 
Welcome to the recovery update page for Steve Cooke.
3-13-03
We're back! What a week. Steve and I feel like we're living in a Star Wars Episode after his treatment at UCSF Wednesday. Most of you know what a whussy Steve can be when he's sick. Well, he sure knows how to handle the big stuff. I can't believe what he went through with the Gamma Knife treatment. He definately is a man-of-steel.
It's amazing to see what progress Doctors and Researchers are making to treat cancer. Steve and I arrived at the hospital at 5:30 am on Wednesday, by 6 o'clock we were in pre-op getting ready for the day's procedure. Steve had 4 shots in his skull to numb the area where the screws would be screwed into his head to keep the halo in place. I was with Steve during all of this. Ouch! I don't know how he did it, just watching it hurt me. They put the halo in place and screwed the four screws into his skull. Oh my! Dr. Berger (big,guy) used a screwdriver and kept cranking those screws into his skull. I took pictures so people would believe all this. When the halo was in place we went down to x-ray for the MRI, this would help the Gamma Team register and line up the tumor and radiation beam sites. By 8 o'clock we were put into a waiting room. We waited until 11 o'clock for the team (this consisted of 4 Doctors, 2 nurses and several x-ray techs)to transfer the MRI images to the computer to map a beam area to shoot around the tumor.
Steve was laid flat on a table with a vice like mechanism to hold the helmet, halo and his head. The halo was attached to the helmet. The helmet looks like the top of RT-D2 in Star Wars. It has 200 cylinders with different size holes in each, which radiation beams pass through. The beams radiate around the edge of the tumor, like a knife slicing it out. You're rotated at different angeles to get the whole area, this process took about two hours. By two o'clock were we on our way back to the hotel.
The Gamma Knife team was very excited about the procedure and said it went exceptionally well. We came home today. We were too exhausted to even think about coming home on Wednesday. Steve will start the second part of his new chemo treatment tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be able to tolerate the second medication. We will return to UCSF in 6 weeks with an MRI taken in Roseville to see if this chemo treatment keeps the tumor in check. Yesterday, was our son Chris' 25th birthday so we know having this procedure on his special day is a good omen.
On Monday when we were at UCSF having blood drawn and a pre-op physical we ran into two new/old friends, Ron and Ginger. Last year we all met in the waiting room at the surgeon's office while having pre-op physicals. Steve and Ron had their surgeries on the same day. They also have the same type of cancer. Ginger and Barb supported each other while the guy's were having surgery. Ron is a character, he and Steve hit it off immediately. They both have the same out look as we do about beating this thing. Steve was jealous when he saw Ron, he had a beautiful full head of hair already. But we had to remember that Ron hadn't had radiation. It was so good to see them both. Keep up the fight Ron and Ginger!
We also had dinner with two dear friends Natalie and Al Faung. Tuesday was a free day so we played tourist and went down to the wharf and ate clam chowder. We love watching the sea lions. We snuck down to Burlingame to The 141M office to see Diane and Gale. The place was empty all the guys were at a board meeting in Chicago. It was 14 degrees below zero there, but sunny and warm in Burlingame.
That's all for now, but as Steve keeps saying about his tumor, "We're still kicking ass."
previous | next
updated 3*18*02
|
|
|