Carlos Luceno Diagnosis: Grade II astrocytoma
Treatment: Craniotomy for surgical biopsy and tumor resection]
My name is Carlos Luceno and in June I had brain surgery for a tumor that was found
in the same month and it turned out to be Stage 2 brand cancer and now I am living
the brain cancer life of just waiting to see what happens on a day by day basis
and then MRI by MRI basis.
It's like being in a comic book and walking around with a question mark over
my head, but what can you do? When I start to have these thought,
I just laugh to myself, just take the day, take my life day by day coz that's the way
that I've always lived.
You know, nothing fazes Carlos. He goes to the jungle in South America,
you know, places people no one has gone before. Carlos is just not scared of anything.
That's how he lives his life. That's kind of what -- that's just how he is.
I don't know. Carlos is just a very, you know,
incredibly positive, upbeat person. No matter what he was facing, he was
almost fascinated by what was happening, wanted to understand it, wanted to have
insight into it, wanted to talk it through, and then face it fearlessly.
I mean, he just said, hmm, that's what needs to be done, let's do it, let's get
it done with. I knew right away that I was dealing with
someone who is one of the best in the world at what they do.
I could just tell that he was so specialized in neurosurgery.
He knew so much about the brain, like he was on a different plane of intellectual
existence and I could tell just within five minutes of meeting him.
He looks at preserving the humanity. He looks at preserving your personality,
but from a scientific approach and from all of his experience.
My objective was not to treat his X-ray or his MRI.
It was to make sure that we got what we needed to do which was to establish what
was wrong, take the pressure off the brain, remove as much tumor as was safe to
do, but most of all, to return him to his life, his friends, his work, you know,
all the beautiful things going on in his life that he want to get back to.
He respected the fact that it was more about the quality of my life right now at
this stage than it was about just removing as much of the tumor as possible.
Part of why I feel I could be so dedicated to the patient is I know that
what they're getting behind the scenes is an extraordinary amount of expertise
and technology that is uniquely available at Hopkins, navigation systems,
computer systems, Infra of CAT Scans, we have Infra
of MRIs, and we have seen through the research efforts of our department more
than a doubling of the average survival of patients with malignant brain tumors.
He wants to help as many people as possible is the perspective that I got
and he wants to approach it in the most logical way possible.
I don't know, I feel like bonded to him. I don't want to let him go, you know.
I really like -- he did such a fantastic job. He saved my life that, I don't know,
I don't ever want to be far -- a lot of my friends are talking about moving to New
York right now, for example.
I'm gonna be so far from Hopkins. I can't do that.
I can't do that. Not for years.
Not for a few years. Not until I figure this out.
I never felt that way about anything. I've always lived for what I should --
what I felt like I should be doing, the adventurous move, but he is something I am
dependent on now and a lot of it has to do with just the psychological comfort of
knowing him and of being one of his patients.
In the end, people who choose to have surgery here the decision becomes a very
personal one. It's not about the institution.
It's not about the name. It's about trusting another human being
to help them, and I think once that basis of trust is established that is the basis
of a long term relationship and it doesn't end with the surgery.