Sometimes the tumor grows back.

But now there's a local girl who's turning to a high tech method of treating her brain tumor.

At just 16, Laura Hedden already knows a lot about hope.

Laura never felt sick. But on the softball field, something was not right.

"I was playing fast pitch, my friends noticed that I couldn't see the ball," Laura said. "I'd see it, then I'd lose it."

Laura hadn't realized she'd lost so much peripheral vision. The eye doctor immediately suspected a tumor.

"That's about the only time she broke down," said Laura's mother Robin. "When we were at the eye doctor and he said something's wrong, and she picked up on that. And her main concern was she going to die."

The tumor was growing on Laura's pituitary gland, dangerously close to her optic nerve.

Surgery to remove it was successful. But four months later, Laura and her mom went back for a checkup.

"I pretty much thought it was gone I didn't think it could come back," Laura said.

Then she want back for her checkup, and it was back.

The news was devastating. T hey were afraid she might have to have surgery again.

But Laura's doctors suggested The Gamma Knife at Harborview Medical Center.

"They call it a knife because it focuses all the radiation like energy from the sun -- in one spot," said Dr. Rich Ellenbogen at Harborview Medical Center.

Laura and her family liked the idea that she'd face just one radiation treatment.

The most painful part of the procedure (and the part Laura was most worried about) is a frame that has to be attached to her head. She's given some sedation, when 4 pins are put in place, holding the frame securely to her skull.

Then the frame is attached to a big helmet with holes for the gamma rays.

The idea: The rays of radiation all intercept at one spot, killing Laura's tumor cells, but not harming any of the surrounding healthy tissue.

In a matter of hours, it's over, and Laura is free to go.

It'll be at least a year or so before Laura's doctors know if the gamma knife is successful. They don't expect it to go away, just stop growing.