I’m 40 today. I’m surprised that my mood has been rather positive over the past day. I had an excellent birthday observed at work yesterday, where cheery, bright yellow flowers decorated my desk, and my boss took me out for a fantastic lunch. Then, I woke up at 4:30 this morning with a sense of excitement, ready to celebrate! (I don’t even do that on Christmas morning!)

Today, there’s a cold rain falling, a perfect day to stay in and catch up on the book I’ve been trying to read for the past few months.

Oh, who am I kidding… I’m doing an “Unsolved Mysteries” Amazon Prime binge and cuddling with my sweet doggy boys.

AND I have the house all to myself! What a treat.

I got a call yesterday that my surgery may have to be delayed by a week. At first, I was panicked. WHY are they doing this to me? Do they even know how anxious I already am about this??? (I *may* have overreacted.)

But then I realized: It’s not personal. I have to learn to deal with my anxiety in a better way. If it’s delayed a week… it’ll just be another week. Although it is a little logistically challenging, we will make it work.

I’ve always had a healthy interest in the paranormal. But I am also a skeptic. That doesn’t dissuade me from reading about the weird or the unusual. Case in point:

Here is an incredible journal article detailing a woman in Britain who heard voices telling her to get her brain scanned. And those voices were COMING FROM HER HEAD. And the voices WERE RIGHT–she had a large brain tumor. And when all was said and done, they said, “We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.”

 

 

 

 

 

Some people have asked why a biopsy isn’t done for a brain tumor.

The answer is that in order to get in there for a biopsy, you’ve probably made all of the same steps in order to make a resection. So, might as well take out the growth while you’re at it.

The specific operation I will have is called a craniotomy. In simplified terms, the surgeon will:

• Shave a portion of my hair
• Cut my scalp to expose the dura
• Cut the dura to expose the skull bone
• Drill access holes around the site he wants to remove
• Connect the dots with the holes with a saw
• Pop out the bone flap and set it aside for safekeeping
• Carefully resect the meningioma
• Put it all back together with various hardware
  • If the bone flap ends up being compromised in any way, a titanium plate will be used
• Stitch and staple my dura and scalp back together again

I think the surgery will take anywhere from four to six hours.

The location of my tumor is advantageous, apparently. It is in the convexity of my head, which means it’s located near the cranium. So, I got that going for me, which is nice.

 

 

 

What’s the big deal about turning 40 years old?

Probably nothing. Except I’ve got a brain tumor–a meningioma–that will need to come out just weeks after I turn 40.

I’ve had my little buddy for… unknown. I don’t think it can be resected and cut open to count the rings like you can on a tree.

It was found in 2013 after a car accident.

I was hit from behind while stopped and was pushed into several different cars.

Thinking I had a concussion, I took myself to my doctor the next day. A CT scan was ordered. That’s when my tumor was found.

Initiate freakout.

I landed at Emory’s Neurosciences department. After an MRI, which is much more detailed than a CT scan, I was reassured: it was almost certainly a benign growth in a “good” location that would likely never cause me any trouble. I was told this type of thing happens all the time: folks find out, incidentally, about all sorts of things, if you look hard enough. So, I followed up with them on a regular basis.

This year marked five years–time for a new scan. This time, my tumor had grown.

Surgical removal would almost certainly guarantee the tumor will never, ever return. The other option, radiation, is a very slow process.

I chose to move forward with surgery.