More surgery

If you've read my previous blogs you would know by now that I have a meningioma. Doctors feel compelled to tell me that 'it's the brain tumor to get if you're going to get one'. Gee thanks for that! Don't actually want mine. Others have told me 'a lot more people probably have them than know about them and they only got found if a post mittens done and usually it hasn't been the cause of death' also thanks.
Last year I had a 12 hour marathon day of surgery from which it took me months to recover. I was in hospital for 9 days post op and did a lot of sleeping and staring at the tv when I came home. I have a massive scar running from the bottom of my head to just above the front of my ear (nearly 50 staples). I couldn't drive for 3 months post finishing my anti epileptic meds (in hospital), even longer if I'd had a seizure. I had to see: a physiotherapist, speech therapist, occupational therapist, neuro psychologist and I continue to have MRIs every 6 months at this stage and get reviewed by the skull base team at the PA hospital in Brisbane. I took nearly 6 months off work.
Unfortunately and apparently unusually, they left some in there (20%). it went from 5.8cm X 4cm to 2.4 X 1.3cm (roughly). I believe that I bled a lot and my blood pressure became too unstable for them to continue. So, unlike the others I have since encountered, I still have to keep worrying about this and face further treatment. The choices, none of which are particularly attractive, are more surgery or radio therapy/surgery.
I probably sound like I'm ungrateful. I'm not. I now appreciate that I'm still alive and can sit out in the sun, can finish raising miss 7 and miss 10, may live to see my older kids get married, graduate uni, have kids, buy their first homes etc and mostly that the tumor didn't get bad enough to paralyze me, or cause me to pass out and crash my car and that I live in a country where I got timely and free treatment. It's just unfinished business, that's all.
So, off we trotted to Sydney to see dr teo. I could feel my pulse jackhammering as I sat in the waiting room, even though I knew nothing bad would happen today. The verdict? " it's a simple case. We want to operate sooner rther than later, while you're still young and it's still small. Radiotherapy won't get rid of the adctual tumor, just stop it growing."
There was more, but the upshot was that in December I'll be trotting down to Sydney again to have keyhole surgery on my head again. Technology is amazing isn't it? We will make it a family affair and take the girls, do some touristy stuff first, then I'll get operated on and hubby and my parents can do the rest. I guess I won't start shitting myself until just before we have to go. Last year I had to take serapax for a few days pre op to calm myself down, lucky I've still got the bottle.