Faces of Brain Tumors 2002
Joseph Vitale, West River, MD
On August 19, 2001, while my wife and I were visiting my mother and grandfather in NJ, I woke up with small, involuntary twitches in my right ankle and right wrist. A couple of hours later, I received the startling diagnosis of a brain tumor. On August 20, I requested to be discharged from the hospital--assuming it was safe--and allowed to return home to my own doctors. Thankfully, my condition was not immediately life threatening and my wife drove us back home to West River, MD. On August 21, we met with the neurosurgeon recommended by our regular doctor. He took one look at my MRI scans and said, "There goes Thursday." On August 22, CT scans of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis were taken indicating the brain was the primary location of the tumor and had not spread there from another spot in the body. On August 23, I had brain surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. On August 26, three days later, I was discharged from the hospital and sent home to recuperate. Two weeks after that, on September 10, I went back to work, physically. Mentally and emotionally were, and still are, another story.
It's a lot to go through in such a short period of time, isn't it? My name is Joe Vitale. I'm 36 years old and married to a wonderful woman. Debbie and I still don't have any children yet, but my brain tumor hasn't stopped us from trying for our first. I'm also a brain tumor survivor. I use the word survivor instead of patient not because my bout with a brain tumor is over, far from it--at least statistically--but because anyone living with the diagnosis of a brain tumor is by definition surviving. When you think of the word survivor, I imagine it conjures up images of strength, courage and hope. In contrast, what does the word patient make you think of?
During the two weeks I spent at home recuperating from surgery, the pathology report indicated I had a WHO Grade II Astrocytoma. WHO stands for the World Health Organization and the two meant my tumor was a low grade, slow growing tumor. Armed with this information, I began my crash course in brain tumors. I would use all my engineering skills to collect and analyze the data and reach an informed decision for further treatments using basic logic. Or, so I thought.
Here's some of what I learned. Brain tumors do not exercise sexual, racial or age discrimination and therefore do not attack a particular voting bloc of the population like breast cancer or AIDS. (You might say it's an equal opportunity disease.) Surgery is not curative. If a brain tumor is operable and surgery results in the removal of all "visible" tumor, there are almost always tumor cells left behind and those cells are more than likely to recur one day, sometimes more aggressively. The remaining weapons in the conventional treatment arsenal are radiation and chemotherapy, both of which have dismal track records in the fight against brain tumors. As such, brain tumors are still considered incurable.
I also consulted with several brain tumor experts and the best they could offer me was to simply wait-n-see. They said I should get an MRI every 3 months and wait-n-see. I should wait-n-see if or when the tumor grows back. I should wait-n-see if or when the tumor mutates to a higher grade. Since I'm the type of person who finds it difficult to know there's a problem and not be able to fix it, this is hardly a response I wanted to hear. Nonetheless, this is the protocol I'm currently following until a better option comes along.
It's been almost eight months since I was brutally forced to confront my mortality decades before I ever thought I would. I know it's cliché, but I'm learning to live life moment to moment and not take anything for granted. I quit my full-time job about a month ago and started working part-time from home. The remainder of my time is spent focusing on my disease and writing a book about my experience, a book I hope will one day benefit others who unfortunately seem likely to follow in my footsteps unless a cure is found.
Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.
