My Diagnosis Story
My Diagnosis Story
Four
years ago, I entered the world of triathlons. I had been a distance runner, a
very slow distance runner, but since my aquatically inclined husband had
decided that triathlons were going to be his jam, I had a choice to make: Did I
want to stand on the outside of the barriers and cheer him on for two hours, or
did I want to get my butt in gear on the other side and see what a person who
failed beginners’ swim lessons five times could do once she overcame her fear
of water? I took the bold choice, the choice which also allowed me to get some
colorful new sports attire.
But then
things got weird. My right cheek started to feel like a dentist had given me
some Novocain which was starting to wear off. I’d never heard of a running
stress causing a person’s face to lose sensation, so I put off the visit to the
running store and had a visit with my primary physician.
The
clinic I go to, Abbott Northwestern Center for Outpatient Care, is excellent.
Even though I rarely see my actual primary as he’s often away, all the doctors
I have seen there are very thorough and take their time in assessing one’s
condition. The doctor I saw decided I should have a brain scan (an MRI with and
without contrast) to “rule things out.” (He didn’t say it at the time, but what
he was ruling out was multiple sclerosis. I am endlessly grateful that we
could, in fact, rule that one out.) Depending on what that revealed, he
believed my next step should be to see a neurologist, and then a neurosurgeon
if she couldn’t find anything. I grumbled a bit. An MRI to rule things out?
That’s an expensive base to cover, around $1200 a pop. So unnecessary, but I
did it anyway.
The next
morning, 8:00 a.m. on the dot, the doctor himself called me and left a message.
That’s never a good sign. When I got ahold of him about two hours later, I
could tell he was trying very hard to sound calm and understated. “Your MRI
revealed a lesion—a small brain lesion—that we will need to check out. The
radiologist says it looks consistent with a meningioma, which is a benign,
slow-growing tu—lesion. Your new plan of action I think should be to see the
neurosurgeon as soon as you can and then, if needed, see the neurologist.”
Brain
lesion. Lesion. He didn’t say tumor. I scoured the interwebs for meningioma and
learned that “brain lesions” are the same thing as “brain tumors,” but they
don’t sound as bad. (Consider that when you have to tell family members who may
be prone to freaking out.) Suddenly, I found myself investigating the world of
oh-so-dramatic brain tumors with myself in a starring role. It was so
unexpected, so bizarre, that initially I found myself laughing … when I wasn’t
hyperventilating.
I was off
of work that day. My husband was working late on a high-pressure project. As it
got closer to the time he’d normally finish work, I gave him a call. He was
stressed; the project was not going smoothly. I was not about to say, “Oh,
sorry about that. By the way, I have a brain tumor.” So I got off the phone and
got ready to meet my sister for a 5K fun run we were doing that evening. When I
saw my sister, my mind was shouting “BRAIN TUMOR!” but we were meeting up with
some of her friends and it was to be a fun evening with lots o’ swag. Not the
right time. I discovered, however, that stressed-induced adrenaline can greatly
improve one’s running times. I left her that evening, still holding my secret
inside.
It was 10
p.m. when I got home. First, my husband wanted to hear all about the race. Then
I needed to shower. When I came down from my shower, he was watching The Daily Show. So we watched and
laughed. Then he started on The Colbert
Report. Reluctantly, I took the remote and paused it. I do not remember how
long it took me to spit out the words or how I said it exactly. When dramatic
health issues are not a normal part of your life, it can be a struggle to make
a paradigm-changing claim. I think I actually started laughing at one point.
The idea of my having a brain tumor seemed so ridiculous. But I got it out. I’m
pretty sure my husband was terribly confused by my reaction.
From then
on, I had to pick and choose my moments to tell people. I usually ended up
laughing each time, so some probably thought I was already mentally damaged. My
stress level was fairly high for about three to four weeks. During that time, I
saw the neurologist, who was surprised my report didn’t say “MS.” All she could
tell me was that my numbness issues were not caused by the meningioma. It
turned out, I just needed different running shoes.
By the
time I saw the neurosurgeon, Dr. Mullan, I had come to grips with the idea of a
benign, slow-growing brain tumor. He was clear that I was entirely
asymptomatic. He said that chances were high that, aside from periodic MRIs to
monitor it, I may not even have any problems from the meningioma, or if I did,
it would be years down the line. If I ever were to need surgery, in fact, it
would be a “chip shot” (I believe that is a golf term meaning “easy”) that
would pop right out. (And he actually made a popping sound.) I could relax, so
I did. I had another MRI about nine months later, which didn’t show any growth.
I thought I had another one about a year after that, but there are no records
of it. Time went by. I had no symptoms.
My brain tumor became just another
mildly interesting anecdote to mention, when I remembered that I even had one.
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