Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog

     Last week I was a guest speaker at the University of Michigan...an experience that would have never happened if I wasn't a cancer survivor, who blogs, and who keeps in contact with old friends through Facebook.       This is my first grade class picture:        I am third from the left, center row.  Laura Olsen is fourth from the left, back row.  We were 6-years-old here , and together we gr aduat ed from Cent ral High School in Om aha , NE in the late 70's.  We both went onto college and graduate school and reconnected with each other, several years ago , via Faceboo k.      Laura is now... Laura J. Olsen, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  Together with Alexandra Stern, Ph.D., (Professor of American Culture at U of M), Laura teaches a class cal...

     As planned , I had a CyberKnife treatment about ten days ago.  The build up before the treatment turned out to be more intense than the treatment itself.  In the time it was decided that I had a brain tumor until I actually had CyberKnife, I had a fourth brain MRI, a CT scan of my head, met with two radiation oncologists, and a neurosurgeon.  There's a lot of medical personnel coordination and an incredible amount of technology that goes into a treatment, but for me as the patient, I was pleasantly surprised with how easy this all turned out to be.        A couple days before my treatment, I was scheduled for a 5-hour appointment which included meeting with a nurse and then a radiation oncologist, followed by the additional imaging studies...CT and brain MRI, and finally, a mask fitting, needed to keep my head still during the CyberKnife treatment.        Meeting with the nurse was really hel...