option of doing chemotherapy again. The problem is that the blood-brain-barrier limits the types of chemo that I can be on and most of the available treatments work best in conjunction with radiation, of which I have already received the life-time maximum dose allowed.

Solution? Apparently a virus.

I have been selected to be part of a trial that involves injecting a virus, which carries its own unique DNA, into all of the individual cancer strands in my noggin. The hope is that the virus will bond with and, therefore, mutate the cancer, allowing doses of an anti-viral treatment to target the infected cancer. The nine patients that have preceded me in this trial (at UCSD), have all been manually injected with the virus at the point of resection. I will be the first to undergo the treatment using a combination of cameras and robots while inside an MRI machine.

They are going to drill a quarter size hole into my skull and use a small catheter to pump the virus into the infected areas via the MRI images. The surgery will last about nine hours and there is a possibility that all that radiation from the MRI will give me cancer (lets hope not). There is also the slim chance that the virus can mutate and spread, causing, I assume, really awesome side effects. Granted, I only have Hollywood movies to base this on, but insofar as I can tell, all of the movies depicting cancer have been 100% accurate. Which is really amazing when you realize that I am only about 40% accurate. I’m working on it though.

One more cool thing about this and then I will leave you alone – promise. On top of having another extremely sexy head scar, the quarter size hole in my skull will be left alone for skin and scar tissue to fill in. I have not had a cool soft spot like this on my head since I was a baby. I have to say here, that I remember that when I was a toddler and still had that extremely sought after soft spot on my noggin, that women could not keep their hands off of me: They kissed me, squished my head into their boobs and seemed to take my pants off every chance they got. I am 90% sure that there is a correlation here and I feel that I need to be proactive in this situation: I am married. No matter how irresistible you find men with squishy bald spots on their heads, you must keep your hands to yourself. Now, I realize that this will become increasingly hard for most women when I teach myself a couple of alluring and sexually stimulating bar tricks. For example: “Ta-Da, Where did your quarter go?” Or maybe I will be able to plug my nose, blow really really hard and make bubbles. The possibilities are endless. Take care all.

I wonder if the next time I fall out of the shower and smack my head on the toilet, if it will suction cup? I will let you know.