The highs and lows of living with a brain tumour.
What I most hope radiotherapy will do is turn me in to a superhero. Most likely the Incredible Hulk, because Bruce Banner got zapped by gamma rays and it happened to him. Surely radiotherapy will look exactly like this? Crosshairs, weird contraption chair? It IS a given. To say I spend an inordinate amount of... Continue Reading →
The week leading up to treatment beginning, I'm quite down, tired and crotchety. If I'm like this before treatment starts, what kind of bitch will I be when the going actually gets tough? What seems inescapable is the idiocy of willingly submitting myself to nearly a year of most likely gruelling treatment when I feel... Continue Reading →
And speed up everything did. The day after meeting Paula, the mask fitting, an MRI and CT scan were arranged for the following two days. None of us could work out why it would take two days to make the mask. E suggested it's made on the first day and I get to go back... Continue Reading →
The thing about brain tumours is that there are over 120 types. Granted, adult primary brain tumours tend to be one of a handful of types, but multiply that by all the different places in your brain they could occur, and times that by the age and underlying health of the person who owns that... Continue Reading →
I'm writing this while a third of the way in to 30 sessions of radiotherapy, and the side effects of getting a high strength blast of x-rays to the brain every day are starting to kick in. Please bear with me if it's a bit rambling and it takes a while to get new posts... Continue Reading →
As the biopsy results appointment drew near, things did not get any easier. I know several people with brain tumours. From close friends to friends of friends I've never actually met, each have different tumours and outcomes. Some good and some very bad. Because of our similar deficit, the one who played most on my... Continue Reading →
The first few days back at home were easy. It still hadn't really occurred to me to worry too much about the biopsy results. The biopsy itself had been the hurdle, and had been cleared. My sister in law came to visit for a few days with her toddler son. It was a lovely distraction... Continue Reading →
The day after the biopsy began with all the usual poking and prodding that comes with hospitals. Two healthcare assistants, Wendy and Jean came to offer me a bed bath. It seemed a bit previous, having met them mere seconds before, so I politely declined. They offered me a bowl of water to give myself... Continue Reading →
A few seconds in to a dream, Steve the recovery nurse brought me round from the anaesthetic. Bald on the top, with silver hair at the sides, and fairly rotund, Steve was the most beautiful and wonderful man I have ever met, bar my husband. He asked how I was. "BRILLIANT! I'M ALIVE!" I shrieked... Continue Reading →
The days before the biopsy are a bizarre mix of the ridiculous (my hilarious neighbour trying to convince me that there has been a spate of women running off with their robot surgeons) and the way too sensible (applying for a Power of Attorney so A can at least access all my financial affairs if... Continue Reading →
Not today, Satan. Not today. 