The Journey

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. ...

November 8th. The date is set.  The mental games have been played.  I have won.  There is nothing left to do now, but wait another week and a couple days.  This actually works out quite well for me.  To begin with, I thought I was going to be in the hospital for Halloween.  Now I get to hand out candy.  I also was under the assumption I would be recovering during the Servite / Mater Dei game.  Now I get to attend it.  I am going into this surgery with the highest hopes, but I will be expecting the worst.  Whatever the outcome is, I have no control over it, so as my high school football coach Larry Toner once told me, "Mr. Coffelt, is there anyway you can control this certain situation, can you manipulate the outcome to your liking?"  Me, "No."  Coach, "Then why are you worrying about it?"  There really is no point in worrying about things that you have absolutely no control over.  Sure there are things which one m...