10/05 - A dyslexic man walks into a bra...

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Wednesday, October 05, 2005
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The other night I was awakened by son #2. “My feet hurt” he
said. The next day I found that he has feet as flat as my sweet
wife’s. I examined his cheep tennis shoes and said, “Remind me
when I get home one night, and we’ll go buy some shoes that have
a little more support in them.”

Tonight I didn’t have anything scheduled, so when I got home I
asked son #2 if he wanted to go. “Naw, we can do it tomorrow” he
said. I said, “I might be busy tomorrow, and might not be in
such a generous mood.” He relented and said he’d go.

“Hey Jr!” I called to son #4, “You wanna go with us?” Of course
he did. As we got to the car, my sweet wife came out and said,
“As long as you’re going, son #2 needs some church pants too.
Oh, and son #4 needs some underwear.” I rolled my eyes, “Oh,
fine trying to spend ~all~ of my money tonight, aren’t you?” She
just smiled. I said, “Ok, is there anything I ~need~ to get
tonight?” In her impish way she said, “Yeah, I could use a new
bra.” I shook my head and said, “Yeah, right.” And we drove off.

We looked around for some tighty whiteys for son #4, but didn’t
find any small enough. So, we headed off to the shoe department.
I sent son #2 off to look at shoes, “I’m going to look over here
for underwear in the right size. We’ll be right back.” As we
walked by the women’s section, son #4 ran over and grabbed a
push-up bra and held it out for me. “Here dad, this is for mom.”
I said, “Hey, put that back. Mom can get her own.” Then I
reached over to grab it and put it back on the rack. He stated
to take off and said, “No, mom said to get this!” After about 3
steps I caught him and put back the merchandise.

Ouch...

Ok, now, back to reality. Today is 7 weeks since they took out
the tumor from son #4’s head. (And 2 weeks since they put his
bone flap back in). The docs say we have to start radiation
treatment within 8 weeks. With this type of tumor and a gross
total resection, the ‘experts’ in this field (the children’s
oncology group), recommend 33 treatments of 3d conformal
radiation. This would be M-F, 5 days a week, for 6 and-a-half
weeks, putting him under each day for treatment. “Photon”
radiation like this goes in one side of the head, all the way
through the brain, and out the other side. The new 3d photon
radiation takes that beam of radiation, splits it into something
like 8 or 10 little “beamlets”, has the beamlets come from
different angles and converge on one spot in the tumor bed.
(Kind of like 8 Scouts on a night hike, shining all of their
flashlights at a dead rabbit on the trail.) The thought is that
several small beamlet rays will got through 8 or 10 different
lines through the brain, but with much less intensity than one
large beam. It sounds kind of nifty cool, but still having more
of his brain affected, even with small amounts of radiation is
still dangerous. Long term side effects may include; no chance
of regaining site in his right eye, hearing problems, ADHD,
learning disabilities, pituitary glad and growth problems, loss
of 10% or more of his present and future IQ, etc. Not to mention
short term side effects such as nausea, hair loss, and more.

That is our first choice. Our second choice is something called
“proton” radiation. This is similar to single beam regular
radiation, but using a proton matter beam, not photon energy.
With proton matter radiation, they use actual matter made of
protons. The proton matter would be shot into his head, but
because it’s actual matter, it won’t go all the way through the
brain and good tissue. They say they can stop the matter within
something like a half centimeter of the tumor bed. This should
alleviate some of the long term side effects. The only problem
is that there are only 3 places in the US that do it. Loma Linda
California, Bloomington Indiana, and (?) Boston Mass. There’s a
longer waiting time, and we’re not sure insurance will pay for
it.

Our third choice is to just watch and wait. The 3d conformal
radiation technician said that if we don’t do anything, there is
a 40-60% chance the tumor will reappear (and more than likely be
much more aggressive) but if we choose 3d radiation, it will
only cut those chances in half, to a 20-30% chance of
reoccurrence.

So, we’ve got a big decision to make in the next couple of days.
My sweet wife and I are asking that you keep us in your prayers
so that with our Father in Heaven’s help, we will make the right
decision.

For those of you who get this as email...
Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today
is a gift. That's why we call it the present."
~Babatunde Olatunji

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Reader Comment Section:

>(He didn’t realize its 25¢ for adults and a buck for adults)

So, is it 25¢ for adults? Or 25¢ for adults?
:-)
~Doug S.

[Ahh... but you failed to mention that I at least spelled
everything correctly this time. So fooie on you! (grin)]