For reasons I don’t think I have to mention, the pictures below the fold are not for the squeamish. I asked the doctor to take pictures in the operating room, because I wanted to see the scope of this thing. It was pretty darned impressive. What is now there in place of the bone is a molded surgical plastic. There was some invasion of the dura, but because of the compression, there were too many veins and arteries on the surface to take the chance of removing it. Since this cancer is benign and slow-growing, the surgeon opted to leave it, and we’ll just follow it with regular MRIs. At some point I may need further surgery or radiation treatments, but there’s also a good chance I won’t have to do anything.

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Post surgery, the rest of october. Progress is slow, but it’s still progress.
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This is a continuation of my progress from diagnosis to the day before surgery, and this one contains dates. There is also a link at the beginning to a zipfile of my MRIs, so if you’re interested in seeing what they look like and trying to figure out the connection between the areas of compression and the symptoms I listed, go ahead and download.
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