Cutting Back

Thank you so much for all of the support. I appreciate all of the emails, the texts, the comments on the blog, and all of the love in the various forms.  There is no way I could be holding up as well as I am, if not for all of the love from all of you. So thank you.

I'm completely exhausted, probably due to the seizure, the ER, the MRI, the oncologist's office, and the reality of the changes in my health.

Even though I'm aware of my brain tumor, over the past year, I had tried so hard to get back to a normal life. A life full of family, friends, work, volunteering, gardening, running, a life without limits. Now, I'm cutting back my work to 2 hours a day, in fact, I have to cut back on everything my life. I'm either going to collapse in a fit of seizures or I can sleep more, remove most of my social calendar, walk instead of run, and change my hobbies to reading and painting. Things that are not stressful. I'm scared to push myself too hard. I'm very light headed these days, and I'm terrified of having another seizure. It was horrible. I feel like I must have looked like I was possessed or something. I'm scared that I don't know what exactly triggered it. I'm scared that I don't exactly know how to prevent it. I'm scared to hurt myself or others.

This last MRI was eye opening too. I honestly thought I would have another year or two before I had tumor regrowth. I'm young. I'm only 30 and I've always been incredibly healthy. For crying out loud, I earned the presidential fitness test in high school (sounds fancy but it wasn't really a big deal). The tumor in my brain is happily growing. What an idiot. The stupid thing doesn't realize that if I die, it dies with me. Unfortunately, you can't talk sense to a brain tumor.

Time for bed. The new seizure medicine which I take each morning and night makes me very sleepy. I'm pretty drained, definitely confused, and still reeling from the events of the past week. I don't like the reality of this brain tumor. I can deal with the theory of it, but the reality totally sucks.

MRI & Seizure Changes

Here we go, I borrowed danny's fancy phone, and i'm punching keys like a two fingered sloth.
The mri shows some new growth. They're not going to radiate right away though.

Due to the seizure, my license has been revoked. I can not drive for six months. I have to show zero seizures for six months. If i have one, the timeline starts over.

I will be on antiseizure medicine for the rest of my life.

No swimming either. I have to get used to having all kinds of limitations.

I feel bad. This past weekend danny and i signed our marraige certificate just in time for my body to start falling apart. Now i wont even be able to go visit him.

Things can sure change quickly.

Maybe i need a Rascal, you know those little wheelchairs? I don't know how else im going to survive.

Seizure Story

Now that I've been sleeping all day, I can share more information about the seizure.

I'm still very exhausted, but I'm going to do my best to explain what happened.

Yesterday, I had an appointment in Seattle at a headache specialist. On the drive home, headed over HWY 2 just west of Leavenworth, I noticed my right arm becoming numb. While I was at the doctor's appointment, I had picked up a magazine and flipped to an article stating What To Do When You Have A Seizure. How ironic.

Anyway, as my right arm became more and more numb, I also became acutely confused about what was happening. There was a turn off area (thank God) and I slowly rolled to a stop to gain my senses. Just as I put my car in park, my right arm curled up against my chest, then my other arm did the same thing. I had absolutely zero control of my body (thankfully I was wearing a seat belt which served as a harness). My body started convulsing, my eyes rolled up into the back of the socket. All I could think was to keep my tongue from folding and causing me to choke. The number one thing on the article said, "keep calm." So I did.

I don't remember anything after that. Eventually, I was so confused and out of it, that I got back on the road. I was in an area of road where there was no cell phone service, and there was zero traffic. I thought I would try and get back home. Once I got into Leavenworth, apparently, I called Danny and he said I didn't make much sense. He told me to call my parents. I called them, and to pick me up but they didn't answer. So in the meantime I kept driving toward Wenatchee. It doesn't make any sense that I would get back behind the wheel. I'm very embarassed that I didn't have my wits about me to make safe decisions. As I said, I kept driving, and just as I was getting into Wenatchee, my parents called. I couldn't explain what had happened, but they said just park the car and they'd come get me. When they showed up, and helped me to the passenger seat, my right leg was dragging, and my right side was still going in and out of numbness.

Next we hit the ER, arriving at sometime around 6:00pm. They pumped me up with anti-seizure drugs, and anti-nausea medicine. Also, my head felt like it was exploding, so they game me some kind of pain killer, a type of relative of morphine. The nurses were EXCELLENT. If you ever go to the ER at Wenatchee Hospital, I don't think you'll be disappointed. We ended the night sometime before midnight.

Now, the next step is an MRI tomorrow at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The MRI starts at 2:15pm and then I have an appointment with my radiation oncologist. Hopefully this seizure was due to stress and poor sleep habits, not new growth of the brain tumor.

Also, Danny wants me to say that normally a typical blog takes me a few hours to complete. Because of my problem wanting to express exactly how I feel and be as concise as possible, I worry and stress about the blog. Danny had asked me to just type my blogs, not worrying so much about the grammatical errors. I love doing this blog, but sometimes it gets overwhelming because before I actually post a blog I review and review and review and if I don't have enough time to make the proper changes, I don't post the blogs that I've written.  I don't know if that makes sense. Now, I'm just going to post the blogs, and not worry if there's errors. I don't think you all will mind if my spelling and grammar are incorrect. Right?

Anyway, hopefully this post helps explain the madness that has been the past 24 hours.

Thank you for all of the support! You never know when things are going to change. I had been pretending like everything was fine, and that the brain tumor was just a bad dream. Unfortunately, I do have a brain tumor. It's not something I can ignore or change.