Who Knew?

Who Knew?

Liza

In late 2009, I had a Grand Mal Seizure. A few months prior to this date I thought I was truly going crazy and needed to be institutionalized! I was not sleeping, my head was pounding, I was seeing and hearing things that were not there and I could not even remember my kids names at times. I was diagnosed with an Anaplastic Oliogodendroglioma, gold ball sized in my right frontal lobe, after a month on steroids and anti-seizure meds, I had a craniotomy. Chemo and radiation would not let me heal, I had many infections and had 7 surgeries total, the last one the doctors inserted a plate in my head, that was 6 weeks ago. The radiation killed half my brain and god only knows what chemo did to the rest of it.

Lots of scar tissue still shows up in my MRIs. A day that I do not think about cancer is a helluva a great day for me, it was consuming my family and for me. I still have seizures and am not sure if they will go away on their own or if I will have to live with them, which makes riding my touring motorcycle hard to do without being paranoid about it. I can no longer continue with my career of being a Deputy Fire Staff Officer for the Forest Service. My life has changed and I feel like there is a black cloud over my head waiting for the cancer to come back as a stage 4 GBM! I have to live my life for me and my kids though. So, I struggle at times, but other times I think it is what it is and keep on going!

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