Primary Brain Cancer

I stayed with Dave until about 3:30am. I had an overly dramatic and emotional run-in with the local police on the way home, but that's a story for another time. I made it home by 5:30 and slept for a couple of hours and headed back to Flagstaff. The kids stayed home that day with Gretchen. They were tired and stressed and I didn't want to push them.
Shortly after I got there we were visited by the neurosurgeon with his interpretation of the MRI. His first words were that it looked like primary brain cancer and he would like to operate tomorrow. Then he added that it is incurable and no matter how much brain he removes it will come back. It always comes back. He said all this as if he were reading his grocery list. Again, I acted as if I were just taking it all in, but this time my stomach did a little flip. Who am I kidding, it did a big fat ugly omg I'm going to throw up on this doctor flip. This was the first time the word cancer had been said. And I had no idea what primary brain cancer meant. The doctor with the oh so pleasant bedside manner explained primary brain cancer means that the cancer originated in the brain, it had not spread from somewhere else. He said it appeared to be glioblastoma multiforme, which is the most common, and most deadly type of primary brain cancer. I think my response was something like, um......OK....tomorrow? Dave was oblivious at this point. I found out later he was thinking it was a little tumor the size of a pea and they would remove it through his nose and he'd be back at work Friday. At this time I was finally beginning to understand the life changing nature of our situation. I saw the mass, it was big, about 2 in. by 3 in., we were talking major brain surgery with possibly major permanent side effects. Not to mention the whole "it always comes back" thing.

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