Recovery

When I first became aware, I was lying down on a bed.  I thought about what just happened to me, and I decided must have gone fairly well.  I tried to move my right arm, and *WHACK*!  My face was in the way.  I tried to right arm again, which was a heavier that usual, and settled it into a more comfortable position.  At some point, I must have tried talking, and it was difficult as well.  Maybe my surgery didn't go as I thought.  I settled back and just wrote it off to surgery/anesthesia after effects, and into a fitful sleep.

They took be for a CT scan, to make sure there was no blood clotting issues, then I was wheeled to the ICU.  I remember my dad being there, as well my uncle Chris and my cousin Paul.  Sorry if I left some people out, but I remember those people being there.  I tried to talk, to say that "I'm okay," but I was clearly not.  Talking was futile.  As they left - it had been a long day - I remember going back to sleep.

The next day, I got to sit up in a chair.  They had put me on 200mg of Dilantin, which basically slows my brain down and makes me feel like poop, so I was getting to used to that.  I tried talking, and I could get several words out - yes, no, and thanks.  It took a lot of effort just getting these words out.  My brain was functional, but I had Apraxia.  According to Wikipedia, "Individuals with AOS have difficulty connecting speech messages from the brain to the mouth.[2] AOS is a loss of prior speech ability resulting from a brain injury such as a stroke or progressive illness."

Basically, I sounded retarded, or mentally handicapped.  I was injured in my brain.  What if I was like that for the rest of my life?  The way nurses blew me off and didn't even tried to understand me, was a scary prospect indeed.

My parents got there, as well as my sister, and I was glad to see them.  I seem to remember them cracking up at my speech problems.  The fact that I just say curse words with little issues, but I had trouble getting conversation out at the time.  This was my funny to them, because they realized I was still there, I just had problems with my speech.

Eventually, Dr. Prahbu came in, and said my tumor was Oligodendroglioma, Grade 2, which had a good prognosis (meaning "life expectancy").  They were able to get 60% of it.  The other 40% could not be removed without damaging me further.  My tumor also had the 1p and 19q deletions, which meant likely to be treatable with chemotherapy.

I was initially disappointed at that result, but lived with it.  After all, "Close follow-up with regular MRI scans is recommended following the successful removal of low-grade oligodendrogliomas," which means that further treatment would be not necessary until I showed tumor progression on my MRI.

The need for therapy was a given, especially for my speech.  90% came back over time.  Occupational and physical, I had deficits as well, mostly minor.  All in all, one year later, I was feeling back to my normal self.

Thanks for reading the first part of my story.  Any feedback would be welcome.

By the way, my last MRI scan came back stable!  Woohoo!