Family Who Took Care of Me

My family is close and we have always been there for each other.  That was clear once again when doctors found my brain tumor.  We were in Utah in July when everything unfolded, and at the time none of my immediate family was living there, but a lot of my inlaws were.  Pretty immediately we made arrangements for our boys to stay with their aunt and uncle while we went down to Salt Lake City for further evaluation.  My mother-in-law also helped watch the boys when we had to stay overnight.  The boys had a blast.  Their aunt gave them popsicles, and their grandma took them to feed the ducks.  If they remember it, I know those will be fun memories.

I texted my family when I was in the first ER and told them something was wrong with my eye and I might have a blood clot.  My sister was living in Idaho and hopped in the car with her roommate and started driving to Utah.  They kept tabs on me to make sure they got to the right place, and they arrived at the ER in Salt Lake City minutes before we did.  I quickly learned that my sister's roommate lost her grandmother (a dear family friend of ours) to breast cancer the night before.  It was a touching time to feel my sister's support for me and also to extend love to her roommate and her family.  My dad made arrangements to fly to Utah as soon as he could and arrived in SLC at 11pm that night.  We stayed with my husband's aunt and uncle after being discharged really late, and we hoped my dad could have breakfast with us.  He told me he didn't have time--he had to go back to Los Angeles for meetings, but he came to check on me and pray with me.  The fact that he only had about an hour to spend with us made me feel even more loved.  My mom was ready to hop on a plane as soon as we knew where we were going to be (Utah or Oregon) and help with our kids.  My other sister and brother were praying for me and hoping everything would be okay.

We made it back to Oregon and things calmed down a bit, but they were going to get worse before they truly got better.  The weekend before my surgery, my mom and dad came to town.  My mom ended up staying for three weeks watching my kids, driving me around, taking me to the ER (again!), going with me to doctors' appointments.  She was so helpful.  It was comforting to have my dad visit too, though his stays were shorter so he could get back to work. 

After my mom left a few weeks after my surgery, my in-laws came.  My mother-in-law took my kids on walks and drove me to the grocery store so we could pick up groceries I had ordered online.  I hardly remember anything from my in-laws visiting, but I remember my mother-in-law's sweetness. 

A few days after my mother-in-law left, my husband's sister came to help us.  She has six kids (they are older than ours, but still, she is a busy lady!), and she took the time to come help us.  She made over a dozen freezer meals for us in two days--those meals fed us for months during our most difficult times.  She drove me around town so I could get out of the house, paid for my hot chocolate when I realized I had forgotten my wallet and promised my son a treat, and let me sleep when I was too tired to go with her for drop offs and pick ups from school.  One of the most amazing things she did was play with my kids on Sunday morning while my husband was in meetings.  I was in bed, but I could tell she had patience to show them that I didn't have at the time, and she was so engaged.  Six months post-surgery I am feeling much more engaged with my kids, but at the time she visited I couldn't comprehend being engaged with my kids at all! 

Then my mom came again to go to my oncology appointment with me.  She shared my shock when the doctor recommended chemotherapy.  She just loved me.  I can't point to one specific thing she did that stood out.  She was there, and she loved me, and I felt safe because she was by my side. 

After my oncology appointment (more than five weeks after surgery), I was able to drive again.  I couldn't fully bend over, and I spent a lot of each day laying down with ice on my face, but I was so happy that I could take my sons to school. 

Seven and a half weeks after surgery, my entire family came to visit.  It was a hard weekend.  My face was hurting badly and I struggled to keep up with conversation.  My dad said to my mom, "I didn't expect her to be this bad."  It was that bad.  The adults in the family went to dinner and I had to have an ice pack on my face the entire time.

A few days after their visit, my mom and sister were with me at USC where I got a second opinion.  My sister is on a cancer research team there and lined up her preeminent boss to look at my case and answer all of my questions.  I felt like I had people in my corner.  During that quick trip to Los Angeles I spent time chatting with my brother.  He was stressed out about school and I jokingly said, "well, you could have a brain tumor."  He looked at me and with complete sincerity he responded, "If there were anyway that I could take this from you, I would."  I wanted to cry.  He is the sweetest. 

Throughout this whole process family members have called or texted to see how I'm doing.  When they haven't wanted to call or text me, they would call or text my husband.  Family matters a lot, and I'm not sure we could have made it through without them. 

Above all, my husband has been there.  He watches the kids and has been solid for them when I've needed to withdraw and heal.  He takes them to do fun things.  He bought all the Christmas presents in October without being asked!  We may not have had Christmas without him!  At times he has been frustrated because the healing process has been so hard, and then he shows more love and understanding.  I love him, and I am so grateful for him.  We have made it to this point because we have wonderful families supporting us.

Friends Who Took Care of Me

I could write so many posts about the friends who took care of me during this process.  If you have a brain tumor, you probably understand how awkward it is to start telling people you have a brain tumor.  It completely kills the conversation.  It makes everything about you.  Not very many people can say, "Oh I had a brain tumor too!"  Though you will start to find that many people can tell you about their aunt, uncle, cousin, friend, or someone they know on Facebook who also had a brain tumor.  Even the EMT for my brother's football team had a brain tumor.  I never thought about brain tumors until I had one, and then I felt like everyone knew someone with a brain tumor.  Whether people have had personal or secondhand experience with brain tumors, people are generally empathetic.  And some people went out of their way to be helpful and kind, especially on days when I absolutely felt alone and scared.  Here are some examples, though this is far from being a complete list:

• She came to walk with me when I returned to Oregon, and when I couldn't walk, she brought me back to my house and talked with me until I felt better.  After my surgery she came once a week for several weeks to help with my boys, my laundry, and other things around the house.  She was there to listen to me and also to let me rest.
• When I was in the hospital in Utah, I texted a friend who had had brain surgery a few years prior.  She was comforting and invited us over for dinner the day we got home from our trip.  She made us a freezer meal, texted me and stopped by to make sure I was okay, brought me flowers for my porch, and asked for any tips I had when her sister-in-law was having brain surgery a few months after mine.  
• When she heard about my brain tumor she immediately offered to bring dinner, called me at a time when I felt so desperately alone, walked to my house to say hi and bring a treat, took me for tortoise-slow walks during my recovery period, picked me up to go get a caramel apple spice and chat, shared stories about when her daughter had surgery right after birth, watched my boys, and did so many other things that I can't even remember.
• My friend who lost her newborn daughter a year earlier brought me a treat and beautiful flowers and texted throughout the process to see how I was doing.
• The women from my church organized a meal train to bring us 18 meals over a period of six weeks.  People signed up for all 18 meals in less than 12 hours.  Some women brought activities for my kids or special treats.  We didn't even know all of these people before my surgery, and we were blessed with so many new friendships throughout the process.
• A friend and neighbor took me to my son's school several times before I could drive so I could pick him up.  She became one of his favorite people, and now we swap treats whenever we have extras.  She makes some of the best cinnamon rolls and is at the top of M's list if he needs a ride home from school.
• Another friend and neighbor came to my house to stay with my boys when I went in for surgery and came over several times at a moment's notice to stay with one or both boys if I had to go to the doctor.
• Another friend, neighbor, and mom of two little ones offered to watch my boys for several hours each day for weeks after I came home from the hospital because our nanny situation never worked out.  
• My best friend from college has texted and called for months and sent us a gift card so we could pick up a few extra meals without a lot of preparation.  
• A friend from high school sent a hilarious card that made me smile.
• People all across the world (literally) prayed for me.  I felt loved and strengthened by so many prayers.
• A friend called me before my surgery and said, "I know people are going to help with meals, but I want to do something more for you.  I have these times open in my schedule.  Pick a time for me to come over each week and help you with whatever you need."  This friend has health problems of her own, but went out of her way to help me when I couldn't even bend over.

I could go on, and at some point I probably will go on about all the ways people served me during this time.  Friends have made this experience not only bearable, but valuable.  It can be hard to be on the receiving end of service, but I have felt so loved and I feel closer to so many people because they have helped me so much.

Pre-surgery Appointment (Round 2)

Because I ended up with a new neurosurgeon, we were invited back for a second pre-surgery appointment to be able to ask questions and get to know Dr. R.  This was really nice for us.  Dr. D, the one who couldn't do an awake craniotomy, was not the most charismatic guy we've met.  Dr. R was really nice, and we appreciated being able to come back and ask him questions.

I can't remember a whole lot from our second visit.  We went over some of my main concerns again:

• He wasn't going to shave very much of my head--just a thin line for the incision.
• They knew which drug to put me on if I did have a seizure.
• I should come in at 6am for my surgery, but the hospital would call me to confirm.  (more on this in a different post)
• He would do his best to preserve my speech.
• The neurosurgery team would be keeping an eye on me for a year after my surgery.

That's about it.  Most importantly I remember that the visit was as comforting as a visit with the person who is about to cut into your head can be.  

Pre-Surgery Appointments (Round 1)

It is taking me a little while to get these posts up because I'm realizing that revisiting this experience is pretty difficult for me.  Emotionally, I am doing pretty well now, but between July 4th of last year and sometime earlier this year, life was tough.  We had so many unanswered questions and I was constantly sick in one way or another.  It's very freeing to be out of that stage, at least for the foreseeable future, but going back and reliving all of those difficult moments for the purpose of blogging is challenging.  Still, I think it's important to share these posts, so I'm back to put a few more up today.

After my first round of pre-surgery appointments (I had two rounds of appointments right before surgery because my neurosurgeon changed), my husband and I started an e-mail group to give people updates of what was going on with my surgery and recovery.  This e-mail group was a really good idea.  We weren't ready to go totally public with what was happening, but sending an e-mail was much better than having to explain all the details to our individual friends.  Most of this post is from the e-mail I wrote after my pre-surgery appointments.

I had had surgery twice before my brain surgery, but both of those surgeries were c-sections.  There isn't much prep for a planned c-section.  Your doctor decides on a date, you show up, you get your spinal, and they cut you open, take out the baby, and sew you back up.  But for brain surgery, I had a few special pre-op appointments.  I went to my neurosurgeon (summary of that visit is below) and then had an appointment with preoperative medicine.  Prior to scheduling this appointment, I had no idea preoperative medicine even existed as a hospital department.  It was a pretty easy appointment.  There was some blood work, questions about my health and allergies, and a nasal swab so they could make sure I didn't have MRSA.  So, if you have to go in for a preoperative appointment, don't worry, it's no big deal.  Unless you have MRSA, and then I would guess it is probably a bigger deal.

Here's the recap of my slightly more exciting pre-op appointment with my neurosurgeon(s).

On Friday, September 1st, I had an appointment with my neurosurgeon and an appointment with pre-operative medicine at OHSU.  When we went to my appointment with Dr. D, the neurosurgeon, he told us that my functional MRI (completed August 24th) showed my tumor is bordering two of my speech production centers.  Because of how close the tumor is to these sensitive areas and because things shift a bit after they open the skull, they don't want to rely solely on the MRI mapping for guidance during surgery.  Instead they want to do an awake craniotomy, and Dr. D does not do that type of surgery.  He called his colleague, Dr. R, to come talk to us about doing an awake craniotomy.  Dr. R will be my surgeon now, and he said we can do surgery on September 19th.  We still don't know all of the details, but this is what we were told on Friday:

- I will not have general anesthesia at any point during the surgery.  Instead I will have a nerve block and local anesthesia where they cut my scalp and skull open and where the pressure points are holding my head in place so I don't move during surgery.  If I cannot remain calm during surgery, or if I throw up or have a panic attack, they will have to close me back up and try again with me under anesthesia.  So please pray that I will be completely calm before and during the surgery.  

- They won't shave my head, or at least not very much.  Instead I will get some funky braids and grease to keep my hair out of the way.  (I have to admit I'm a bit relieved about this one.)  But I will have a pretty big question mark shaped scar.  I am also relieved that the surgeon said he would be happy to use metal staples instead of dissolvable ones.  Usually they use dissolvable ones so the patient doesn't have to experience the pain of having metal staples removed, but metal staples form a better scar and I had long-term problems with dissolvable staples after my son P was born.  I'm sure having the staples removed won't be fun, but it would be totally worth it to avoid over a year of staple problems like I had after P's birth.

- I will be talking to a neuropsychologist during the surgery, and the neurosurgeon will have a mirror to see my face throughout surgery so both can monitor any changes in my speech and expression throughout the surgery.  This also means I will be able to see the neurosurgeon.  I'm not clear on whether they will have something blocking my view of my brain though.  I hope so, but the neurosurgeon said it would be an "undraped" surgery.  I'm not sure I will be able to handle seeing what is going on.

- Surgery will take about 4 hours.  They will use a 40x microscope to make sure they remove as much of the tumor as possible without removing my other brain matter.  Because I teach for work and speaking is really important to me (like REALLY important) the surgeon will prioritize preserving speech even if it means leaving behind a little bit of the tumor.  Based on the MRI the neurosurgeons think that my tumor is likely benign.  They think it is a low grade glioma, so even though it is hopefully benign right now, because it is a glioma, there is a high risk of it turning malignant at any point and once it does it becomes much harder (nearly impossible) to fight.  They think it is benign because the boundaries are well-defined and they don't see any necrosis (cell death).  Also there was no growth between my July 4th MRI and my August 24th MRI.  Removing a significant amount of the tumor will decrease the risk of future malignancy by reducing the number of tumor cells that could become malignant.  Also, removing the tumor allows for a complete pathology report so we know what the tumor is and what genetic markers it has.  If they only do a biopsy without removing the whole tumor it's possible that part of the tumor has different characteristics than the part they removed.

- The plan is to be in the ICU for one night after surgery.  Apparently they check my neurological response every hour, so even if surgery goes well, this will be a pretty awful night.  It should get better once I'm moved to the neuro ward.

- The risks of surgery are not insignificant.  While unlikely, there is a chance I will not be able to speak after surgery.  If I remember correctly, sometimes the loss of speech happens a few days after surgery.  Should there be any speech deficit after surgery, the doctors are hopeful that I will be able to regain my speech with therapy.  

- I will likely go home from the hospital on Friday, September 22nd.  I will have a follow up appointment a couple weeks after surgery and then every three months for the first year.  I'm pretty sure I will have routine MRIs for the rest of my life to check on tumor growth, but I'm not sure about the frequency.

I should be hearing from Dr. R's scheduler on Tuesday or Wednesday to confirm my surgery date and give me a time and also to schedule another appointment with Dr. R on September 14th.

Functional MRI

Near the end of August I had my functional MRI ("fMRI").  I knew the fMRI would be longer than a regular MRI (closer to two hours instead of one) and that I would be required to perform certain tasks during the procedure.  I had read a little bit about those tasks and tried to practice (think of as many words as possible that start with "B" and things like that).  The goal of the fMRI was to map my speech and motor skills areas of the brain, and I really wanted to get it right because talking is very important to me.

When you have an MRI, the tech tends to tell you "hold very still" and "hold as still as possible" about every 30 seconds.  These constant reminders can be nerve wracking, especially when you need to be perfectly still for two hours.  When I had my first MRI in Utah, I got to choose a Pandora station to listen to, and that helped pass the time.  At OHSU, there was no Pandora station.  There was no comfort of any kind.  Instead, the tech put towels around my head, making it harder to breathe.  So, in the course of trying to hold perfectly still, I started to get claustrophobic.  Eventually I had to tell the tech that I needed to come out of the tube.  She gave me a hard time and wouldn't let me move, but at least she removed the towels.  I also told her that I am a perfectionist and every time she told me to hold still, I felt like I was messing up.  I told her that, instead, she needed to tell me I was doing a great job and also tell me how many minutes each sequence would be so I wouldn't feel stuck indefinitely.  Those two changes helped a lot.  (And guess what?  The OHSU cancer center where I now get my MRIs actually has a recording that tells you how many minutes for each scan.  And they let you listen to Pandora if you want it.)

When we finally got to the "functional" part of the MRI, I was relieved.  Now I had something to do to distract myself while the MRI machine made all of its crazy noises.  I could tap my fingers, fill in the blank for the sentences on the screen, and mentally list words beginning with any letter of the alphabet.  Finally the MRI was done, and I could go home and wait for my pre-surgery appointment about a week later.

Keppra Allergy

I took Keppra for ten days.  (More about the prescription here.)  I started the day after leaving the ER, and two to three days later my life was flipped upside down.  The morning of Saturday, July 8th, I made plans to go running with a friend.  A week before being in Utah I could run five miles.  After a few days on Keppra, I could hardly walk.  We made it half a mile from my house, and I had to turn around and go home.  Breathing was difficult. 

I recorded the effects I was feeling from Keppra:

• Complete loss of appetite and rapid weight loss
• Small pimples all over my body (my skin was in so much pain that I could not brush my hair without wincing)
• Unbearable fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Loss of coordination--it became very hard to write and grasp objects
• Inability to think or process information (I even had to leave one of my classes early because I couldn't teach anymore) 
• Horrible anxiety, worse than anything I had ever previously felt
• Inability to walk (I went from being able to run 5 miles to not being able to walk 1 mile)
• Sight problems--I could no longer see my computer screen without my glasses, even when holding it up close
• Muscular pain

On July 14th I asked the neurosurgeon about my prescription.  He said he couldn't do anything about prescriptions, but he gave me a referral to a neurologist at OHSU.  The only drawback was that my neurologist couldn't see me until August 2nd.  I nearly had a panic attack on July 14th and could hardly sleep that night.  With no doctor being able to tell me why I was taking the Keppra, I stopped.  Two days later, I was back to myself and felt incredibly relieved.

Before my neurology appointment I was so worried they would tell me I needed to go back on Keppra.  When the neurologist told me that anti-convulsants were unnecessary at that point, I was thrilled.  They also told me that if I needed an anti-convulsant in the future, they had a recommendation and would forward it onto my neurosurgeon.  I was so grateful to be taken seriously and get positive feedback.

What the Neurosurgeon Said

Back at the University of Utah on July 4, 2017, we met with a neurosurgery resident.  He told me that I did indeed have a brain tumor, that it was likely low grade (based on what he could see from the cells), and that I needed to have it removed.  He said that if he were performing the procedure he would do an awake craniotomy so my speech could be monitored during the procedure.  That was about all we got out of him.  He did ask about my family history and whether brain issues were a problem on either side of my family.  I had been texting my mom throughout the evening, and she told me that a few people on both sides of my family had suffered from epilepsy.  When we told the resident, he said, "well, at least this isn't epilepsy--we can get rid of this."  And that was the first time someone gave us the impression that overwhelming as brain surgery may be, this was just a brain tumor and just brain surgery.  It wasn't a lifelong problem or anything like that.  (More on this later...)

With a few minutes' counsel and prescriptions for dexamethasone and Keppra (levetiracetam), my husband and I left the hospital and went to his aunt and uncle's house.  Fifteen hours after I checked into the ER in Logan.  I was told to check in with the neurosurgeons at OHSU when I got back to Oregon.  It was a long day.  The dexamethasone was a steroid to help reduce the swelling around my eye, and you are supposed to wean off of it instead of stopping cold turkey, but no one told me that.  I don't think it worked quite as well as it could have if I had been taking it properly.  The Keppra was more of a prophylactic.  It is an anti-convulsant, meant to subdue seizure activity.  I hadn't had a seizure, but I think the resident didn't want to be accused of sending me away without medication for seizures just in case.

We made it home on July 6th, and I met with a PA at my primary care physician's office on July 7th.  He didn't know much about brain tumors, dexamethasone, or Keppra either, so his office tried to start the referral process to get me into the neurosurgeon at OHSU.  The days of waiting to see a doctor at OHSU seemed so long, but when I look back at my calendar, I realize it was only one week.  I made several calls to OHSU and my PCP's office to make sure the referral was being processed, and spending all of that time on the phone was frustrating.  However, now that I understand how strict a neurosurgeon's schedule is and the fact that they only meet with patients one day a week, I realize I was very lucky to get an appointment with a doctor on July 14th.

When I went to see the doctor at OHSU, I first had to meet with another resident.  She came in and pulled up my MRI images.  She said that the tumor looked low grade and that they would probably just watch and wait with persistent MRIs.  This was frustrating because it contradicted what the resident had said in Utah, but then the doctor came in.  Without even fully entering the room, he saw my MRI on the computer screen and said, "You're too young for this; that needs to come out now."  He wanted to do surgery by the end of the month, and I asked if we had a little more time.  Fortunately he said yes, and I was able to get some of my affairs in order--finishing the class I was teaching that summer, arranging for childcare for my kids post-surgery, taking more time to process everything that was going on, etc. 

Overall, I left the appointment at OHSU feeling pretty relieved that two doctors had given me the same opinion--surgery was best, preferably sooner rather than later but a little delay wouldn't hurt.  The only frustrating thing was learning that a neurosurgeon can't do anything if you think you are reacting poorly to a drug you've been prescribed.  I would have to wait to meet with a neurologist and figure out what to do about my apparent Keppra allergy.

Symptoms and Diagnosis

Doctors have been quite non-committal about whether or not I had any brain tumor symptoms.  I think they are just covering for their profession because so many doctors failed to give me an MRI when my symptoms indicated one was needed.  What I do know is that after my second son was born in March 2016, I started having unusual symptoms that sent me to doctors and therapists for over a year until finally I landed in the emergency room while on vacation and the doctor decided to run a CT scan followed by an MRI.  Then, miraculously, after having surgery to remove the tumor, all of my symptoms went away and I felt like myself again.  I had a hole in my head, but otherwise, I felt like myself.

The first symptom was one I recognized.  In January 2013, I went to my newborn's first pediatric appointment in a brightly-lit doctor's office.  As I was filling out the paperwork, I started to see kaleidoscope shapes hovering in my line of sight.  I had to close my eyes and wait about 20 minutes for it to pass.  I learned it was a visual aura and that sometimes women can have them after giving birth.  I had three in my first son's first year of life and didn't think much of them--eventually they went away.  So when I had kaleidoscope vision at my second son's first doctor's appointment in April 2016 I didn't think much of it either.  Only I continued to have the visual auras and had to adapt my lifestyle to avoid their triggers.  Being in any brightly-lit place could trigger an aura--doctor's offices, the gym, even shopping at Michael's.  Worse was my pre-dawn commute to work that included flashing tail lights as cars descended down a hill in stop-and-go traffic.  I learned to close my eyes or wear sunglasses under fluorescent lighting.  I learned the back roads of Washington and Multnomah counties so I could drive to work without being pestered by blinking red on the freeway.  After my diagnosis, a neurologist told me that these visual auras can be caused by swelling in the brain, which happens if you have a brain tumor and your head swells after giving birth.  I don't love to look at flashing lights, but post-surgery I no longer worry about the auras. 

My second symptom was frightening.  Forty-three days after I had a c-section, our family boarded a plane to move across the country.  Near the end of our flight, my heart started beating rapidly and I felt like I couldn't breathe.  A panic attack.  I had spent my entire life flying, including flying cross-country with an infant/toddler, but all of the sudden flying made me nervous and we flew 17 times in my second son's first year of life.  We didn't just travel a lot though.  We also moved twice before he was six months old.  In the midst of all this change, I had a handful of panic attacks.  Anxiety gripped me for months.  Therapy helped tremendously, but even as I overcame many of the challenges related to all the change I had experienced, anxiety was still my little tag-along.  We lived in a peaceful coexistence for several months--I would feel anxiety pestering me and would have to calm him down so I could continue going about my day.  Then, after surgery, that tag-along was gone.  Sure, I get anxious and nervous on occasion, like anyone, but the constant companionship was gone.

The third symptom I eventually tried to ignore.  I was at book club in April 2016 and my elbow started tingling.  Then my hand was tingling.  The next morning I woke up and my whole arm was tingling.  I went to urgent care after it had been tingling for hours.  In urgent care my legs started tingling, so they sent me to the emergency room.  My blood work was fine, so the ER sent me home.  The tingling would settle on some part of my body, usually my ankles, and just stay for weeks.  Doctors dismissed the tingling saying they would need to monitor my symptoms for months before running any other tests.  So I decided to consider myself healthy and pretend like the tingling was nothing.  But, like my other symptoms, the tingling off and on until my brain surgery, and then, it too was gone. 

I believe all of these symptoms were attributable to my brain tumor in one way or another because there was such a distinct change after the tumor was removed.  But no doctor ran any kind of brain scan as I reported these symptoms.  Instead, my eye swelled shut the night of July 3rd when our family was visiting relatives in Northern Utah.  When I woke up the morning of July 4th, I couldn't see out of my left eye.

This is me really trying to keep my left eye (on the right in the picture) open!

It was a holiday and we didn't know any doctors in the area.  The day before I thought I had pink eye, but I felt a tremendous sense of urgency about getting to a doctor the morning of the Fourth, so we went to the ER at a small local hospital.  I will forever be grateful to Dr. Danny Spencer, the ER doctor that day, for deciding to run a CT scan.  He thought it was probably pink eye or something like that, and gave me antibiotic drops.  But when I told him that I felt immense pressure behind my eye every time I bent over, Dr. Spencer said I might have a blood clot and that a CT scan might show whether or not there was a clot.  The CT scan definitely showed something, and it wasn't a clot.  So the doctors ran an MRI.  There was no neurology team at Logan Hospital, so when it looked like I had a brain tumor, they sent me down to the University of Utah.  At this point everyone in Logan had forgotten that my eye was painfully swollen and, brain tumor or not, I really wasn't feeling well.  

My husband and I made last minute arrangements for our kids and drove down to Salt Lake City.  Fortunately we stopped at In 'N' Out on the way down because people in hospitals don't like to let you eat or drink anything.  At "The U" they started me on dexamethasone, a steroid to decrease the swelling in my eye, and we waited hours for the neurosurgery resident to come talk to us about my tumor.  We learned that someone had plowed their car into a homeless shelter downtown, and things were taking longer (as they do at teaching hospitals) due to the injuries.  Until the neurosurgery resident arrived, all of the other doctors and nurses were very somber.  They seemed to understand that having a brain tumor is a big deal.  We still had no idea what it meant for us and how it would change our lives.