Seeing the Neurooncologist

Wednesday I saw the neurooncologist at the Cancer Center. I'm going to make him my new doctor for the brain tumor -- he was empathetic, knowledgeable, thorough, and caring. He did not push like the surgeon did. He answered my questions. I am being scheduled for a Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy -- a fancy MRI that can distinguish between tumor and non-tumor. I have been confused about benign and malignant brain tumors. I asked for clarification and I got it! Given the location of my lesion (which I generally refer to as a tumor), in the right frontal lobe, it is either a non-tumor or a glioma. If it's a non-tumor treatment becomes much simpler and it's not cancer. If it is a tumor the highest likelihood is that it's a grade I or II. Grade I generally do not become cancerous. Grade II can be thought of as low-grade cancer, I think, and become malignant 50 percent of the time. And it be a grade III -- perhaps a 15 percent chance up to 30 percent in some research studies. And it's a grade III I want to get going on treatment. The doctor said that because of my age, I am 50, it's more likely that I have a higher grade than a lower grade (i.e., less likely it's a Grade I). Hum, I've never thought of it that way before. That's kind of scary.