Additional Treatments

Ah, the radiotherapy. And the trials. Grade 2 meningiomas are the rarest of the rare from what I was told so of course they had treatment trials; A radiotherapy option or an MRI option. I was offered to participate and I would have willingly IF I couldn't only do so an hour's drive away from home. Both options required me to go from Poole to Southampton five days a week for half an hour sessions. I couldn't drive and my family and friends had jobs so I could very well get rides and certainly I couldn't afford to spend the working weeks living up there. I felt there were some things that could have been done for me to be able to help from my local hospital but in the end I opted not to participate.
So now I was given the choice of further radio-treatment or 'watch and wait' with regular MRI scans.
One of the hardest choices I'd ever had to make.
They gave me a week to think it over after the first appointment at oncology and I spent the whole time asking people for their opinion and looking into the side effects. The most common response I got was 'I wouldn't want to be in that position' which, as you can guess, was so very helpful! It did amuse me though how when I decided not to have it so many people said that was what they'd have done too!
It was a hard choice and in the end it came down to one simple thing; The cons strongly outweighed the pros. It was something like 7:2 in the end, a so-called 'no brainer' really.
My tumour had been entirely removed, a complete resection so all the radiotherapy would do was kill any lone cells that might not even have been there and since they were not visible my entire brain would be targeted.
None of that sounded good.
I cannot stress enough though, it is a VERY personal choice, no two people, tumours or diagnosis's are the same. This was what was right for me and me alone, I would never advise another to follow my choice blindly, you do what you have to do to get through the NOW and worry about the later when it comes or you might not get that later at all.