Fighting Cancer, part 1 of X: Surgery

In February 2014, my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor:

That blob is a 6 x 4 x 5 cm malignant tumor. Here's a top-down view:

Judging from the images above and other data, the doctors first thought Mom's tumor was benign. They thought it was a "large meningioma"; big but relatively easy to remove.

On February 22, 2014, Mom had brain surgery. The doctors removed as much of the tumor as they could. Below is a picture from the day after surgery.

You can see a bit of the space where the tumor was, and also where they cut into Mom's skull to get to the tumor.

Now that the doctors had cut out the tumor, they could examine it under the microscope to get a better diagnosis. Unfortunately, the doctors discovered that the tumor was not a meningioma, but rather "primary CNS lymphoma." What's that?

• "Primary," as opposed to secondary, means that's where the cancer started. I think that's good; if it were secondary, you'd have to search for the primary tumor, and you'd need to handle two tumors. (No secondary tumors have been discovered in Mom, yet.)
• "CNS" is "central nervous system." That's the spinal cord or brain.
• "Lymphoma" is a cancer of one's white blood cells. White blood cells are part of our immune system and are found throughout our body.

To summarize, some of Mom's white blood cells turned cancerous, and they formed a tumor in her brain. This tumor was malignant, which is bad on a couple levels: 1) It probably grows relatively quickly, and 2) it can spread to other parts of the body. Because of this, the doctors decided we had to do more than just surgery to get rid of Mom's cancer.

Next time: "Fighting Cancer: Chemotherapy. And Fasting."

P.S. Some statistics on primary CNS lymphoma: It's rare: 4 cases per 1,000,000 people. Survival rate: I've seen different quotes. From 10–18 months to > 4 years, for example.