Fellow Tumor Patients, Are You There?

Hi there fellow travelers!  I have been dealing (or not, depending on  who  you ask) with issues relating to Brain Tumors for the better part of two years and it’s only been since last Spring that I made the decision to do whatever was in  my power to develop my brain’s plasticity and regain as much motor function as possible.  I am always reminded of a great lady (my mother-in-law, she’s truly awesome!) who told me a story a few years ago about one of her neighbors in San Bruno who committed suicide.  I got the impression my mo-in-law found that to be pretty cowardly, that’s always been my thought on the subject too.  I think I haven’t earned the right to check out.  So I have never seriously considered it, as an option.  One day, I looked at the growing  real estate that was my body, and said, Well, THIS is bull!@#!” And took charge of the one thing I still could control.  It took a long time to get that far.  I still have a long way to go so if you are recently diagnosed as having a brain tumor or trying to recover from the surgery, or the radiation, or the chemo, and you can’t see, require a nap or can’t stand up straight you are lucky (to be alive)!  Don’t  waste your precious energy looking at stupid blogs, (Grafitti, with punctuation - Contagion).  Take a nap!  Take another nap.  Then wake up, take some meds(if that’s your thing), and go back to sleep.  You probably need to.  One of the kindest people I know religiously brought me treats while I was in the hospital and I still haven’t thanked her properly.  One other person sounded really angry when I called her, I don’t remember anything I ever said or did that would even irritate  this person (to be fair, I did call her at work, where she can’t stand her boss, and she has no privacy there).   Having a huge astrocytoma surgically removed, puts everything else into perspective.  Another woman (Sarah Jessica Parker, I don’t know for certain if she’s awesome or not, I would like to think she was, awesome, that is) said,”That was like taking a bullet.” I just  got home from my son’s seventh grade Back-to-School Night.  Now that was like taking a bullet, but six months ago I wouldn’t have even considered going.  Any time prior to eighteen months ago, I never would have dreamed of not going.  So although I would love to hear stories of hope and inspiration from other brain tumor survivors, I know what it’s like just not being able to do anything.  When your only job is to get better and you can’t.  It does get better, so gradually you don’t notice it at first, but it does.  I’ll stop now before any more bullets come flying my way.  I don’t expect any, but then I wasn’t expecting a brain tumor either.