Dodging the Lurking Bears
Let's say you are hiking in the woods and you suddenly encountered a bear. At that instant, you aren't going to think about your knees that have been hurting. You will not look to wash your muddy shoes or change those wet socks. You are not even going to unzip the bag of chex mix snack you've been hungry for. Your singular focus is going to be to make sure you don't become the snack for the bear right there.
From February 16th, the day of my diagnosis, to October 23rd, the last day of my radiation, the tumor has been that all consuming bear for me. All other aches and pains, concerns and fears, big and small, went to the back burner. It's been almost two months since the end of radiation treatment, and every last thing I put off all these days has elbowed its way back to the forefront. The universe is a pro at these balancing acts!
My vision has got the most negative press. Lifting my brows has been hard, because the muscles that control the brow movement are right around my incision. I have been noticing my eyelids drooping and have an appointment with my ophthalmologist soon to see how to address this.
There's a recent dark spot on my front tooth gumline which I initially thought was remnants of the burrito I ate at lunch that day and didn't even notice it since (I clearly brush with my eyes closed!). My dentist noticed it during my semi-annual appointment and referred me to an oral surgeon. Apparently, such lesions are fairly common post radiation! A dentist friend recommended a special mouthwash until further instructions from the specialist.
Besides the eyes and teeth showing their signs of protest, my headaches have still been annoyingly frequent and severe, and my mood swings frustratingly unpredictable.
Today, I had an MRI scan, my first since the end of radiation treatment. I took my time to communicate to the nurse of my phobia with needles and the difficulty most IV technicians have with finding my veins. It was well worth it, because I was assigned the nicest and most skilled IV tech onsite and it was the easiest IV insertion I had experienced this year- and, believe me, I have had a few of those this year. They even put AR Rahman's songs for me on Spotify during imaging! Never before have I smiled so much after IV and over 45 minutes of insanely loud and migraine inducing sounds of magnetic resonance imaging! I even had enough energy to go straight to work after that and put in a full day!
Incredulously, the MRI reports were uploaded to my chart by the time I drove to work from the hospital! There were a ton of technical words I didn't understand in there and I had to make a request for an appointment with my neurosurgeon to understand what they all mean. His first availability is Feb 6th so I have a long time to obsess about things, yet again! I already sent a message to the neurosurgeon in India that has been helping me in these situations and hopefully he can shine light on the severity of 'Bland Thrombus' and the 'aneurysm' status and all else that sounded scary for the uninitiated in there.
I am finally paying attention to every other part of my body and mind that's been brushed aside now that the tumor bear is out of sight, while also dealing with the bear reappearance threat that's permanently lurking. I was at least glad to have found the words I had been hoping to see for weeks at the end of that report: "no evidence of tumor progression". I will certainly take that from this MRI and hopefully from every MRI I will get for the rest of my life!
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