Ted Kennedy has brain tumor

[Laura's Babies]

For those of you that remember Brandon, that was in that bad wreck about 3 years ago... He had a brain tumor when he was a child, they got it out and he went on with his life... It grew back and they cut it out again and so far has had no more problems with it...

[Grace]

For those of you that remember Brandon, that was in that bad wreck about 3 years ago... He had a brain tumor when he was a child, they got it out and he went on with his life... It grew back and they cut it out again and so far has had no more problems with it...

There are tumors, and then there are tumors. The particular type of cells determines the treatment.

For instance, the parietal area of the brain, where Kennedy's tumor is situated, governs the ability to speak and understand, movement on the right side of the body. One doctor describes it as high-risk real estate.

Surgery in this area can be tricky. A doctor on CNN just a bit ago said this -

"The problem with glioma is, when surgeons go in and try to work on this, it's nearly impossible to tell what is tumor and what is brain cells, because this is a tumor of the brain cells," she said. The result, sometimes, is that the surgery causes brain damage, Wright said.

My father died of a malignant brain tumor, back in 1945. He had 3 craniotomies over a period of 18 months. Each time the tumor grew back, because they were unable to get out all the tumor cells.

[smokey the elder]

I think that's why they want to do radiation and/or chemo, since they don't want to be digging around in his brain if the tumor isn't well-defined.

"Tumor" came to my mind as well when a person with no history of seizures up and had one.