Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Despite the name it does not actually involve any "surgery". Instead it uses a focused beam of high-dose radiation aimed directly at the tumor in the brain. Kevin had his procedure a week ago last Thursday, Aug 9th. Unfortunately they changed the plan late the night before and instead of checking in on Wed night they decided we should arrive at the hospital first thing on Thursday - 6:30 am. If there's one thing I'm learning through this journey it's to expect changes, but I still don't like it.

First an IV catheter was placed in Kev's arm for fluids and meds. Next a metal ring-frame was installed on his head. It's held in place with screws in 4 places. Local anesthesia is used to numb the area just prior to inserting the screws. I was in the room with him as they were installing the ring frame, mid-way through the process, the neurosurgeon and nurse look at me and ask if I'm OK. As typical, these procedure are much worse for me than Kev. Luckily I had a chair in a corner and could lean against the wall. After the frame was on, Kevin commented that it felt like his head was in a vise - but of course - his head WAS in a vise.

Next contrast material gets injected in though the IV. This makes the tumor very visible on the CT scans. A cage-like grid is placed over the frame and the entire thing clamps to the table. The cage acts like a grid on a map and helps the Drs determine the exact location of the tumor. After the CT scan we went to a room and waited. During this time the radio-physicist maps the tumor location and determines the best strength and directions for the radiation. Then they actually make a dry-run to verify everything works as planned. This takes about 6 hours and Kevin slept the entire time. I spent the time in silence worrying about the past, present and future.

When the neurosurgeon and radio-physicists were finished they came and got us and took us over to the Radiation dept. Kevin goes on the table with the frame secured to hold his head in position and the high-dose radiation beam is aimed at the tumor from different angles. This takes about 45 mins. The frame is removed and we go back to our room to wait the required 2 hrs (for monitoring) before we can leave. After an hour drive, we made it back home by 7:00 pm.

Now we wait until his next MRI (Sep 25) to see if it was effective. In the mean-time we continue with the chemo-therapy.