By Sally Owen

Karrie Gilbert is a young woman with a plan. Her firm handshake, bright smile and upbeat attitude belie the fact that she is bouncing back from cancer – for the second time.

Karrie, 25, the daughter of Aaron and Kay Gilbert of Metropolis, IL, has undergone three brain surgeries since early 2004. Two of those surgeries were awake craniotomies, appropriate when a tumor is in an eloquent part of the brain – a critical part where injury would cause severe deficit in speech, memory or movement.

The Beginning

After earning an associate of arts degree, Karrie moved to Nashville, TN in 2003 to live with her sister and put her love of animals to work as a veterinarian tech. Several months later, she experienced her first grand mal seizure. Physicians at first thought Karrie had suffered a stroke, her mother recalls. Further tests and a biopsy confirmed a slow-growing brain tumor uncomfortably close to her motor strip. After consulting other physicians, Karrie made the decision not to undergo surgery right away.

It was during this time that Kay Gilbert and one of Karrie’s sisters attended a meeting of the American Brain Tumor Association in Chicago, hoping to learn about advances that might help Karrie. While at the convention, the women met with a surgeon from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, who subsequently performed Karrie’s first brain surgery. When in the summer of 2005 tests showed the tumor had reoccurred, another surgery removing all of the visible tumor was performed. “Her surgeon recommended radiation therapy to eradicate any possible microscopic tumor cells that might remain after surgery,” says Karrie’s mom. “And he specifically wanted Karrie treated with the Novalis®  Shaped BeamTM Surgery system – not on a Gamma Knife or Cyber Knife system.”

 “Everyone at Southeast has been great, but God is the greatest. And everyone at the Novalis Center is friendly and positive. That’s so important – I wanted to see friendly face and smiles – no downers!”

         --- Karrie Gilbert

Finding the Place Right for Karrie

Karrie’s family immediately began searching for – and assessing – Novalis centers in several major cities.

They were impressed with Southeast's team approach and the fact that a multi-disciplinary group representing radiation oncology, neurosurgery, neurology, oncology nursing, physics, and dosimetry  carefully reviews each case.

 Especially appealing, she continues, was the time Karrie was able to spend with her primary physicians in Cape, Southeast’s Director of Radiation Oncology Joseph P. Miller, M.D., and Scott R. Gibbs, M.D., a neurosurgeon on Southeast’s medical staff.

“Having been through everything previously, we’ve found how important it is to have one-on-one time with your physicians and have all of your questions and concerns addressed.” They also took note of the fact that Southeast’s Novalis team trained with Timothy Solberg, Ph.D., one of the country’s foremost Novalis authorities who at that time was professor of medical physics at UCLA in Los Angeles.

“We’ve seen a lot of different hospitals, and were really impressed with Southeast’s staff and facility. We knew that Southeast was where we were meant to be,” Kay says.

She adds that the family also appreciated Gibbs’ and. Miller’s “strong faith in God.”

Why Novalis?

The Novalis system is particularly appropriate for Karrie, explains Miller, because its unique treatment planning system “allows our team to design highly conformal radiation beams to treat the area at risk for tumor recurrence and then deliver the radiation using IMRT which minimizes the radiation dose to normal brain tissue.”

After completing a course of 30 treatments at Southeast Missouri Hospital’s Novalis® Shaped Beam Surgery Center, Karrie Gilbert is ready to get back into the swing of things. Shown at home in Metropolis with Boston terrier pal Mailee, Karrie says she wants to learn sign language and pursue a career that “will help people.”