My Pet Head-Rock

Now you see it... ...now you don't: the magic of hairspray & backcombing You haven’t heard much from me since December. Honestly, there hasn’t been much to say. I returned to my teaching job at the beginning of January and started back at my Hamline MFA program at the very end of January. I’m running again, too. The last “cognitive episode” I had, when I became instantly overwhelmed and exhausted by looking at our new exercise bike (a multi-step process kind of overwhelmed), was December 8 th .  I've had moments of feeling uncomfortable at work--I am often writing on the whiteboard, thus displaying the back of my head to the class--but none of my students have noticed, or they're just too polite to say anything. If it weren’t for those little bald spots at the back of my head and the still pretty short hair around them, you wouldn’t be able to tell that I’d had brain surgery. I myself can’t tell most of the time. (To see what my head looked like right afte

Not the most stylish outfit but I could put it on by myself When you’ve just had surgery, you want to be comfortable. After a couple days of lounging around naked under loose hospital gowns, you want to look more yourself, less … patient-y. But you also need to be comfortable and not mess with complicated fasteners and fussy garments. For some people, the first word in comfort is jeans. I am not one of those people. Though denim can and ought to be comfortable, it is often heavy, stiff, or tight. At the very least you will have a zipper and a button closure. You may also have to wear a belt. All button-fly? What the heck are you thinking? You’ve just had a craniotomy! Your digits might not all be entirely under your control. When it comes to tops, we have some wiggle room. One hospital brochure recommended tops that are easy to put on without having to move your arms a lot; they suggested shirts that button down the front. Certainly, if you have a bandage on your head, yo

This time of year, we frequently hear these song lyrics: He’s making a list, checking it twice. I say, “Wait, only twice? What kind of slacker are you, Santa?” I have long been a fan of making lists. When I was younger, the lists were more of a catalog: the countries I had visited or wanted to visit, clothing items to buy that would complete my wardrobe (who was I kidding? It’s never completed!), guys I had dated. Now that I’ve reached middle age, the lists help me remember what I need and want to do. Yeah, kids, you read that right – I need a reminder sometimes of the things I want to do. That little reduction in memory capacity is waiting for you, too, when you reach middle age. (Hmm… I don’t like the term “middle age.” It sounds so much older than just saying my actual age of 45.) I rely heavily on such checklists during recovery from my craniotomy, but they look a little different now. Initially, they actually looked different without one’s having to read them because

When it comes to brains, as with real estate, it is all about location. That is one of my motivations for starting this blog: One’s experience of meningioma and craniotomy will differ widely depending on where the tumor is located, so firsthand accounts help sketch out the range of possibilities. To illustrate just how different the experiences can be, consider this:  ·        I am one of five people I know who has been diagnosed with a meningioma.  ·        Three of the five of us have had to have the tumor removed. (“If it grows, it goes.”) ·        Only one of the five ever had any symptoms.  ·        That person went from diagnosis to surgery in four days .  ·        The other craniotomate went ten years between diagnosis and surgery.  ·        With the three craniotomates: o    One had tremendous pain because it was on her spine and she needed physical therapy afterwards. My neurosurgeon said that the spine is the worst (read: most painful) place for a meni