My final Surgeons appointment: Horatio lives on

Alright, so I met with my Surgeon and also the Chief of Staff today in Hamilton where we reviewed the MRI together and I was shown the mass in my brain that they couldn't remove. Yeah you read that right: That they couldn't remove :( I asked both of them how much was removed and I was told that probably between 50-75% but they of course can not be certain. As I hear them say that they were unable to remove about 25-50% of the tumor my heart sank. I knew they probably wouldn't be able to get it all but to hear that it could be as high as half of the tumor it just felt like someone sucker punched me. I was told that with the tumor and location that they had a 7cm area in which they could work with removing it without affecting too much. I was told that had they gone any deeper to try and remove anymore of the tumor that they could have possibly blinded me, left me deaf or severely affected my speech and because of my age they didn't want to do that. The Chief of Staff put me through my paces and had me do some monkey tricks as I call them to see how I'm walking, talking, seeing, etc and both him and my Surgeon seemed impressed with how well I'm doing. They figured I'd have many more issues post surgery that most people that have brain tumors removed do experience but were happy that I wasn't.

And now I cut ties with my Surgeon, and as I left his office I shook his hand and simply said, "Thank you, and on't take this the wrong way but I hope to never see you again", to which he smiled and replied "that would be great."

Now I am in the hands of my Oncologist and the people at the Juravinksi Cancer Centre in Hamilton for further Treatment. That reatment should be Chemotherapy and Radiation but what kind and what schedule I won't know until tomorrow when I meet with them again. I will let you all know tomorrow how my appointment goes, for now I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that I'll get some good news tomorrow and learn that I can take the Chemo Pill. Some good news would be nice. Yeah it really would.

~Tara