l We now have a name for it: l

| July 19, 2005 || 12:26 p.m. |

Breast Cancer matastisized into Central Nervous System.

Sounds just swell doesn't it? Turns out after I left from my lunch visit the Doctor's had a pow-wow and decided that they'd do the radiation after all. She got fitted for the special mask thingie to make sure her head is always in the exact same position and she had her first treatment about 45 minutes ago. She is to have 10 sessions [10 days not including the weekends] and then they will be putting in that shunt/port thing to inject chemo directly into the spinal fluid. Apparently this is the worst place it could have gone. Had it been in organs that's one thing but now it's continuously traveling throughout her body via her spinal fluid.

They refuse to give my Mom a time frame. One doc said that it could be weeks, months or even years depending on how well her body responds to treatment. The best part is my Mom has never looked sick, after having breast cancer on and off for 2-years she looks incredibly, not sick at all. Which one Doc said that because of that she is definitely not in the weeks category. She thinks the Doc even said that she is not in the months category either but she doesn't remember for sure and doesn't want to jinx it.

My Mom made a comment "This cancer has to be the most aggressive, diffcult kind just to survive in my body! It's putting up the best fight it can". Sad but true. My Mom's one tough cookie so anything trying to knock her down as to be just as tough.

The only reason they are doing the radiation is because of the vision problems she's having. Nothing shows up on any of the MRI's so they can only assume that the cancer cells are forming tiny tumors around her... damn what is it called?? The cord that connects the eyeballs to the brain. That floats right through the fluid and they think if they can zap the entire cranium that it will 'knock loose' anything that is has attached itself and her vision will improve or go back to normal. The only way of knowing it will work is actually doing the radiation and seeing how her vision responses.

Does any of that make sense? It got very confusing for me as well but I'm doing my best to understand and stay positive. All we can hope for is the radiation and chemo will destroy as many cells as possible, there will never be a way to know for sure. It just sucks that the only we'll know if there are any left active after all this is when it comes back in an organ.

She looks too good to only be around for another few years.

Here is my Mom and Kole on the Fourth of July [despite the look on his face he actually really loved all the fireworks!]