Cancer & Me
Most people know Bernadine Healy, U.S. News health editor, as the former head of the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross. They might not recall that she was diagnosed with a brain tumor eight years ago. In a new book, Healy uses her unique perspective and personal struggle with the disease to explore the state of cancer research, care, and treatment today—and tomorrow.
I pressed Barnett as to what his diagnosis would mean for my future. His answer was sobering: With a full course of treatment, including surgery and radiation and possibly follow-up chemotherapy, I might have one or two good years, maybe more; with surgery alone, it would be less. In either case, the outcome would be improved if he was able to remove the entire tumor. But that was the rub, and a big one. The tumor was in an unlucky location: on the left side of my brain.
Like most people, I'm "left-brained." If I had to have a brain tumor, I knew from my basic medical training that having it on my dominant side was not the best news. The situation was even dicier because the mass sat near the brain's speech center. If by some stroke of good fortune my speech center happened to be located on the right side of my brain, or present in both brain hemispheres, the risk that removing the tumor could damage my ability to speak would be eliminated. So, prior to surgery, I would have a special test to determine something most of us never need to know—exactly where all my chatter was coming from.
The procedure was very similar to a coronary catheterization except that the catheter was threaded into the carotid arteries that feed the brain rather than into the coronary arteries that feed the heart. Called the Wada test, after the Japanese neurologist Juhn Wada, this clever study sorts out the activities of the right and left parts of the brain by selectively putting one or the other hemisphere to sleep. As my left brain went to sleep, I instantly went mute. I was awake, alert, focused, and trying very hard as the neuroradiologist asked me repeated questions. The words lined up in my head, wanting to be released, but instead just piled on top of one another.
I flunked the test. My speech center was located near the tumor, making the operation that much more difficult for Barnett—and yes, for me, too. One thing was now clear in my mind: However much time I had ahead of me, I did not want to wake up from surgery unable to say thank you or otherwise communicate. My husband and I, each in our own way, relieved Barnett of any urge to be heroic with his scalpel; that is, he should err on the conservative side of how much he could remove safely. As Fred put it simply: "I want my wife back."
Barnett gave me the option of being awake during the portion of the neurosurgery in which the tumor was actually being removed. By speaking aloud on the operating table, I would assure Barnett that his cutting was staying away from my speech zone. I've done a ton of public speaking in my time, but this recitation would become the most important speech of my life.
Homework. The operation began like all others, as the neuro-anesthesiologist let me peacefully doze off while trying to count to 10. This gentle sleep was abruptly broken when he brought me back to full consciousness in the midst of the operation. I had no pain, mental or physical. Barnett had already numbed my scalp with a local anesthetic and opened up a 4-to-5-inch window into the left side of my skull to expose the tumor.
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