Blessed by a Bain Tumor

I had been living with migraines for as long as I can remember.

I would vomit, skip school, and work just so I could sleep. Doctors couldn’t give me any answers as to why.

Then one day in March 2018, just like, that I was having uncontrollable seizures in my apartment. My brain was swelling. Someone finally found me. I first ended up at UF health where they wanted to schedule my surgery a week out. I was unconscious for about 3 or 4 days. I obviously had epilepsy at this point which I never had before.

My Aunt Vicki took my medical records to Mayo Clinic where a world renown Doctor Q took the case and said we had to do surgery right away. The tumor was the size of a softball. I did two awake craniotomies. The first one was simple, I had to raise my right hand and wiggle my right foot. When I was losing my speech or motor skills, that’s when Dr. Q would stop. And when I felt a little pressure, I would just tell the anesthesiologist and he would just do his thing. Plus I had handsome fella holding my hand both times.

The second time, I had a little bell on my foot and I would ring it same thing as before. I had to do radiation, where my aunt Vicki’s husband Randy is the radiology tech he made feel comfortable. It wasn’t easy. With radiation you, had to wear a mask and it held you down on a table. Just thinking about it is making me claustrophobic all over again.

I lost my hair. All of it. And I refused to cut it, so it just kept falling out. Then, I went on Temodar. I vomited a lot. I got so sick. I felt like the cancer wasn’t going to kill me, this was! My tumor shrunk and shrunk, until it disappeared. I had about a million MRI’s between the beginning of April 2018 and February 2020. I still get nauseas, sometimes I vomit, I still get tired and I still get migraines but now at least I know why. I always thought something was wrong with me. At least they’re manageable.

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Opinions expressed within this story belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of the National Brain Tumor Society.