The News in More Detail

First of all, the spots are so small that the neurosurgeon didn't even see them on the scan. They could do the gamma knife on these places, but the fear is that there are other places even smaller than the ones that they found. By doing radiation on his whole brain, they hope to catch everything. The bad thing about melenoma is that some spots don't always respond to treatment. The doctor said that if some of the spots don't respond they can go and target those places with the gamma knife.

While the chemo appears to be working in the rest of Keith's body, it is not effective in the brain. The doctor said that the brain just doesn't get enough of the chemo to make a difference. There is no way to tell whether the growths have been there for some time or they are new. It would be much better if they were old. If they are new growths, it means that the chemo isn't working because cancer cells are still floating around in Keith's body.

The side effects of the raidation are a bit scarey. There are some minor ones like redness of the skin, headaches, and nausea. Memory loss and a slowness of thinking are the more serious side effects. In 5-10% of the cases they are permanent. Despite all of this, we are going to go ahead with the procedure. The results of doing nothing would probably be worse than any side effect that Keith may experience.

Keith will start receiving radiation on Tuesday. He will get treatments every weekday for 3 weeks. The neuroradiologist spoke to Keith's oncologist, and we are going to push Keith's next chemo treatment back 1 week, which means that Keith will get chemo and radiation the last week.

One of my questions yesterday was at what point do we say enough is enough. They all feel that it is worthwhile to do the radiation at this time. Keith's body seems to be responding to the chemo, which means there is hope. If his body had not responded to the chemo, they would probably not recommend the radiation.

Keith still has a good attitude about all of this. Please pray that he continues to be positive and have hope. Pray that God will grant us the tools that we need to overcome this obstacle. The next three weeks are going to be hard. We live about an hour from the hospital, so that means 2 hours on the road each day. I think the doctor said that Keith's treatment would take about 30 minutes. I'm not sure what the wait will be like before he receives his treatment each day.

We're doing okay with all of this. To say that this is hard is an understatement. Our hope is in God. No matter what happens he will somehow be glorified through all of this. I will admit that I don't see how he is working in all of this, but I know that he has a plan.