Tu(m)ors and Travels

03/22/24: Scenic Detours "How are you feeling? Do you have any questions for me at this time?" Dr. Babb in that ER room sounded extremely apologetic, as if somehow he was responsible for the Meningioma diagnosis he just read to me. Of course I had questions!  "This Menin... , I mean the tumor, do you think I got it because I am on my phone all the time?" In the next 5 seconds, I watched the doctor's face change from sad to incredulous to almost a smile.  "No, Meningioma has nothing to do with your screen time habits." "Is it genetic? Are my girls at risk of getting this? My older one gets headaches often" "No, highly unlikely for it to be genetic, unless they get it during birth, in which case you would know by now, as there are very clear symptoms for tumors at birth. It is extremely rare for kids that young to develop these kinds of tumors." I was still quite loopy from the meds and I could not think beyond those two questions at ...

  Updated 03/15/24- One long month! It has been a month since that visit to the ER, and it felt as if this one had 100 days! But today’s another day! A beautiful one with warm sunshine! I was able to get out on a hike to Pittock Mansion and soak in the glorious views. Just like that, all of my TBDs have made way for actual dates! Dr. Gore’s team is working on pulling them in further, but this is the schedule for now! 03/16: Taara’s birthday party! 03/18 1pm: Mammogram (Tanasbourne) 04/08 10am: EKG, Blood work (Bethany) 04/11: Angiogram (St Vincent's) 04/19: Raaga’s Photoshoot 05/06: CT Scan, MRI, Surgery (St Vincent's) 06/07: Parents arrive 06/20: Recovery complete??? 07/14: Raaga’s Rangapravesam!

  Updated 03/14/24- Pi Day! The day I had been patiently waiting for, my “meet your neurosurgeon” day,  is finally here! It is the neurosurgeon my ophthalmologist spoke very highly of, one that performed the surgery on her own tumor five years ago. Also, he happens to be my dear friend Ruta's cousin! The universe was definitely conspiring to line me up with Dr. Gore! Today, I found out that he is the best there is, and I am in a pair of very safe hands!  Dr. Gore assured me that he would do his best to pull in the angiogram and put me on the calendar for the end of April or the beginning of May, worst case. He is confident that I will be fully recovered by the end of June. He reviewed the process with me. Some of the details scared me shitless, I am not going to lie. Like breaking a tiny part of the skull. Putting a catheter in there to monitor blood flow. Chiseling every possible bit of the tumor away. Assessing the need and frequency of radiation. Then he reviewed the r...

  Updated 03/12/24- Silver Linings After an entire day of rain yesterday, the sun made an appearance in Portland this morning. With him came the news of my little victory with the various benefit claims. I had no reason to believe that the disability claims would be denied, but such has been the mindset that everything small and big is making me anxious. I  can finally put the job security concerns and compensation uncertainty to rest- one less call for me to make on a daily basis!  On the symptoms front- the sinusitis is still very much present. I have taken more milligrams of antibiotics and steroids in the past three weeks than I have in my entire 44 years of existence, and that may have a lot to do with my current loss of taste and appetite, and increased fatigue. I also get headaches, especially in noisy surroundings. Over the weekend, I attended a dance event where Raaga and team performed a beautiful Kuchipudi item. Theirs was number four on the list, and my head w...

  Updated 03/08/24- Women’s day edition! I could not sleep much last night either, but that is only because Taara could not wait to start her 6th birthday!  She kept waking me up every hour- “is it time for my birthday yet?”, “Can I open my presents yet?”. Ah, the pleasures of being a newly minted 6 year old and overflowing with birthday energy! A few updates from my end: ENT confirmed based on the recent CT scan report that my sinuses are a little bit better than before, but still quite infected. That is the plain English for “Right frontoethmoidal and sphenoethmoidal sinusitis, S shaped nasal septal deviation, and hypertrophied adenoid tonsillar tissue in the dorsal nasopharynx”, :). I am asked to continue with the antibiotics for one more week and check back for further direction if current symptoms (headaches, heaviness in the eyelids, mild nausea) persist. Angiogram is scheduled for April 11th, 10am. Looks like that is the earliest possible date, thanks to the ongoing sho...

  Updated 03/05/24 I barely slept last night- the headache and the heavy eyelids had me tossing and turning in bed. When I woke up with the whole left side of my face feeling numb, it reminded me of the Bells Palsy I had in grad school circa 2000. Back then, it was much worse- my left eyelid wouldn't close, I wouldn't breath with my left nostril, hearing loss on the left side, etc. It honestly wasn't that bad today.  I called the on-call neurosurgeon anyway, just to be sure. He convinced me that it all still points to the sinus infection and none of it changes what we already know about the tumor. He reminded me that the CT scan I was to get later today would confirm just that. Bachi took me to St Vincent's for the scan.  That place was bustling! The entire Portland appeared to be there, wanting to get expensive pictures of various pieces of their anatomy.  The lady at the counter was especially chatty. “Gooderham- what a weird street name?!”, she remarked casually w...

Updated 03/04/24 Happy Monday! It was a big weekend for the family. Taara lost her first tooth. Raaga's been busy juggling dance practices, school work, and volunteering. I got to go out on a nice lunch with some super awesome people. While I was there, Bachi was busy making a yummy plantain fry for dinner- a vegetable he never liked before! We also squeezed in some eye appointments for me and the girls. While discussing my eye health in light of the tumor, the Ophthalmologist casually showed a hole in her skull from a brain tumor biopsy 7years ago. It gave us a chance to commiserate on tumors and what they can do to your brain, your thoughts and the whole outlook for life. These tumors are a lot like birthing experiences. Each pregnancy is unique with the circumstances and challenges, getting the thing that's growing out of their body is all two expectant moms ever talk about when they meet. But the similarity ends there. There is no bundle of joy to hold, kiss, and forget the...

  Updated 02/28/24 Happy hump day!  I am about half way through the penicillin course and my sinuses are feeling a lot better. The headaches are no longer constant, they just show up occasionally, like the Portland Sun this week, although they get nowhere close to the welcome Sun gets around here :). I have been keeping my food in, just fine too. So, it all seems to align with the model that the sinus infection is what put me in ER on 02/15. The CT scan next week will confirm this. Physically, I am nearly back to my pain-free self from pre-meningioma diagnosis days. The real painful part is to keep waiting patiently- for the diagnostics and surgery schedules, for the insurance paperwork, for the FMLA/Short term disability/claims verdicts, and, most of all, for time, and for this phase to pass. Just a quick note that my parents, sister and extended family still know nothing about any of this. I hope it stays that way until I am nearly recovered post surgery. Raaga has the whole...

  Updated 02/26/24 *I have had a lingering cold and cough for a couple of months. *On Thursday, 02/15, I had an intense headache, dizziness, and nausea, which was very unusual. I was going to just take a Tylenol and sleep, but fortunately, I decided to go to the ER. The doctors' original diagnosis was migraine, and they just gave me some Benadryl and Zofran, a nausea medicine through IV    *Out of abundance of caution, the doctor ordered a CT scan, which showed the possibility of a tumor in the meninges, the fibers between the skull and the brain. Even at this point, the doctor was convinced that what I had was migraine. He initially suggested that I go home and get an MRI scheduled to rule out a tumor. But then, he had a change of thought, and said since I may not get an MRI appointment for several months as an outpatient, that it may be best to stick around in the ER and get it done. That, in hindsight, was an extremely fortunate call, for the MRI confirmed the Meningio...

Hello! Hope you are doing well! I have a bit of news to share from a recent medical diagnosis. It looks like I have a denser brain than most - I guess that explains some things about my personality :). On a serious note, the technical term for what I have is Parasagittal Meningioma- a (likely benign) tumor growing in my brain.  I have some diagnostic tests coming up, likely in March, to understand the extent of vein damage, if any, and whether radiation is needed post surgery. The surgery itself will be scheduled for sometime in April and they expect me to fully recover in about 6 weeks. I am supposed to be asymptomatic, as it is a very slow growing tumor, likely in the making for over a decade. It is a fortuitous discovery at my age, the ER doctors did me a great service by ordering CT/MRI as opposed to brushing my symptoms aside as a migraine, like they were suspecting. I have some symptoms (headache, nausea, dizziness) which the doctor thinks are unrelated to the tumor and likel...