dr. shrestha has treated patients with it. melanie expressed her concern about the harsh chemotherapy treatment she had been offered so dr. shrestha began researching alternatives to make the chemo and radiation as smooth as possible. >> she ended up calling me four days later, and said, "hey we're gonna be able to do four treatments of the less-toxic chemo." and i was very happy with that. and i said, "are you confident about that?" she goes, "yes. very confident." >> most of the time, the treatment options are doing surgery followed by either chemotherapy and radiation together versus the spreading of treatment. so, what we decided was chemotherapy first and then radiation therapy. >> we gave her five weeks of external radiation and also something called brachytherapy. brachytherapy is actually internal radiation, and it allows us to give more radiation without causing damage to the surrounding structures. >> announcer: although most patients are exhausted from their treatment, melanie wanted to stay active. >> she's doing a