The Journey

I have been so amazingly grateful to not have the terrible side effects which the typical brain tumor is accompanied with; seizures, nausea, severe headaches, memory loss, numbness and just about every other ailment you can imagine.  In contrast to many people's stories I have read and heard about, a mild headache and some trouble trying to remember what I was thinking are two very small issues I can deal with.  This morning that all came to a screeching halt.  I woke up with the absolute worst headache I have ever experienced which eventually led to some fun vomiting.  For anyone who has been around me while I am vomiting, you all know I make sure and let EVERYONE in the immediate district know that I am vacating my stomach.  On top of vomiting which is bad enough, throwing up with an excruciating headache is a trade I think I am going to have to master.  (Not to be too graphic, but I warned you all earlier in this blog you will get the good, the...

The waiting game continues... It is both frustrating to me as well as everyone else.  It has been a week since I did my last MRI and still no word.  The next step in this journey is removing whatever is growing in my brain.  Right now I feel like I am in a holding pattern running low on fuel.  I have found myself getting more and more temperamental with both myself and the ones I love.  I know this is not me and I am fixing it.  Last night, thanks to Sue Hamrock there was a healing mass for myself and others who are currently facing ailments that are out of their hands.  I am so thankful for everyone who came including friends I have not seen since high school!  Seeing familiar faces was a type of easing therapy.  I know I am facing a monstrous wall and hearing how many loving people are in my corner continually shocks me. It is times like these that people show their true colors- when people know you are in a tough sp...

We all have things we are thankful for.  Family, friends, a house over our head, a warm bed to sleep in, even the meal on our plate- the many things we all take for granted on a daily basis.  We take one day out of our year to remind ourselves and others just how much we appreciate what we have.  The thing is this year I am thankful for everything .  I am so glad to be able to spend time with people I love and whom love me most of all.  The human interaction is imperative to us as humans and without this interaction, life seems like it is in some ways pointless.  If I could break down everything I believe and think I know about life and why we are here, I would say that I truly believe that our life is not measured in days, months or years, but by how much we are able to change other peoples lives for the better.  Living a life on the pursuit of money, cars and girls is a life wasted if it is not equally important to help others every chance...

An MRI is not fun.   A functional MRI takes a regular MRI and puts it to shame.  It is longer, louder more cramped and far harder to sit still through, however you get to watch an exceptional screensaver slideshow stock on any and every Apple computer (which I have.)   Today I went and did my fMRI's.  I had to go out to UCLA Medical to have these done since it is a very specific type of MRI and both the software used and the person reading slash preparing them needs to know exactly how to do such a thing.  Driving to LA at 9 in the morning is never fun let alone when you know you have to go and have your brain examined for an hour and a half.  We got there fairly quick and had some time to kill so I attempted to use the bathroom.  UCLA Medical is kind of strange in that it has numerous dual sex bathrooms and not too many men / women.  Well, I found a dual sex bathroom that was the closest to where the waiting room was and went to do my busine...

Day 22.   I went and saw 2 more doctors today.  2 more opinions.  2 more stories on what is growing in my head.  I am now certain that I have met the doctor who will eventually cut open my skull, just not sure which one yet.  There are a few factors which need to be sorted out before that decision is made.  The next part of this process involves what is called a functional MRI.  Basically they want to map my brain and see how close areas of importance are in relation to my tumor.  The fMRI will be performed within the next couple of days, and along with that MRI they will also perform another test...  And hopefully that will be the last.  After the MRI is read and deciphered as best possible, I have a choice to make.  I get to decide if I want to be awake while my brain is exposed or not.  Awake craniotomies can only be done by a small number of doctors and I am lucky enough to have a pretty great specialist a...

Doctors, doctors and more doctors. Yesterday I spoke with another doctor, Dr. Liu from USC.  Dr. Liu was a very straight forward and smart man.  He is well established and knows what he is talking about so I feel comfortable taking advice from him.  He did not tell me anything I did not know already, I have a tumor in my brain and it needs to come out.  Whether or not it is cancer is still somewhat of a gray area.  He seems fairly certain this tumor began in my brain and tumors that start in the brain are either very 'good' (for a brain tumor) or very bad.  If it is malignant, the tumor will be quite agressive and more difficult to completely get rid of.  If it is benign (fingers crossed) than it won't be as difficult.  Dr. Liu broke it down for me quite simply, like in football with any pass you have 2 options - either you catch the ball or you drop the ball.  These might not be the best of odds, but they are the odds which I was handed an...

On becoming an expert. Two weeks ago, the extent of my knowledge on the subject of brain tumors was is it malignant or benign.  Today, I can say I am a borderline physician.  Doctors have an obligation to themselves as well as their patients to be honest, but not over step bounds and make incorrect diagnosis. I am beginning to realize that as far as reading an MRI to diagnose a mass in the brain, it is comprable to trying to determine the genetic makeup of a human by looking in their eyes.  I have now had conversations with 4 neurosurgeons, 2 general practitioners, 1 ophthalmologist and a partridge in a pear tree.  Tomorrow I will meet with yet another brain surgeon.  Dr. Charles Liu at USC Medical- he is basically one of the best surgeons on the West Coast if not that nation, and perhaps the world.  Between his input and the input of the copious amounts of other doctors I have spoken to, I hope to have some kind of und...

Change of plans. A lot has transpired since my last post.  I have changed doctors, I've cancelled and rescheduled the surgery and now cancelled again*.  My new doctor, Dr. Tina Lin thinks that this isn't as simple as initially thought.  I knew all along that this was going to be a rough road and I am prepared for that, Dr. Lin just wants to make sure I am setting myself up for the best possible long term outcome.  Dr. Lin believes the entire mass (See below) is all tumor.  So all the irregular looking tissue in the scan is what she thinks is a type of Glioma .  Initially the thought was the surrounding area that looks different from the internal mass is just swelling caused by the tumor pushing against my brain. So with the new information there is much more to take into consideration.  If in fact the entire mass is tumor, the outer most edges come extremely close to areas that are invaluable to my motor skills.  Dr. Lin wants to be able to g...

8 years ago today was the hardest day of my life.  I lost my mother to breast cancer , actually around this time.  She passed away and I felt hollow.  I swore I would live my life in the moment, I wanted to make sure I had no regrets and I needed to leave.  In fact, no more than a month after she passed away I left.  Maybe I was running from reality or maybe I did just need to get away.  So I packed up and left my family, my then girlfriend and all of my friends to live in San Luis Obispo.  My time in San Luis Obispo was one of the best years of my life.  8 years later I miss her just as much and love her more than ever.  8 Years later I celebrated her, I did not mourn her.  8 years later the most amazing Amy Thompson had Cancer Palooza.  A gathering of people whom in one way or another have cancer affecting their life.  It has been a wild 2 weeks and to think that today was the day my mom passed away and the day of Cancer Pa...

You are not promised a tomorrow nor guaranteed another minute. All we truly have is this moment.  Last night one of my sisters best friends, Jolie lost her husband.  Mitch Lucker, father, husband and musician died in a motorcycle accident in Huntington Beach.  And just like that his daughter will now grow up without her father, Jolie lost her husband and the world lost a great musician.  All around us people are forgetting that life is a gift, a special small amount of time allotted to each of us to live, laugh and love.  It is much easier to fight and bicker than to make the tough choices in life, suck up your pride and always show the ones you love, just how much you need them.  There has never been a person to say that life is easy.  In fact, life is brutal.  Life will kick the shit out of you and then it will spit on you while you are down.  The thing about life though, is the amount of beauty and power always outweighs the bad. ...