Posts from Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

The Diagnosis

Published 10 years, 7 months past

Rebecca has grade 3 (anaplastic) astrocytoma.  With six weeks of proton radiation bombardment of her brain and a year of mild chemotherapy, she still has a 50% chance of dying at some point in the next five years.  Because if, after all that treatment, another tumor emerges, there are no more treatments that will help.  We will only be able to watch her die.

On the other hand, if she survives those five years, her chances of growing to adulthood are excellent.  In the meantime, her quality of life will not be terrible, however long it lasts.

There are very few proton treatment facilities in this country (or any other), but one of them is the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  We have already decided that is where she will receive her treatment, which will begin after two weeks of intensive planning.  I don’t yet know where in Philadelphia we will live for the next two months; not in the hospital, as the radiation therapy is outpatient, and we will be discharged once she regains her physical strength.  I know we will find a place, one way or the other.  For now, she is still in the hospital, and we are trying to face each day as it comes.

Kat and I are still deep in shock.  Carolyn is struggling mightily to cope with everything that’s happening to her sister, her family, and her life.  Rebecca is still physically extremely weak and doesn’t want to know what the doctors said.

Me either.

I don’t have much else to say right now.


Browse the Archive