Like the Sublime Song - Drip Drip Drip ...

I have a cold. The kind where your head plumps up and everything just drips from all orifices, like some sort of medieval Chinese water torture. In a karmic sense, should I not be exempt from colds - just for this week, at least? I had a big list of (fun) things to do today and now I am just lumping around the house blowing my nose until my appointment.

I have to go to UMD hospital this evening for my extra special high tech MRI to get "thin slice images of my neoplasm" (per my neurologist). There will be an IV - which I hate. IVs totally freak me out.

I am a terrible patient; I hate the needles, the blood, the hospital smell, the needles, the food, and the needles. There is a type of "awake craniotomy" that I just read about, where one is , in fact, awake (hence the name) while they drill into your brain. And I thought going to the dentist was bad!? If I need that, I will throw myself in front of a bus. It takes a sedative for me to schedule a tooth cleaning.

My neurosurgeon appointment at Hopkins is on Tuesday, which will be the moment of truth. Or terror. The tumor/blob is smack in the middle of my brain, which poses problems for obvious logistic reasons. It is hard to get to the middle of the brain without screwing up a lot in between. I was reading the medical journal articles last night about the surgery for the type of tumor they THINK I have and one of the studies from a few years back had a mortality (read: death) rate of 75%. The vast majority of the people that did not kick it had to endure slight "complications" ---- like blindness, paralysis and inability to speak.

Perfect.

A more recent med article listed the surgical "success" rate at around 69% - which the author concluded was an "acceptable outcome for neurological surgery." Acceptable for whom!? I can assure you that the other 31 (dead) percent were not happy about it.

So - I am trying to hold it together and occupy my mind until Tuesday. I should be out, like, planning a trip to Tuscany or swimming with dolphins (Holla! Deltas!) or starting a foundation or at least, shopping for super expensive shoes that hurt my feet. Instead I am home, blowing my nose and eating cold pizza while I type and listen to Christmas music.

Blah - I may go take some NyQuil and try to nap until MRI/IV torture time.

Not Getting Really Sick, And Shit

One of my awesome friends (who shall remain unnamed) sent the below email and I am posting it because it makes me happy to read. It is nice, both, to be someone's "favorite ... in the world" and to hear it:

I guess on a related note, I don't feel like you and I have to say these things to each other, but I'd rather look like a dork saying it than risk you not knowing for sure. I care about you, you are one my favorite people in the world, and I feel like there's a rock in my stomach thinking that you might ever not be around to talk to. So, like, don't get really sick, and shit.

PS Her dad passed away from a brain tumor, so I think she knows almost better than anyone what I going through right now.

Dr. God's Hands

I am waiting for the assistant to Dr. "God's Hands" (Ben Carson at Hopkins, per his self-titled book) to call me back. He was the first neurosurgeon that both the Hopkins and the UMD neurologists referred me too. I was told he does mainly pediatrics but will consult on a few adult cases per year.

When I called the Hopkins neurologist to report I was having problems getting in to see Dr. God's Hands, he replied "I will call and tell him that your diagnosis is an intraventricular brain tumor, that would excite him!"

Ummm - no. No exciting the world-class neurosurgeon. I want my brain to be as boring as can be. Boring. Textbook and boring. Not exciting.

Exciting means "dead" and then later written up in a medical journal about why my "case" was so exciting that I am now dead. I want to avoid that.

Dead people do not get to shop for shoes.

BAM!

Brain tumor.

Ok, two neurologists are saying I have one.

Now what the hell do I do?

I Have An Imperfect Brain

The MRI report says:

"Rounded T2 hyperintense structure in the region of the frontal horn of the left lateral ventricle."

Had I known my world was about to implode I would have worn cuter shoes, or at least some lipgloss, to pick up the radiologist report.

Dammit.