Tumor-versary

Some time during these twelve pensive, recovering, normalizing, healing months, I turned my radiation mask into some art.  I don't create things... like, ever.  So this was a big deal for me.

(I have to shout out to Maeve Griffin, Moore College of Art and Design grad, who gave me some of her discarded studies for her work Vain, which serve as background, in part, on both of my little canvases.  She is a great artist, check her out: http://www.maevegriffin.com/ )


Many somber thoughts have been spent thinking about how this is currently the end of June, and that last year on June 21, I was admitted to the hospital after an MRI revealed a gigantic brain tumor.  Last year on June 26 I was having hours and hours of brain surgery.  Last year on June 30, I was discharged from the hospital, barely able to walk, barely able to see, and barely able to stay awake for more than a few hours a day, and loaded up with drugs.

It has been a year since my crazy ride with cancer began.

One of the things I started doing last fall which turned out to be a great therapeutic outlet while recovering from radiation, was to write my experiences down.  I chose to write the important events exactly how I remembered them, but I gave the experiences a different cast of characters.  If I ever finish writing it, my story will be about a young lady (not me) going through my same struggles, and some struggles unique to her as well.  The moral of her story will be the same as it is for me-- you can get through anything, one day at a time, and build the life you want in spite of the odds.

In this story, I wrote down exactly what I remember thinking and feeling when I was coming to after 6 or 7 hours of intense brain surgery.  This is what I remember:




-->

Red-black darkness.  I am frozen inside a lightless tunnel of raging static that crushes my inner ears.

I do not hear or see or speak or move, but I feel the darkness, I feel a fiery heat, and I feel the static.  The epicenter of these feelings is the back of my head.  That deafening static is inside my nerves, screaming to my senses that the back of my head is in great agony.  Is this what it feels like to have the back of your head shot off?  To have a burning axe come down on you?

Wait...this is pain.  I am not feeling sound or color, I am feeling pain.  

--I am suddenly cognizant of my own thoughts--

If I am feeling pain and I am conscious, then I must be out of surgery and I AM ALIVE!

I am exultant at my discovery, but still cannot move.  I cannot remember how to move.  Time passes, I fade in and out, but I know I am alive.  I wait for my life to come back to me completely. 

But it won’t come back.  

I know I am breathing and thinking and in pain, but I otherwise feel utterly lifeless.  I am a zested lemon—a mound of pale pith, scraped clean of my essence.

More time passes.

Now I can hear.  I begin to hear whispers.  I recognize the voices of loved ones.  They are quiet, standing guard in the corner.  I strain to hear their words, but cannot understand them.  After taking several breaths as deep as I can manage, I tell my mouth to shout, “Sweetheart!” but all I hear is a slurred, breathy sigh before my lips collapse onto each other once more.  I squeeze my forehead to try to open my eyes, but my eyelids will not move.

This struggle went on for some time, it felt like days, it may have been mere seconds, and I finally communicated with Jack and my parents.  I still shudder when I remember feeling only that loud, hot, red blackness.  I have such strong memories of the moment I realized that I had survived the surgery.  I hate to admit that I was a tiny bit surprised that I was alive.

It seems like that was so long ago, and it surprises me that it was only a year ago.  So much has happened in that year, sometimes I feel like I'm not even that same person anymore.  Yet, last year will forever color what I do in the present and future.  I think of a (somewhat-depressing) quote-- one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors:

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Next month I get to see my Neuro-Oncologist at Yale for a follow-up MRI, so we will see how things are faring.  I feel well now, and we are planning for our future, which is what matters most.

For your continued support, concern, and prayers, I can never thank you enough.  So many people that I hardly know --or don't know at all-- grab my hands when they see me, stare into my eyes, and ask, "How are you feeling?"  They don't ask like we ask passing strangers, they ask like they really want to know the answer, like their own happiness depends on my answer.  I know that I am in the hearts and prayers of so many, and I truly appreciate it.

One year down, and hopefully many, many more happy, healthy, cherished years to come!