At the conference with the doctor, he seemed very sure of himself and his ability but good grief, that’s his business – his skill. He has to be calm! Gotta admit tho, he was really nice about it and reassuring. I’ve been to other doctors that didn’t want to bother answering questions and were not very compassionate or even friendly. It was like they just wanted you to take their word for it and not bother them with any questions. This doctor ASKED me to ask him questions! My son did most of the asking, I was too spaced out. He was a rock,  my son. I thank God every day that it was him that was with me that day. He had eye problems himself and knew some of the impact on the vision end, not the surgery part, but still, he was calm and asked intelligent questions. I’m sure he knew that I would be asking him, “what did he say?” on the way home.  His strength is what I held onto.  I couldn’t have done it without him.
On the way home, I was quiet. I was not ready to hear it all again – and understand it this time and have to accept it. The traffic from Los Angeles headed east at 5:00PM on a Tuesday – well, just say “parking lot” and you get the picture. The time was there. So I asked my son to recap it all for me – in simple terms. Basically, he said, the neurologist doctor said it was a Meningioma tumor and he will do the surgery – about 10 hours long if all goes well. He will cut away the skin on the left side of my head (a backwards ? mark  pattern), pull the skin back, cut a circular hole in my skull over where the tumor mass was and take out that piece of skull. Then, go in and cut out the tumor. The vision neuro ophthalmologist would address the tumor in the orbitz area in my head and then turn it back to the neurologist. He would do any “repairs” and then place the circular skull piece back over the hole, secure it with titanium screws, pull the skin back over the area, and staple it closed. I’d be in the hospital for at least a week, and on heavy morphine for at least 5 days. End of story. Any questions? None from me.
It was odd that I wasn’t a basket case. Meningioma tumor – I can’t even pronounce that word! But at least it wasn’t cancerous. At least I had that to hold on to. Plus, since the options were “do it or die”, what choice did I have? That is probably what helped me stay together. If I don’t do it, the tumor will attach to my brain and the problems will be enormous, serious and evenutally debilitating. If I have the surgery, I still could die, but at least I had the chance of full recovery. It was a no brainer…well, guess that is not the best phrase to use, but I have found in life that if you don’t laugh, you will cry, so just accepted it and did what I needed to do.  Plan for the worst and hope for the best.Â
I look back now and think that maybe since it was explained to me in such simple terms, it didn’t sound so complicated and serious, so I didn’t crash and burn over it. It had to be done. I knew that.  But now I understood WHAT had to be done. Even though it was an extremely complicated, serious and dangerous procedure, since there was nothing I could do about it, “don’t worry, just do it” seemed to settle in me and I accepted it and dealt with it. I had 2 weeks to do what I felt I needed to do. I just did it and hoped for the best.
There wasn’t much time between the time I was told the news of the meningioma tumor and the time I had to have the surgery – just 2 weeks. Trying to get “things” done incase I died was my only thought. I wanted my kids to have certain things, to know certain memories and such. I spent several days just doing things for them – getting things in “order” if the worst should happen. My grand daughter was nearly 3 years old. I didn’t want her to forget me. So I wrote to her in a journal and to each of my kids. Thank God those journals are still in my closet.