There are about a million phrases in life that you can never imagine uttering. Some good. Some bad. You always hope that if you're going to have to say one of them, it will be the former.
For the past 6 months, I've been uttering the latter. It's just one of many things that I NEVER thought would happen to me (good and bad.)
I have a Brain Tumor. My friends helped me name him - Peatey. Because well, he's the size of a pea. And obviously, a boy!
About 10 months ago, I started visiting doctor to find out why in the world, at age 26, I could still be growing in height and weight (probably unrelated). And did that have anything to do with my crazy headaches and seemingly random vision issues? White spots = not preferred.
This had been going on for some time, but I had never put too much stock in it because my symptoms hadn't gotten worse or changed over the past few years. Then a realization came: This isn't normal.
I really needed to get it checked out.
A few months of going to doctor after doctor after doctor, getting blood tests, vision tests, more blood tests, and more vision tests, I was finally sent to get an MRI. A few days later, I went to see the neurologist. When he uttered the words "You have a brain tumor," I FREAKED OUT. Understandably, I think.
It was followed shortly by "It's probably benign." And "We don't have to do surgery unless it's growing." Plus a lot of other words that I wrote down and still can't even pretend to understand.
Here's what I do know. Peatey is hypothetically harmless, or at least he was at the time of my first MRI. He is a pituitary mass, who was not causing any chiasmal compression. (That's good). He's around 6 mm in diameter, so roughly the size of a pea. He sits near my optic nerve, so if he grows it can mess up my vision. It turned out my current vision issues are a manifestation of chronic migraines (because you can never just find out about one thing at a time) - so that's good, too. A lot of people have pituitary microadenomas (aka small masses) but they don't know about them because often they don't cause any symptoms. Plus, pituitary cancers are very rare. All in all, if you have a brain tumor, this kind is pretty much a winner. Try that diagnosis on for size.
The past 6 months or so have been full of major ups and downs. Freaking about about dying to thinking I'm invincible. Deciding whether to go rogue, since my days are limited (tumor or no tumor) or trying to plan for the future. Mostly, I've just been trying to ignore that Peatey is even real.
This week, my major freak-outs have started again. I am facing MRI #2. Thursday, I will find out if Peatey is growing (and I need surgery) or if he can just stay there and freeload, maybe forever. Maybe the freakiest part? I can't even decide which answer I want to hear.
We've kind of bonded (literally) for now. The one thing I do know? If he's coming out, I want to keep him in a jar.
P.S. In case you were imagining, as I did, what Peatey looks like ... it's somewhere in between a pea and Dopey from the seven dwarfs. Bar napkin illustrations included!
p.s.s. notice bottom right peatey has two earrings. a little swagger.
the winner.
