You wouldn’t know anything was ever wrong with her
Published: January 10, 2006
Mary Katherine Conroy likes to romp around the house with her arms flapping like a bird as she looks for toys.
The sight of the happy 3-year-old at play is hard to believe for her parents, Jim and Maribeth Conroy of Marshfield, because in the past 11 months the towheaded girl has endured several surgeries to remove a tennis ball-size tumor in her brain, a six-week course of proton radiation therapy and constant medical tests.
‘‘When you look at her, you wouldn’t know anything was ever wrong with her,’’ her mother said.
Mary was diagnosed with an aggressive kind of brain cancer last February. As she recalls it, she had a ‘‘boo-boo’’ in her head.
The surgeries to remove the tumor took their toll. Mary lost the ability to walk and talk, and was even unable to swallow.
Her family took her home and helped her remember how to do all those things again. After a month, she was talking again and running around with her three older sisters and her brother.
Then in late March, Mary underwent proton radiation therapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The high-tech treatment is far more focused than traditional radiation therapy and far less likely to destroy healthy tissue along with the cancerous cells.
The therapy appears to have been successful, but Mary must still visit the hospital every three months for an MRI scan to make sure she is free of cancer.
Jim Conroy said he still cannot get used to all the treatments and tests his young daughter has gone through during the past year. Even the MRI scans are hard for him.
‘‘When they put her to sleep and wheel her in, I start crying,’’ he said. ‘‘I just can’t get used to it.’’
Mary has emerged from her treatment in good shape but has permanently lost the hearing in her right ear. And Maribeth Conroy said doctors warned that her daughter’s left side would be weakened because of the trauma to her brain.
But Mary has defied that warning. She uses her left hand more often than her right, picking up her toys with her left hand and putting them in a box.
Mary’s recovery has made her the perfect patient for promotional material for Mass. General’s Francis H. Burr Proton Therapy Center. She and her mother appear on the hospital’s Web site. And Mary is the cover girl on the center’s latest annual report.
Jim and Maribeth Conroy know, however, that it will be years before they are certain their daughter is fully recovered. Mary will continue to receive MRI scans for the rest of her life.
‘‘It will be four or five years before we really know if she is in remission,’’ Jim Conroy said. ‘‘But I think she’s going to be fine. How can you live with that little girl and think anything otherwise?’’
‘‘We do think about (the cancer) coming back,’’ Maribeth Conroy added. ‘‘But if you saw her on the street, you would never know. It’s like having a gift every day with her being like this.’’
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