Well it has been a whirlwhind couple of weeks and many of you who aren't connected to my wife have not had any idea what has been going on. I barely use facebook so you would not have noticed any difference. Below is a brief summary of what has happened. I started putting together this blog over the last few days to bring people up to speed and to help me in my recovery going forward.


I began experiencing migraines for the first time in my life somewhere around the beginning of June. They were pretty infrequent though increasing to about one every other week. Made an appt to see my doctor but couldn’t get in until 9/21 which was over a month away
9/9 was experiencing another migraine but doctor was on vacation so I met with the nurse practitioner and she suggests that I should try using Excedrin migraine to try to address the symptoms short term and to begin looking for migraine “triggers” – monitor what I eat, sleep patterns, light…..
9/21 finally arrives and I discuss the migraines with my Dr. I share with him various things- how they come on, the migraine “aura” I see, location, intensity, etc. he nods in understanding and asks if there is anything else. I was about to say no and I said well, this is a little silly, but I’ve had some occasions where I’ve been walking along and I see something off to my left side and I say to myself “what is that? and a couple seconds later I realize it is my left hand so I feel pretty stupid about it. The doctor finishes and says everything I described is pretty typical migraine kinda stuff…..except for the thing with the hand. He says he wants to write up an order for an MRI of my head. He says it gives the best look of anything that could be going on. I’m a little surprised but decide that if it’s covered by insurance then we’d better take advantage of it to rule anything out. I asked if there was anything else he would suggest to deal with the migraines if this turns out to be “normal migraines”. He gets me a sample of a migraine medicine and also comments about looking for “triggers”.
another awful migraine the next day 9/22 – I try the sample of the Migraine medication and it seems like it doesn’t help much. Allyson get’s me scheduled for the MRI on Monday, 9/28
9/28 – MRI at 8 am – technician only runs the test, can’t tell me anything (she says), tells me my doctor will have the results by 3 pm at the latest and to call them then.
I call at 3pm and the nurse has to find the doctor. She comes back on the line and says the doctor wants me to come in the next morning to review results. I ask her if she can tell me anything and she says the doctor has not made any notes so we set up a meeting at 10:40 am the next morning to review results (we’re starting to get nervous)
9/29 10:40am meeting with Dr – we sit down and Dr walks in and says “well, we did the MRI and we found something” after that it was several minutes of the doctor reviewing the results of the report, providing some explanation while we listened trying to understand what he was saying (and understanding pretty well I think – he did a good job. We were just in disbelief. Was this really happening? I have a brain tumor!?The report said I had an intercranial mass, measuring up to 6.1 cm x 4.1 cm x 4.5 cm…(this is about the size of a lemon. The report also said it was most likely a Meningioma. Meningioma’s are typically benign but malignancy could not be ruled out without biopsy. The doctor arranged for us to meet with a Neurosurgeon the next morning.
9/30 8:30 am – we meet with Neurosurgeon – he met with my primary doc and his recommendation is surgical removal and he explains some details of the surgery. He says that they have tentatively scheduled for Saturday. He has removed over 1000 of these. We ask for a reference for a second opinion and he suggests someone well respected in the Chicago and helps arrange for us to meet with him the next day 10/1. We also get another suggestion for another neurosurgeon from some friends and arrange another appt on Friday 10/2. We research the doctors that night and all appear to be very experienced, trained, qualiifed, connected with good hospitals, etc.
10/1 – we meet with 2nd Neurosurgeon for second opinion. He also agrees it is most likely meningioma and he would be blown away if it turned out to be malignant. He recommends the surgery. He expects that I will have a temporary visual impairment on the left side as a result of the surgery that will go away in 12 months but probably much less. He is very reassuring, particularly in dissuaging any fears over not waking up from the surgery or permanent loss of abilities. We decide to move ahead with the surgery on Saturday, 10/3 and I cancel the 3rd opinion as this doctor is not really in a good location for us and it would not really be a good decision to add an extensive travel distance to get to and from the place of surgery.
Surgery 10/3 6am – after a few minor challenges finding a razor they get me hooked up to IV’s and I’m knocked out. I drift in and out of consciouscness the day of surgery. It takes 4-1/2hours and unfortunately my brain begins to swell too much so they have to stop before they can finish – a follow-up surgery will have to be scheduled. I drift in and out of consciousness for the next couple of days with all the drugs they have me on. They do simple neurological tests every few hours to monitor my progress. I do have a significant visual impairment on the left side from the surgery as was anticipated. I can’t really see much to the left of my nose. I have a hard time holding my hands at the same level. My speech is slurred. I can’t move my lips properly. These things all improve gradually and I’m discharged on Wed, 10/7 with a follow-up appt on 10/12. I go home and begin trying to function somewhat normally though I have to use a walker to get around and I need to be sure I have help with basic activities to avoid injuring myself – particularly the surgery site. Home visit nurses and physical therapists start arriving the next day to help me continue recovering.
10/14 I drop the use of the walker with the exception of night time trips to the bathroom.
10/12 Surgery follow up meeting with NeurosurgeonThe basic problem they ran into during the surgery was that the tumor was very large and the access to remove it was relatively small. Due to this, the time it took and the corresponding irritation to other brain tissue eventually caused the brain to swell beyond acceptable margins so they had to stop. Based on a post-op MRI it appears that about 85% was removed. So a second operation is now scheduled for tomorrow- Friday, 10/16 at 6 am. The Dr expects it to take about 2 hours and it to be much easier on me.