[StephN]

Dear Pam -
I know how hard it is to focus energy, when you are low anyway, on a new and important area of concern. Especially the brain, as there is a lot to know if you want to be interactive with your treatment and team of docs.

Especially now that there is so much research and advancement in treatment of various kinds of mets.

If you have been following CourtneyL's story here, she has avoided WBR even with numerous small mets.

In your case, you have enough systemic disease that they want to knock out any little "seedling" cells in your brain with the WBR, as well as what they can see. This may or may not "do in" the larger one.

Our brain has 4 ventricles, which move the cerebral spinal fluid through our brain area. My cerebellar met was large enough to cause inflammation that was encroaching on the nearest ventricle. The area of inflammation was very visible on my MRI. The decadron speeds up the shrinkage of that inflammed area. (Guess that is why we feel generally sped up as well.)

I did not yet have any symptoms and only two lesions, so they did not feel seizure was an issue and did not restrict my driving. It is the assessment of seizure risk that mainly determines whether they ask you not to drive.

You will notice that every time you see your rad onc someone asks you to do various things so they can check your reflexes, reactions, etc - called "neuro checks." If you do well with these, it is a good sign.