Life’s Weird – Part 6
I think this may be it. This may be the end of the “Life’s Weird” series. I will continue to write about similar things, I will continue to share what is going on, but I think this will be the end of “Life’s Weird”. Life is weird, but weird has become the new normal.
It has been 50 days.
50 days since I woke up in the hospital. 50 days of unknowns. 50 days of waiting to hear more.
It took less than 50 days for this to become the new normal. I’m not sure when it happened, but one day I woke up and it was just another day. Just another day starting the same way. Just another day of waiting to learn more about what is going on. Just another day of not being able to drive to the places I need to go. Just another day of taking a break from a project because I’m suddenly unable to read. Just another day of small frustrations that occur without warning. It’s amazing how quickly all of this became the new normal.
So, what is all of this?
We know I had a seizure on October 1st. We know that’s when we found out I have a brain tumor. We know seizures can often be caused by the brain tumor itself. We know the brain tumor is located near my left temporal lobe. We know the brain tumor is applying pressure on that area of my brain, which is the primary speech and language recognition center. We know that having pressure on that area of the brain is what causes me to have issues reading and remembering word at times.
Then I had a biopsy to learn more.
We know brain surgeries are amazing and fascinating. We know I had a small incision not far from the back of my left ear. We know I had a small area of my skull drilled open for the biopsy as well. I now know that this is all incredibly painless. We know the results of my biopsy came back very different from what several doctors had expected. We know the biopsy was able to rule out Glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor which gives a one-year or two-year prognosis (this was what the doctors had expected). We know that’s really good news. We know they were able to rule out several other things as well. Based on several scans taken at different times, we know the brain tumor is affected by the steroids I was prescribed. We know the steroids have caused the brain tumor to shrink, which makes us one step closer to figuring out what the diagnosis could be.
We don’t know much else.
We don’t know what the full diagnosis is. We don’t know if it is cancer or not. We don’t know how long it will take to figure it all out. We don’t know how long I’ve had the brain tumor, or how fast it grew to the size it was that caused the seizure.
We do know the waiting game continues.
For now, we continue to wait. We wait for the steroids to get completely out of my body. We wait for the brain tumor to start growing larger again. We wait for the next round of scans to see if there have been any changes. The next scans are scheduled for early 2017…so we wait, and focus on the quickly approaching holidays.
Despite the stress that often comes with waiting for answers, there is a lot to be thankful for this year and a lot to celebrate.
Life is weird, but weird has become the new normal. It’s amazing how fast that happens.
Featured image from Merryvale Vineyards, St. Helena, California. (The Last 96 Days)
