Sneaky Hidden Treatment

Hi everyone! I'm still here, still alive. Last June (yep, a year ago) we started watching another brain tumor area. 

I tried so many things to stop the growth, but eventually it became obvious I would need to take a medical leave from my masters program.

My health became significant and scary in January, and I started a treatment in February, completing in April.

Also my written language is exhausing please forgive me. I keep reading and trying to fix this but I'm going to have to hope that you can understand what I'm trying to make sense.

I believe my brain and my language will improve and I will get back to more that normal as I always do. 

I still probably won't respond but the comments on the blog make me feel less alone. That's my favorate place I can go back to and feel I have people that love me and they're cheering be on.

If you text, or call, or email I probably won't respond. It's too hard with the langulge struggles. It's just too exhausting.

I could have worked on this for a few hours or used AI to respond and create this blog post but that's never been how I do this. This is authenticly me and were I'm at.

Thank you for all of the love and support, and I'm sorry that I don't have any social media,  it just stresses me out.

I love everyone! :)

I'll send more updates here as I share what has happened over the past year, but it it's also exhashting so it will a slow burn probably. But this will be so good for my brain too!!

Thank you for being patient and loved. :)

Second Quarter Complete: 4.0 GPA

 

Friends keep teasing me, You know you don't have to get perfect grades, right? And conceptually, I know they're right, but I have wanted to go back to school from before my diagnosis. Just before we found this BABT (big ass brain tumor), I was oscillating between combined master/PhD programs, regular masters programs, or law school. I wasn't sure, but I knew I wanted to continue my education. 

I've waited so long for this.

As I spend days, nights, and weekends, headaches, tears (both happy and sad), filled with delirious laughter, awe, and gratitude, I sink further into the gift of curiosity, of expectations, timelines, and responsibilities. I cut my teeth into new sounds, words I had forgotten. My brain feels like it's both thawing, and growing at the same time. 

A few days after this round of classes ended, I was finally able to digest the gravity of what I'm accomplishing. Well, that's not entirely true, I think it's impossible for my mind to catch the weight of this, but it feels fucking significant. I remember being in the hospital, the speech therapist at my side. She's showing me a list of words and she asks me to read the first one aloud. I stare at the page, my face flushes hot, my eyes filling with tears. I know I failing, but I don't know why. She's sad, and I don't know why. I want to make her proud of me, to make sense of these things she's pointing at. But I can't. So I cry.

Doctors at University of Washington answered my mom's question one day, while I sat quietly, Will she be able to go back to school? And the PhD said, No. She will not have the capacity. And since that day, even as I have improved, and improved, surgery after surgery, much surpassing their expectations, of both cognition and lifespan, I believed them. That's the elusiveness of accuracy that our brains manipulate, especially when there's damage involved. 

I'm not a reliable narrator, and I can see that now. I am not stupid. I'm not slow. I'm not other. I'm capable of learning. I'm capable of hard work. I have as much drive and desire as everyone else. 

I am here. I'm alive. And I'm doing it all while living with brain cancer. 

I start my first practicum this week, and my next MRI will be at the end of June. Life is full, and chaotic, exciting, exhausting, and it's mine.