Next Monday I am going under a Cyberknife to tackle a brain tumor. Let's hope all those HW and SW engineers knew what they were doing, like installing all those 0.1/10uF decoupling caps that we keep on ranting about.

 

good luck.. If you don't mind I have a couple bits of advice for you. Fight like hell to goto the hospital your want and the dr you want. Research your dr on the net as much as possible. These guys have a ton on their plates and you may find more comfort hearing from his other patients. Finally get to know your anesthesiologist. This is probably the most dangerous part. Too much and your dead, to little and you wake up in the middle of the surgery asking why this a-holes cutting into you with a knife. This is common. People wake up in the middle of surgery all the time. My aunt who's virtually a dr had surgery on he wrist. She woke up and watched for like 5-6 minutes before any noticed she was awake. Then they knocked her back out.

 

I wish you all the best, and hope that you will come out of this well. Having some significant health issues myself, I can appreciate your feelings when awaiting serious treatment.

@ Maxpower097: As far as I know, the CyberKnife is an advanced radiotherapy system. At least, there is a well-known "radiosurgery" system marketed under that name. Perhaps the OP can comment on this, and whether anaesthesia will be required for its use, but references to anaesthetic failures may not be what he most needs within a few days of having such a procedure.

 

I wish you well. You sound nonchalant and brave about this, but obviously this is not a trivial procedure. We'll all be thinking about you and wishing the best possible outcome for you.

 

Wishing you well soon.

 

maxpower097, this is not surgery and I will not be under anesthesia. That was my other option, a 7 hour surgical operation, which I declined.

There is an interesting connection I just discovered today. Many years ago I did some work for a robotics company developing HW and SW to do the motion control for their robot arm. This company is a major supplier of the robot arm that is used in the Cyberknife.

Here is a photo to give you an idea of what the Cyberknife is all about:

Needless to say, such things like the Cyberknife and MRI would not be possible without highly educated scientists and engineers properly trained in physics, biology, electronics and computers, etc.

 

Best of wishes... and a bit of luck.

Come back to us soon and healthy.

 

You have positive energy,I believe things will go well for you.
So good luck and will look forward for your post afterwards.

 

... Let's hope all those HW and SW engineers knew what they were doing...

There is an interesting connection I just discovered today. Many years ago I did some work for a robotics company developing HW and SW to do the motion control for their robot arm. This company is a major supplier of the robot arm that is used in the Cyberknife.

Interesting connection, indeed !!!

This reminds me of Leo Szilárd, who first conceived of the nuclear chain reactions that make atom bombs and nuclear reactors possible. He is the one who wrote a letter for Einstein, on the importance of developing an atom bomb before Nazi Germany, and convinced him to sign it and send it to President Roosevelt.

Dr. Szilárd was later diagnosed with bladder cancer and, working with doctors, underwent cobalt therapy using a cobalt 60 treatment regimen that he designed himself. He was familiar with the properties of this isotope from his work on the cobalt bomb. The treatments worked and his cancer never returned.

Thus, Szilárd's own professional work helped him to cure himself.

MrChips, we hope to be able to say the same of you in the not too distant future.

 

Wishing you all the best, Mr. Chips. Some of mankind's most inspirational technological advancements have occurred in the field of medicine, and in a few weeks we will hear your account of how some of those new tools and techniques prolonged your life back to a normal span.

Get well soon, sir.

 

maxpower097, this is not surgery and I will not be under anesthesia. That was my other option, a 7 hour surgical operation, which I declined.

There is an interesting connection I just discovered today. Many years ago I did some work for a robotics company developing HW and SW to do the motion control for their robot arm. This company is a major supplier of the robot arm that is used in the Cyberknife.

Here is a photo to give you an idea of what the Cyberknife is all about:

Needless to say, such things like the Cyberknife and MRI would not be possible without highly educated scientists and engineers properly trained in physics, biology, electronics and computers, etc.

Thats good, still good luck...

 

Six weeks ago I was administered complete anesthesia for an endoscopy.

I was fascinated by the electronic equipment in the room (until I fell asleep, instantly!!).

While I expected terrible complications and suffering, I was surprised; my experience was perfect. No ulterior effects.

BTW, that Cyberknife thing looks like a Pickit2 (albeit quite bigger). Make sure they know your configuration bits and how to assert the LVP pin.

Buena suerte.

 

Best wishes; please update as soon as you are comfortable to do so; does it leave you weak or ailed like chemo?

 

Hey just don't be tempted to start messing with all of that cool equipment and just let the techs do all of the work.

It is so cool to be able to get an up close on all of that fantastic equipment. I just wish you were getting to see it under better circumstances but you are going to do just fine.

I can't think of a better use of technology than saving someone's life.

 

Gracias, Agustín. Estoy confiado que todo estará bien. (Estudié español por uno año en universidad, pero Babelfish es maravilloso también.)

 

Gracias, Agustín. Estoy confiado que todo estará bien. (Estudié español por uno año en universidad, pero Babelfish es maravilloso también.)

Parece bueno.

I need to give a try to Babelfish. The translator from Google fails in things that are too basic (from my point of view).

Ya veremos...

 

Good luck MrChips...

Looks impressive, these machines.. Looks also like an expensive treatment, I wonder how long it took you to get an authorization for the surgery..

 

good luck tomorrow!

 

Good luck, and please report back.

 

I'm back from the evil clutches of Dr. No.

The procedure took about 45 mins. You lay on the bed and get zapped with an X-ray gun at 6MV. No adverse feelings what so ever to report. The mask on the head is to prevent gross movements. The actual positioning of the anatomical features is registered using x-ray imaging. I go back for two more treatments on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Total dosage is 210,000 MU.

From Wikipedia:

A monitor unit (MU) is a measure of machine output of a linear accelerator in radiation therapy.
Linear accelerators are calibrated to give a particular absorbed dose under particular conditions. One standard calibration is such that 100 MU gives an absorbed dose of 1 Gray (or 100 rad) at a depth of 5 cm in tissue-equivalent phantom, for a 10x10 cm2 field at 95 cm source-to-surface distance (SSD).

Now relevant to AAC, I talked about knowing what you are doing, liked installing those 0.1/10uF decoupling caps.

The same goes about making sure you know ASM before you become a professional C programmer. You are asking for trouble if you do not know the difference between a byte and a char, or a short from an integer. Or not knowing about the pitfalls of floating-point arithmetic and the usage of the error value epsilon.

Imaging writing the program that determines the motion of that 6MV X-ray gun and screwing up on the positioning or the amount of radiation exposure because you tested for equality (==) when you should have used (>=).