fact: I have two brain tumours! If you want to find out more then have a read.
The last few years have have been full of many trials and tribulations but I will tell you one thing, I have learnt a lot about life.
It fascinates me how concerned about me some of the Dr.s and my immediate family were the first week after my surgery. I personally knew I was ok but they didn't. It's weird. I think talking about it with others now is interesting and can be quite amusing. My mum told me she knew I was OK the first time I turned on the TV and saw an add for a top end hairdressing salon and I then pointed to my partially shaved head and jokingly said '$20,000'. Apparently it made her smile for a few days.
On another note I also think about how painful it must be for those who know that cognitively they understand everything but they simply cannot make themselves verbally understood to others due to brain injuries or impairments they were born with. It saddens me and was actually one of my biggest fears that I may end up like that.
I saw my beloved neurosurgeon again on Tuesday. He's actually a really
nice guy, just straight to the point. At first this was obviously a hard thing to accept with him telling me he thought it would be best to have brain surgery to see what mischief my brain was getting up to. This time I was happy for him to
be straight to the point about my health situation as it was a positive outcome. My two gliomas (now I'm learning and starting to understand the lingo) are both different. Which is apparently quite uncommon but the positive side is that the Dr. said that I did not need radiotherapy or chemotherapy. I was so happy when I heard this. I think I asked him 'so I don't need radiotherapy or chemotherapy?' at least twice throughout the appointment because I wanted to make sure I had heard correctly.
I will still have to have them monitored for the next 10 years or so but for the moment I'm happy. I was also happy that he was happy to see how well I'm recovering as he admitted to me that he was quite concerned when he saw me in hospital the first few times as he thought my cognitive functioning had been impaired. I thought to myself 'Pfft I'm the smartest cookie in this town!'.
Oh and the last highlight, not the biggest though, was when he said to me 'who's telling you this information? You have to enjoy life.' after I talked about how the other Dr.s had said to me not to touch alcohol for a year. So last night at the pub I had one alcoholic beverage. I felt like a rebel. Well he's the Neurosurgeon and has more knowledge on the brain than all of the other Dr.s I've dealt with so I trust him.
I was in bed all day Wednesday. Tuesday was my first full day back at work. I thought it would be physically and mentally challenging but didn't think it would be as exhausting as it turned out to be. Went to bed that night with a migraine, woke up with it on Wednesday and stayed in bed all day. That's it.
I went back to work today. It was only for half a day and it was fine. Not the best lessons ever. The best lessons seem to be the lessons that you either haven't planned for much or the ones that go waaaay differently than you expected and then you achieve more than you had hoped for.
I received plenty of hugs, lots of waves from students that I walked past who were surprised to see me and one little cherub came running up to me before school had started and exclaimed 'Frau Soandso, you're back!', it was adorable. It's amazing how much these students have grown in 10 weeks and boy oh boy some of the students I taught today are definitely showing their 6-7 year old attitudes. Kinda funny.
Anyway, nap time. Back to school next Tuesday for the first full day since September eek!
I realised yesterday that I never really wrote about what surgery involved and how I felt afterwards. The day, or the day after surgery, some of my close friends had been trying to contact me and were a bit
concerned that something wasn't quite right as I didn't respond to their
text messages inquiring as to how I was. This was because it took
almost all my energy to read one, so replying seemed impossible and also
because I didn't touch my phone for about 3 or 4 days. Most of them
contacted my mum so the word spread that all was OK.
In all honesty I don't really know what surgery involved apart from a huge loss of hair, some very sharp instruments and a lot of people. I obviously don't know how it physically felt as I was in a deep sleep, so to speak, so there isn't too much to share about the actual operation, well none actually, but I do have a few distinct memories after I woke up from this deep sleep.
I remember that when I woke up after being in surgery for 6 hours I was dry retching, got taken to have a CT scan before I even saw my family (I may have this part in the wrong order as I was on very heavy drugs), had tubes and drugs stuck in me and asked for food and water which I was then denied for the first few hours after surgery. I also remember being woken up every 15 minutes to start off with and being asked the same questions 'What's your name?', 'Where are you?', 'What's your date of birth?' 'What's the date today?'. After what felt like a few hours, and it may have been, they asked me these questions every half an hour, then it went up to an hour and by the second week in hospital they stopped waking me up in the middle of the night to ask me and I only got asked once a day when they came to take a blood sample. I do remember that one day my answer to what was the date was about a week off. Mum told me after the specialists left. Oh well, that was how my brain was working. It was working slowly. Furthermore I remember that for the first two or so days I wore long sexy medical socks and had what I would describe as balloons that inflated and deflated at a steady rate strapped around my legs. I also realised that I had those tiny little tubes that sat near the nostrils pumping oxygen into me. I'd always thought those nasal tubes would be uncomfortable yet I hardly noticed them or just didn't care.
I also remember how lovely the nurses I had on the high dependency ward were, they were really admirable. My parents talked with a nurse who was pretty much constantly with me and discovered that she was from India and that her mum, who still lived in Inidia, had been taken to emergency the day or the day after I came in as she was extremenly ill/or had a bad accident (can't remember which one) and was likely to pass away. However this nurse had come to work and was so kind and on top of all that needed to be done. I was amazed when I found out. When they moved me to the neuro ward I did get a bit frustrated with a few nurses as a few times I pushed the button to get help for something and it could take a while for them to check on me. I don't mean just 3-5 minutes I'm talking 10-15. One time it took them about half an hour to come see if I was OK. One night I was so frustrated that I got out of bed at about 3am and went to the main desk and told them that I had been waiting ages and wanted help straight away. I was probably very forthright delivering this message as after that they came rather promptly if I pushed the button.
A positive thing after the surgery was the flowers that people sent me! Oh the flowers. My little space had about 7 bunches of flowers in them at one stage. I love flowers so they brightened my day. However when I say brightened I could not stand light for the first 3 days. My curtains were constantly closed and the light was off even though the majority of the time my eyes were shut but the burst of colour, although it was dim due to the lack of light entering my space, and the beautiful fragrances that flowed from the flowers made my tiny space bearable. The space was bearable for me but for my parents it wasn't that bearable as I was also really hot, apart from my feet freezing a few times, so asked for a fan. My poor mum was freezing as she sat there yet I just had the sheet on top of me and fan pointing towards the bed. After about a week of the fan pelting I was ok. That was weird.
My back and legs were really sore as they did not get me out of bed for about 2 days. I couldn't walk without support for the first 5 or so days and definitely didn't walk far. A couple of other things happened post op including that I got confused a bit, lost concentration quite easily, had a terrible puffy red eye (I posted a picture in a previous post) and my bit a speech up mixed. I actually wasn't bored until the last couple of days at Flinders and if I was I'd read a bit, do some puzzles and then fall back to sleep. That's all I can really think of at the moment, only a few tricky things to overcome ;) but hey I believe that a strong mindset will help me have as strong body again! It's working but taking it's time.
In all honestly I am greatful to be alive everyday, to be able to see, smell, taste, touch, walk, talk and be independent. I have had a few days where I have been down but then I remind myself 'Hold up Cass remember where you were almost 8 weeks ago!'. This song has been one of my favourites over the past few years and as it says it's nice to be alive. I agree!
Well I hope this post didn't scare you. I'm OK I promise. I also promise I don't look like a zombie anymore :) It has taken me quite some time to write this post so thanks for reading!
