Warning: This article contains difficult information to process if you know me, and deals with matters of life and death.
Ok, so the proverbial crap has hit the fan...and splattered all over the wall! There is no good way to say this so I'm just gonna throw it on the table and then we will kick it around.
I had a seizure on the afternoon of December 5th and again about 3 am December 10th, 2020. Both described as generalized tonic clonic seizure, no apparent lasting neurological effects. After the second seizure an MRI was performed, it was in this imaging that I was diagnosed with a likely glioma in the left frontal lobe of my brain which will require an awake craniotomy, because it is so near the speech centers of my brain.
Needless to say, the news felt like a death sentence, and that has been a hard feeling to shake. It's a full 10 days later and I'm finally able to face a new day without the overwhelming rush of emotions that I face every morning as I remember my diagnosis. Before you waste your time googling the above diagnosis, let me give you the nitty gritty reality of it. It all comes down to the surgery, and the pathology of the tumor that is removed from my brain. Assuming the doctors are correct based solely on a set of MRI images and bloodwork, then I have a glioma which is almost certainly a grade II or higher glioma given my age at diagnosis. Assuming the best case scenario, at least 20% of patients with slow growing grade II glioma will live 20 years and more beyond diagnosis. Until the surgery, I can only hope beyond hope that I am one of these patients.
As much as I hate to even bring it up, it wouldn't be fair to not consider the worst case scenario as well. The worst possible case is a pathology report that shows a grade IV fast growing glioma. In this case, average patient life expectancy is 15 months.....Never saw that coming! Insert your favorite explicative here!
At this point, I can't say for sure, its a huge spread and the doctors could even be wrong, they are working with very limited information. I can't fathom a 15 month life expectancy and so I'm not even going to consider it. As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to live forever...well, at least get to enjoy many years of retirement. That's the only attitude I can approach this with, for my sake and for the sake of my wife and children. If you've never been handed a diagnosis like this, it is impossible to describe the range of emotions that wash over you, sometimes minute by minute. The fear of leaving people behind, the love you feel from those close to you, the fear they feel for you...it is palpable.
I have chosen to work with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. They are the best of the best, giving me the best shot, and I intend to fight with everything I've got and never stop.
