Adversity

Adversity

Chris

During my first year of law school in 2007, I suffered from tremendous headaches and double vision. I wrote it off, thinking it was stress and poor vision so I popped some Advil and made it through the year. Right after finals, in the summer of 2008, I was officially diagnosed with a central neurocytoma the size of a grapefruit. It was a shock, but something I knew I had to deal with head on. I was immediately admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital for treatment. After 9 hours of surgery, my neurosurgeon was confident he was able to remove the majority of the tumor, which his team estimated was 3-6 years old. My healthy brain tissue had been pushed off to the side and my optic nerves were being strangled. To complicate matters, I was suffering from hydrocephalus. Four days later, I was rushed into emergency surgery after suffering from a hematoma, a stroke and sepsis. After my release, I received outpatient rehabilitative therapy at Gaylord Hospital. I went from reading hundreds of pages a night and briefing cases just a month before to not being able to speak a coherent sentence or tie my shoes. My mental capability was assessed at that of a second grader. My neurosurgery team gave me a last option of inserting a VP shunt to relieve the pressure of my hydrocephalus. They believed this would somewhat alleviate my struggles. In what my doctors deemed a “medical miracle”, I woke up from the insertion surgery with full speech and strength. While for the most part I may be recovered, I still struggle with my brain tumor’s effects. I have developed periodic seizures, for which I will take medication for indefinitely. I returned to law school and graduated with my J.D., but have been unable to pass the bar exam, most likely in part due to cognitive impairments. And most recently a regrowth of the tumor was discovered for which I underwent gamma knife surgery, which I hope will lead to the end of my battle forever. I am committed to helping find the cure to this terrible diagnosis that I have experienced firsthand. I want to do whatever I can to assist the cause and raise awareness.

If you want to find out more about me, and my personal experience with a brain tumor, please enjoy my blog, Grey Matters.

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