What a Long Strange Trip It's Been!

Well, it's about that time again. Time to update you on the status of the eviction of Mike Wasowski and his "Cysta." It has now been exactly 4 months since I had my second surgery to try to kick Mike Wasowski to the curb.
Quick Timeline of Events to this point: 
September 2015 - Can't see images in eye test. 1st Doc gives Dx of Macular Degeneration
                              Get second opinion. 2nd Doc discovers NO PERIPHERAL VISION thru Field                                  of Vision test. Suspects Pituitary Tumor affecting Optic Nerves. Referral to 
                              Neurosurgeon.
October 2015 -     MRI
                              Results show huge tumor taking up the space in the Brain called the Cella.                                        Immediate surgery is suggested.
                             I wait 2 weeks until my show closes
October 27, 2015 - Surgery to remove Tumor (Mike Wasowski)
December 31, 2015 - MRI
March 2016 -    Neurosurgeon breaks the news that there is some tumor left.
July 2016     -    MRI
September 2016 - Neurosurgeon tells me a cyst has developed where the tumor used to be. I will                                  need surgery AGAIN
                            2nd Field of Vision test shows cyst is already affecting vision
November 2, 2016 - 2nd surgery to remove leftover tumor and cyst. 
February 2017 - MRI

Which brings us to today. Well, there is good news and, well, not bad news, but not the "Yay! I'm rid of Mike forever!" news I'd hoped for. On February 20th I went to my wonderful Opthalmologist, Dr. Juan Astruc, the man responsible for diagnosing me correctly, and, not to be over dramatic, but for saving my eyesight and maybe my life. Another Field of Vision test, my third. My peripheral vision has returned 100% in both of my eyes. I am thrilled. He was too! You never really realize how much you use your peripheral vision until you lose it. Definitely encouraging news! Which brings me to my next Dr. Visit, Dr. Sahni, my neurosurgeon.
Most of us have lived somewhere for a long period of time, our childhood home or our first home with our spouse. It's hard to leave that to move on. Mike lived in my brain for at least 10 years. You might say he grew up there, and obviously he did not want to leave. Well, this time he's gone, but he left something behind for me to remember him. Truthfully, this memento was left from the very first surgery, but I had forgotten until I spoke with Dr. Sahni this past Tuesday. My daughter reminded me on the way home. Going back to post 1st surgery, there was a tiny bit of the tumor attached to a blood vessel. As you can imagine, that is a delicate situation. You don't just go cutting away next to something that could potentially cause a hemorrhage in your brain. After the 2nd surgery, I went on a prescription drug called Cabergoline. One of the uses for this drug is to suppress the growth of pituitary tumors: A.K.A. Mike Wasowski. Here's the not-so-great news: Mike isn't totally gone, but here's the good news: The memento he left behind hugging my blood vessel is shrinking thanks to my superhero, CABERGOLINE! Envision really buff guy in tights and a cape with a big "C" on his chest. 
So, where does this leave me in my saga with Mike Wasowski? We have not totally parted ways, and in June, I will have yet another MRI. If what's left behind is still shrinking, YAY! If not, or it's grown at all, we may have to go the radiation route, but I'm crossing that bridge when I come to it. For now I'm celebrating my restoration of vision and all the supportive friends and family I have on this wild ride!

And So, Here I Am Again.

I am relatively sure that if a survey were taken of several hundred people asking them to list 10 things they feel uncomfortable or embarrassed doing, I would bet that asking for help would appear somewhere on that list. No one wants to ask for help. It starts when we are little and learning to walk. We want to do it ourselves. Then in grade school we don't raise our hand to ask a question or say that we don't understand the material for fear of being judged or thought of as stupid. As we become adults we find it hard to ask for help when we are struggling because society has taught us that we must learn to stand on our own 2 feet. Asking for any kind of help is hard, but when money is the issue, it becomes unbearable! 

Almost exactly a year ago I found myself in a situation I never thought I would be in. I had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, technically a pituitary tumor, but it was in the middle of my brain, so brain surgery was required. I had lost ALL of my peripheral vision because the tumor was pressing on my optic nerves. I had no idea how I was going to afford the astronomical medical costs and loss of wages that having this surgery would cause. And before you ask, yes I do have insurance, but 30% of a $229,000 hospital bill, even when it is cut down to the "reasonable and customary" charge was something this single mom could not even fathom of how to come up with the money to pay. I am not an extravagant person. I never really have been, but when I became the single mother of 2 girls ages 2 and 5, frugal became my middle name. I have no savings as eating was more important to us. We rarely take vacations because we can't afford them. I am not saying all this to solicit a pat on the back. I want to share that I am not a frivolous person when it comes to money. See, there's that fear of being judged rearing it's ugly head. Last year my youngest daughter started a GoFundMe page to help with my medical expenses and to help with my loss of wages while I was recovering. I was humbled to say the least. Friends and strangers came to my aid. I was so grateful. Never in a million years would I have thought last year that I would be going through all this again, but I am. The Reader's Digest version is that there was some of the tumor left. When the neurosurgeon describes the tumor as "huge" you know it must have been a bear. I knew that eventually I might have to have that removed if it grew, but about a month ago I was devastated to learn that I had now developed a cyst in the same area, and it is already affecting my vision. This has changed everything. I was planning to wait so I could save up vacation and sick time to avoid loss of wages. Maybe I could save a little money or get a part time job to bank some to help with expenses, but now I am right back in the same boat and can't do either of those things because of the quick pace at which we have to move to get the tumor and cyst out. My surgery is scheduled for November 2nd. Added to that they are doing the procedure this time with an "inter-operative MRI" to make sure ALL of the tumor is gone before I come out of the operating room. I found out today that because of that I will need an additional MRI before I go into surgery to make sure that process runs smoothly. I am still trying to find the money to pay for the MRI done last summer that revealed the cyst. Just to give you an idea, each MRI costs me $750.00. The hospital bill will cost into the thousands, and because of recovery time, I may lose anywhere from $500.00 to $1000.00 in wages, not to mention that last year my "disability" income did not even get approved until well after I had returned to work. As we all know, bills don't wait. they are due when they are due. I'm not going to go on and on, and I am not trying to make this sound like a sob story. The long and short of it is that I am asking for help again. I wish I didn't have to, and if I win Publisher's Clearing House, I will make sure to let everyone know and give any GoFundMe money to charity, but until that happens, I will need money to hopefully get this thing in my brain to leave and STAY GONE this time. 

I know so many of you that read this blog helped me last time, and I will never be able to tell you how grateful I was and still am. Let me say thank you in advance to anyone who chooses to help now, and my greatest wish is that some day I will be in the financial position to pay it forward 1000 times over. The link to the page is above, but I will post it here again. Thank you. I love you all!

https://www.gofundme.com/b26dhnqu# 

Mike's "Cysta" is Already a Problem Tennant

Back in the middle of July I wrote an entry with an update on my tumor (Mike Wazowski). I know several of you have been following my progress through this whole tumor/brain surgery ordeal that started a little less than a year ago. Wow! That's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since the exisitence of Mike was first discovered. So much has happened in these last 10 months. When one is told that they have a tumor it strikes a chord. No matter what is said after that, you have this initial feeling of dread. It is probably because we've watched too many scenes in movies or on TV where the hero or heroine fights bravely to the death with a brain tumor, we instantly think CANCER. Mine was not cancer. It was never thought to be cancer, but knowing that, I almost took it too lightly at first. Even after everything was removed, (well, not everything) I felt fine, by my standards. I have my granfather's "shake it off" constitution, so I thought I'm feeling fine. It's all over, and even if there is something hanging around, I can live with it until it poses a threat. I had made all mylittle plans of waiting until May to have my surgery. Afterall that fits better with my schedule, and I can bank enough time at work to be able to take the month needed to recover at full salary instead of 2/3 or, worse, days with no salary at all. NEWSFLASH: Threat posed! Last week I saw Dr. Astruc, the eye specialist who first caught the problem, for a routine follow-up. Part of the follow-up was a field of vision test as I had had the previous 2 visits since Mike had mostly affected my peripheral vision. I was a little worried when I took the eye test, you know the one with the letters, and my right eye was acting the same way it had when all this mess started but not as bad. The last letter in the line was invisible, not the last 2. But, as we tend to do as humans, I rationalized. It's dark in here. Maybe I have something in my eye, etc., etc. Then I went to take the field of vision test, and we started the process of staring down the long tunnel and clicking the plastic piece in my hand every time I saw a flash of light. Back to the examining room to wait for Dr. Astruc. As he looked at the results compared with my results in May, I didn't hear what I wanted to hear. Left eye? PERFECT! Right eye? Another dark spot has appeared. Well, CRAP! He said that he thought the cyst was probably causing that, but he would send the report to Dr. Sahni, my neurosurgeon, and he would make the determination of how to proceed. I saw Dr. Astruc on a Wednesday, and Thursday morning I got a call from Dr. Sahni. To summarize: My plans to wait until May went out the window. In fact, when I told Dr. Sahni I wanted to wait until then, he chuckled and said, "No, you cannot wait until then." So as it stands now, I am shooting for the first week of November, almost exactly where I was a year ago. I'm not thrilled, but it is what it is. What else am I going to do? This time they will do what Dr. Sahni called an Inter-operative MRI. That means they will do the MRI while I am still under to make sure EVRYONE vacates! I can tell you one thing. Mike's not getting his security deposit back!

I Thought You Were Gone, Mike!

A month ago I posted the results of my follow up with the eye doctor after my tumor was removed, and the results were amazing, even by his standards. Almost all of my peripheral vision has been restored, and still could improve more with time. Yay! I guess such great results kind of set me up on a mountaintop about this whole experience that it’s all over, and life is, once again, back to normal, or as normal as my life is. Not so, my friend. Last week I had my follow up with the neurosurgeon after my New Year’s Eve MRI, 2 months post tumor removal. I looked at the CD they give you. It definitely looked different and that hole was no longer full of the big white spot as you see in the picture, but I have no idea what I’m looking at. As I sat in Dr. Sahni’s office last week waiting for him to come in, I was imagining what he’d say:

Dr. Sahni: Well, Miss Moore, the tumor is totally gone. Dr. Astruc says your vision is almost completely back to normal, so unless you have any problems, I’ll see you in a year. Nice to meet you. Good luck!

That’s not exactly how it went. It’s nothing earth shattering, but there is still some of the tumor left. It is now in the bottom of the cavity where my pituitary gland lives and far away from my optic nerves, so nothing is being affected. It’s just sitting there, and it might just sit there forever, which would be the preferred scenario, but it could also grow back. Cue sound effect of Boos and hissing from the crowd. Apparently it was huge! In fact, Dr. Sahni said that many surgeons would not have removed it by the method mine was removed, through the nasal cavity. It would have been the “movie version” of brain surgery, shaved head, boring into the skull, through the brain stuff. As large as it was, and given the way it was removed, the doctor could not be overly aggressive because that could have caused some permanent damage. So, I am sure you are wondering what happens now. Well, you are if you’re still reading this. In 4 months I have another MRI, cha ching $$, $2400.00, to see if it has grown. If it has, we do the whole thing all over again, or if it hasn’t, we wait, the word everybody loves to hear. In another four months from July we do another MRI, cha ching $$, another $2400, to see if it’s grown, if it still is just sitting there, as my grandmother used to say, like a bump on a log, we wait 6 months, and you guessed it, another MRI. It seems Mike Wasowski just couldn’t bear to leave his Boo. But this isn’t a Disney movie, and I would have preferred for Mike to have just walked back into that closet and shredded my door for good!