Our New Journey

On June 9th, 2011, my husband was feeling ill. He said that he was dehydrated and needed to go to the hospital for fluids. I mentioned to the nurses that I was concerned because he had seemed a little different over the past week. After a few tests, it was revealed that a tumor had taken up residence in his brain. A biopsy soon followed. As the surgeon talked about the results of the biopsy, the dreadful word "cancer" was born into our lives, changing it forever.

Through this blog, I shared the early years of this journey.

Several years later, I'm elated to report that he is doing very well, back to work and life. Seeing him now, you would never know that he has been through such a battle.

Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers.

-Gilly

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Mind over Mask


Thank you all for the wonderful thoughts from my last post. Our current hurdle has to do with this mask.

Last week we met with the doctor again to find that the pathology report came back and the cancer is a grade 2. However, MRI images suggest the possibility that grade 3 or 4 exists beyond the samples that the neurosurgeon took. Not taking any chances, Joe will be going ahead with treatment as if nastier stuff is in the tumor. This will mean 33 treatments of radiation (at 5 times a week) and oral chemo simultaneously.

As you can imagine, we are both anxious for this treatment to begin. We have one little problem...

The picture above is the mask that he needs to wear for a CT scan to map out the path of radiation so that it hits as much of the globby tumor as possible and as little of the important brain cells as possible. After the mapping of Joe's brain, he will wear the mask for each of the radiation treatments.

The problem with this mask is that it needs to be bolted to a table with Joe in it. As you may imagine the very thought, let alone the act, of being bolted down to a table by his head is far from appealing. It seems to have evoked a primal urge of needing to survive prompting Joe to freak out as soon as the mask is on his head. We've tried two trips, both with high doses of anti-anxiety medication. Neither were successful.

Tonight we met with a hypnotherapist, Priscilla Jaynes, and I am very optimistic about tomorrow's appointment. She spent a long time talking to us, getting to know Joe and the struggle ahead of him. She was kind and reminded him that his fear is only his body trying to protect itself from perceived danger, danger the brain senses at a subconscious level. After a long discussion, she proceeded with hypnosis. Through the hypnosis, she gave him tricks to distract the mind. She told us that the mind will only be in one place at a time, so she had him create a very vivid image of going on vacation with his beautiful wife to pull his mind out of the mask and to a much better place.

She have him many other helpful suggestions as well, not just for dealing with the mask, but dealing with the tumor. I got to listen to the session and came out very relaxed.

Joe is now home really relaxed, and has directions of listening to the CD of the session over and over again tonight.

Tomorrow we have another appointment with radiation. I am hopeful that between unlocking some of the power in his mind as well as trying a different anti-anxiety medication that he will be on his way to the next step of his recovery.

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