On the road to recovery...

On Monday my mom went to Strong Memorial Hospital for stereotactic radiosurgery. Click on this link to learn more about it:

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/neurosurgery/neuroendocrine/treatments/Stereotactic-Radiosurgery.cfm

It went really well, but it was a very long day. We had to get to the hospital by 6am. When we arrived they took her back and got her settle in (inserted IV and gave her some sort of sedative). Then she was transported to the radiology department for the MRI. This took about 45-60 minutes to complete. After that she was transported to another department. This was the worst part of the day. They had to numb her forehead and the back of her head. At this point Peej lost it a little bit because the pain was so extreme. I love to watch medical shows, but I thought I was going to lose my breakfast. It was the most disturbing thing that I have ever seen. After her head was numb they screwed in the headgear (which was a lot heavier than we thought it would be). They actually used a screwdriver to insert the pins into her head. It was insane. Thankfully she couldn't feel this part. Fortunately at this point the worse was over.

Once the headgear was in place we were taken to another department where the CAT scan was performed with the Medical Physicists. This took about 30-45 minutes to complete. Then we were transported back to the 23 hour unit. Peej was finally able to eat some strawberry jello at this point but of course she was still starving.

We learned that Dr. Milano had an earlier opening so instead of waiting until 3:30 for the treatment, they were able to take her at 1:30pm. We were so thankful for this. The actual treatment took about 15 minutes and then they were able to take the headgear off. The spots where it was screwed in were a little tender, but they gave her some vicodin for it. We were able to leave the hospital at 3:30 which was wonderful.

Peej is feeling really good today and she is very thankful that they were able to do this procedure instead of operating and taking the tumor out. Her head has some bruising from the headgear and her eye has a small black and blue, but other than that, you wouldn't even know what happened. She has to go back in about 4 months for another MRI to see if this worked. We will keep you updated.