Unfortunate Blessing

Unfortunate Blessing

Taylor

I’m Tay, 29 years old, never have really wanted for nothing in my life and came from a decent family who gave me everything that I had ever really wanted from a young age. I got very accustomed to getting the things I wanted without putting forth effort. Mom had breast cancer that was in remission for many years and matastized to her brain and other vital organs and I have a baby sister from my mom. Mom had my sister during the chemotherapy treatment and was told to abort my sister but didn’t believe in that type of thing. I lived with my mother because I was able to do things that i couldn’t do living with my father. My mom was a best friend and not so much a mom to me.

I used drugs since the age 12 and I was allowed to smoke weed and drink beer at the house and I took complete advantage of the way I was just able to do things that children aren’t allowed to do. I eventually started to steal her pain meds like oxycontin and my addiction became so evil and selfish that I would continue to steal from my dying mom though I was asked to stop. I would ignore the times that I was asked to go to the hospital for her chemotherapy treatment and her appointments because I had more important things to do aka drugs and I have been to prison 3 times from my drug use and I had no respect, no morals or values and when I was 18 years old, my mom died early one morning after we had just been fighting over her pain meds, she was living in my grandmother’s house literally next door and after fighting about the medicine I had stole from my best friend who needed it for the pain she was going through, she asked me to run home, next door, to make cream-a-wheat, her favorite and I came back with the food and my mother was gone, passed away for good.

No chance to be a man and say that I was sorry, so I continue to get worse and shooting heroin and amphetamines. My life spiraled out of control quickly and several years later I’m homeless living with whoever will let me stay a few nights. I was using heroin and amphetamines through dirty needles and I was having a feeling that I was having a stroke because the left side of my body went numb and my face even drooped. And it went away as fast as it happened.

My girlfriend wanted to go to the hospital and I told her that is what happens when people use hard drugs and I have been up for over a week so let’s go to bed, these symptoms continued to happen and I was sent to prison my last time again because of the drugs. But I am still having the numbness and symptoms happen and I had a seizure one day after lunch that was over 3 minutes and I was taken to the closest hospital and that was actually in west Virginia though the prison is in Ohio and I woke up and was asked about if I know what is going on and then I was told that I have a tumor that is very large and I need to be taken to Columbus at the James Cancer Center to have a surgery immediately or I would die very quickly. I went to Columbus Ohio and had a awake craniotomy surgery that was just over 14 hours long. I told them I could not see and the surgery was over. My tumor that was 90 percent removed layed across the optical nerve and I am still having major vision loss from the surgery.

Went into a coma from the brain swelling from being cut on and I was put back together with the swelling unable to have a place to go. I awoke from the coma unable to walk and properly function. Those functions, walking and talking came back with therapy rather quick. The diagnosis came back to be glioblastoma multiforme primary brain tumour and I was told that the diagnosis is terminal and I would have radiation n oral chemotherapy but that is just for a few months at best for more life. I was told I’d be lucky to see 12 months and not even expected to see that much, 12 months and I was 28 years old and I had accomplished nothing in my life, I was in prison and I was in fear of the things that i was told would happen to me as I got sicker anytime soon and I only remembered being sorry and alone.

Sorry because of the way that I did my mom and I remember being able to understand what my mother had always explained about how scared she was going through the treatment and I have been blessed to just pass 18 months surviving from my surgery and it’s ironically been a tough blessing in my life because I have been able to change for the better even after I am told i am dying, I’ve been able to help others that are going through this diagnosis and I have more joy from using my experience with the diagnosis to help others through it. If I can change even just one life for the better, a life like the one that I was living selfishly, if I can be the reason that a person isn’t so afraid of treatment and can have brain cancer without taking the pain meds like I am not taking…my life has been worth the fight and I hope you are going to be blessed like I have been. 18 months surviving strong with no plans to slow down. 18 months surviving from glioblastoma and it’s ironically been a blessing for my life and hopefully yours.

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