It has been just over four months since they found my meningioma. Nothing much has changed.
In case you haven’t read my previous ‘health’ blogs they found a blood clot in October. I was put on blood thinners and told they won’t operate until I I am off. I will be done my course of Xarelto on April 3, 2018. I had an ultra sound in January and the clot is gone. So I really have just been waiting. Doing my best not to worry. Be in the moment and not let the stress get to me.
The biggest challenge for me has been my “anxiety” and I put it in quotation marks because at this point, I am doubting if I ever actually had anxiety.
The doctor suggested I might have epilepsy when I first started to complain about my ‘episodes’ so I saw a neurosurgeon and waited for an ECG and a MRI. The ECG happened in less than 3 months and showed nothing. It took 13 months to get in for the MRI but I had a call five days after that they found a tumor and it needed to be removed. That phone call was was November 16, 2017. I don’t know if I will every forget that day. They wanted to operate in two weeks but needed to wait at least 3 months because I was on blood thinners. So they scheduled me for Jan 5, 2018. After some more research and specialist appointments they delayed it once again. Deciding that the meningioma is most likely not cancer and is less of a health threat than the blood clot.
I have been waiting. The neurosurgeon told me to watch out for headaches, issues with my vision or speech. I am VERY lucky they said. Most people have the physical problems first and it then takes months to a year for the MRI. I honestly am not feeling very luck at all.
Then came the ongoing issues with my ex and I am started to feel overwhelmed.
And the icing on the cake? After a suggestion from the RCMP I have sold my condo. It sold in 6 days and I have six weeks to find a new place to live.
I have been woken up 5 times in the last 6 weeks with shortness of breath and my right arm tingling. A few years ago I would have just laid on the floor, taken an Ativan and waited for the weird feeling to go away. Blaming it on my so called ‘anxiety’. But I didn’t feel anxious. I had nothing to be feeling anxious about in that moment. No bad dreams or over whelming thoughts were in my head. My counsellor, doctor and google all say that it can be subconscious problems. Holding onto all this stress is having an effect on me that I am not even conscious about. This makes sense, I guess…
I had an eye exam a month ago and everything looked fine. However, last week at the gym I fell over. The vision in my right eye lost focus very suddenly. It only lasted about 30 seconds but it was long enough that I couldn’t keep my balance. I keep a log of every ‘episode’ that I have had over the last few years. The neurologist put me on anti-seizure medication and I think it helped. These episodes had been occurring less frequently; maybe once every 3-4 weeks. I have had three in the last two weeks and I am a bit concerned that the tumor might be having more physical effects on me.
I posted here on my blog about ‘gaslighting’ and am struggling with the ongoing effects it has had on my life and I am questioning my own thoughts. Questioning my friends and the people I should have had 100% trust with. When I get more information about my physical health it will be something I will have to dive into deeper. The idea of being mentally unstable is more terrifying to me than having a growth in my head. It’s weird, isn’t it? It was easier to try and let go of a slap across the face than all the emotional abuse that went after it.
With everything else going on in my life I honestly haven’t given this whole brain tumor thing much thought lately. It is Monday morning and once the rest of the world is awake I will call my family doctor, the hematologist and the neurosurgeon to see if they can give me any more answers. Their has been a lot of other blogs and stories from other people diagnosed with a meningioma, as it is the most common type of brain tumor. Other people sharing their stories and experiences have helped me. I hope that I can do the same for someone else.
