Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul Read Online Free PDF

asked Marion and Ernie to come to her office. The news was not good. “The latest scans show Craig’s tumor is growing again,” Tait said. The outlook was bleak. The Shergolds were devastated. This time they avoided telling Craig the news.
    The next morning, to get her mind off the situation, Marion decided to open some of Craig’s get-well cards. From the stacks of envelopes, Marion plucked the air-express packet containing Kassell’s letter. As she read it, her hands trembled. “I can’t believe this!” she cried.
    Marion called Kassell immediately and told him of the discouraging prognosis. Kassell said he could promise nothing, but added that his medical center had recently purchased a “gamma knife,” a new instrument that fired high-energy radiation beams directly into brain tumors. “This might offer a possible treatment for Craig,” he said. “I’ll request the scans from Craig’s doctor.”
    When Ernie returned home after work, Marion handed him the letter. “I think God may have given us a miracle,” she said.
    When he received the brain scans, Neal Kassell leaned toward the light box for a closer look. In the center of Craig’s brain, he saw a gray, egg-size tumor that compressed his midbrain area and squeezed the brain stem. Kassell’s hopes sank. The tumor was too big to be knocked out by the gamma knife.
    Moreover, the mass appeared to branch out and invade surrounding tissue. This seemed to confirm the lab finding that the tumor was malignant. If true, Kassell realized, Craig could never be cured.
    Besides, he thought, if he operated, Craig had a one-in–five chance of dying as a result of the surgery. And even if the operation succeeded, he wondered, what would Craig really gain? A few months of life?
    Kassell called Kluge with the bad news. “Some things are beyond medical help,” he said.
    “Are you absolutely sure you can’t treat it?” Kluge persisted. “Please think about it some more.”
    Kassell began searching within himself. The father of three girls, he asked what he would want for them in a similar circumstance. He realized he would give them a fighting chance—despite the risks.
    Kassell spoke to the Shergolds in late November. “I might be able to help your son,” he said. The surgical risks were great, the benefits chancy. All he could do, Kassell said, was surgically remove as much of the tumor as possible and hit the remainder with the gamma knife. This might buy Craig some time. Kassell suggested the couple ponder their alternatives over Christmas and let him know their decision after the first of the year.
    For Marion, the decision was agonizing. She didn’t want to put Craig through any more pain. Ultimately, she and Ernie decided to let Craig make the decision.
    “Mum,” he said, “no pain, no gain.”
    Surgery was scheduled for March 1 at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center. That morning, Marion and Ernie stood at their son’s bedside as Craig reassured them. “I’m going to be all right, you’ll see.”
    Moments later, as orderlies wheeled him toward the operating suite, Craig, clutching his stuffed elephant, called out, “I love you, Mum and Dad.” He then began singing, “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”
    Kassell removed a two-inch oval of bone from the top of Craig’s skull. Carefully separating his cerebral hemispheres, then splitting the band of fibers joining the two halves, Kassell found the grayish-white tumor almost in the exact center of the brain. It was encapsulated by a membrane—which had not shown up clearly on the scans. Good, Kassell thought, the tumor is much more contained than I had dared hope.
    Kassell sliced open the membrane and began snipping and suctioning out the tumor. Moment by moment, his excitement mounted. This tumor did not appear malignant. Could it have somehow changed character since the British lab analysis two years earlier? The more he cut away, the more convinced he became that Craig might