Elephants and Tea - Precision Medicine - 24

Other Precision Medicine
AN EXACT SCIENCE
Robin Hood's Arrow
BY GUS
W
24
hen you think of precision, what do you see? I
see those clips from those movies we saw as kids
where Robin Hood lets his last arrow fly, only to
hit his previous shot dead on. Even something
as low power as that laser pointer you use to play with your
cat. When my cancer came back for a third time, I was told
it was time for Robin Hood's arrow.
When cancer first appeared in my brain,
surgery was performed. I got pretty lucky
with the location, and the doctors were
able to perform surgery, or what I liked to
call a " coconut cracking. " However, the
exact square of skull that was removed to
access my brain was not nearly as careless
as cracking a coconut open. The next step
was to gently navigate through the wrinkles
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PRECISION MEDICINE ISSUE 2024
and folds of my brain to get to the cancerous
tissue. Once there, the foreign body
had to be removed as carefully as possible.
The goal was similar to scooping out the
strawberry ice cream from between the
chocolate and vanilla without leaving any
cancerous strawberry behind and instead
leaving my very important chocolate and
vanilla healthy brain tissue unharmed.
Steady hands and a skilled team expertly
removed as much tumor as they could, and
the doctors were able to carefully navigate
through healthy brain tissue. It worked so
well that I wouldn't need a " coconutectomy "
for another five years. They expertly
" scooped " out what they could while being
careful not to remove any healthy brain
tissue. However, not long after I was told
it was time for radiation.
Unlike whole body radiation that other
patients undergo, precision was the name
of the game. I sat down with my doctors,
and we talked about the radiation plans.
They showed me one of my brain scans,
which revealed some colorful concentric
rings around my unwanted intruder, kind
of like the ones you see for a snow forecast.
However, these lines weren't for snowfall,
instead they indicated the levels of radi
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Elephants and Tea - Precision Medicine

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