by Aimee
This is what I thought when I was first diagnosed after a grand mal seizure on October 30, 2004. The ER doctor told me I had a 2.5cm brain tumor on my right parietal lobe. I was 33 and in the midst of a divorce. All I could think of was the 8 years we lived with my mom deteriorating in the late 80's, early 90's from her brain tumor. I did not want to live like that. Nor did I want my two young children to see me go through that. Fortunately, I got in to see the department head of vascular neurosurgery. He scheduled my surgery and after 36 hours, I was on my way home to recover! I had a slight deficit in my left arm that went away after a month. He told me I would not have to even think about recurrence for at least 10 yrs. Well...in September of 2008 I started to lose use of my left side and by February 2009 I could not hold myself up. I was going to a chiropractor at the time for a neck injury. He sent me for an MRI of the brain because of my history, and 2 days later (on Valentine's Day) he broke the news to me that I had a 4 cm tumor in the same spot as the previous one. He called my surgeon and set up an appointment for the next day. Since this tumor was growing in a ice cream cone pattern toward the center of my brain, they could not do surgery, nor could they biopsy the tumor for fear it would grow out of control, since it had grown back so quickly, unexpectedly and aggressively. I went through 6 1/2 weeks of radiation and Temodar (chemotherapy) followed by 6 one week per month double doses of Temodar. They tell me now that I will have at least 15 years before it may or may not come back.
