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Good riddance to a tumor named 'Frank'
USA Today
A 9-year-old boy who nicknamed his brain tumor "Frank" - short for Frankenstein - is celebrating the intruder's departure. "Frank is now dead and gone and never to return," David Dingman-Grover said Tuesday. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read "Cancer is not who I am." The boy's case gained national attention when David's mother created "Frank Must Die" bumper stickers, which the family auctioned on eBay to help cover the costs of surgery.
Biopsy results Tuesday showed that the tumor was no longer cancerous. When the boy from Sterling, Va., was diagnosed with a grapefruit-sized tumor in 2003, the family was told the size and location in the center of his skull made it difficult - perhaps impossible - to remove. Doctors used chemotherapy and radiation to shrink the tumor to the size of a peach pit. That alleviated David's headaches and temporary blindness, but doctors still needed to remove the tumor. Hrayr Shahinian of the Skull Base Institute in Los Angeles removed the growth during an operation Feb. 2 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The surgeon did not charge for the procedure, which usually would cost about $100,000. The family has donated $20,000 it received to a charity to help other children with pediatric cancers.
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