What bothers me.

My neurosurgeon said it. When he looked at the followup MRI to my brain surgery he said he thought it looked "funky." My doctor and two radiation oncologists said they were 99% sure it was just the scar around where the tumor had been removed and don't radiate.

He said FUNKY. Now I've long since learned (and I TRY not to second guess myself) to ALWAYS follow your instincts. It makes sense, doesn't it, that if your instinct isn't speaking out you listen to anybody who says words like FUNKY. But no, I just said 3 say "no" 1 says "yes" and I'm too worried about my liver to care about my brain right now so we'll go with the majority.

Of course, I wouldn't have been able to go to Chicago or to meet my father's relatives in Iowa, and the trip by the way meant more to me than I can say. It was great, especially my cousin's wife and my cousins and my father's siblings ... none of whom I've seen in years but wow it was an amazing trip, except the days in the hospital in Chicago.

So maybe there was an underlying "reason" and the result is the same, I'll probably have radiation on the spot. I don't know I'll have to see how I am overall, I'll know more tomorrow, before I make a choice.

I can

1) radiate probably the whole cerebellum. I'd rather just do the spot.

2) have radio surgery (I'm not sure what that'll involve or if I can go somewhere else and have gamma knife or cyber or whatever), he just listed a few nearby hospitals but I'd just as soon go to johns hopkins or some other place if reputations/surgeries are the same; I already have an oncologist there.

3) re-do the original surgery and this time follow it with 1). He actually recommends 1).

What happens if the radiation doesn't get the tumor? It is about the size of a dime, about 1/4 the size of the original.

So, listen to not only YOUR instincts, but the instincts of others. Not the advice or the numbers, the actual instincts. If your doctor says "funky" he probably means it.

Has anybody had "just radiation" and gotten rid of a small brain tumor? I worry that it won't be gone, then what?

Some type of radio surgery would take care of removing the tumor and radiation at the same time -- of course it doesn't take care of the rest of the edges that weren't radiated in the first place. Any thoughts?