3 years ago I was diagnosed with a grade 3 APXA brain tumor and I had to undergo surgery, radiation, and oral chemotherapy. It’s been a very long and grueling journey, but I made it through. For a while I felt like nothing was ever going to be okay again, that I would live the rest of my life in fear. I had a little bit of normalcy these past 2 years, getting MRIs every 3 months, to make sure the tumor wasn’t back/growing. All was well until this past weekend, August 16th when I had an MRI and they found that there was a small tumor near my cerebellum and fourth ventricle. After multiple appointments we have been told that surgery will be on September 1st and following that, I will complete radiation and further treatment.
Update:
After my tumor removal surgery, I began 6 weeks of radiation at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Radiation went by quickly, before I knew it 6 weeks was done! but those 6 weeks made me feel so blessed, even with the hard times. I was at a place where hundreds of people came for their treatment, left leaving drained and nauseous. At radiation I saw all kinds of people of all ages. It really put into perspective how many people are affected by this horrible disease, and how cancer does not discriminate.
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- Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since it opened more than 50 years ago.
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