From the Diary of a Brain Tumor Chick

Monday, November 2nd 2009

This was CRAZY day! We left for my first visit to the Mayo Clinic that day. It was one of the hardest in my life. I very rarely have left my oldest son overnight and had until this day never left my 2yr old overnight. My heart was aching. We had crazy amounts of running around to do. I was told by the Mayo Clinic to pack like they would go ahead and do the surgery right then just in case. So I had no idea for how long I was leaving my world for. I was on the verge of breaking down all day.

When it rains it pours. I had to get Brock (2yr old) an H1N1 flu shot so that if I did go ahead and have the surgery he would be able to come in to visit me when it was appropriate. (Mayo clinic rule) Bray and I already had ours. Bray's (9yr old) eardrum ruptured the night before so he also had to see the doctor. And if that wasn't enough, Robert broke a tooth over the weekend and had to have that repaired. And all that was just that morning!

I was fortunate enough to have my best friend from high school want to take some family portraits of us before we left and that was truly the highlight of the day! She and I were amazing friends back then and although life has kept us from seeing each other as much as we would like to when we are together it's as if no time has passed. It was so nice to have that done. She has become an incredible photographer and it was so generous of her to squeeze us in during our craziness! I had been on steroids for a while at this point, so my face was really puffy but I think she has a 'magic' camera because the shots turned out beautifully. They're all the one's you see on this blog! She rocks!

There was just the leaving part at that point. So tough. I made my dad and sister be brave for me and not cry because I just couldn't yet. I still had to be brave for my boys. We dropped them off and we were on our way to see about my brain tumor...Egore.

My oldest sister surprised me by driving all the way from Gray, GA to Jacksonville to see us that night. It was so awesome. She had just given birth to her second child, a little boy, about 5 weeks previously, and I had yet to see him. We chatted and giggled and played with her kids for about an hour and a half and they had to leave to drive back. Can you believe they drove all the way down there just to drive the four and a half hours back. CRAZY! I was so honored. I really do have AWESOME sisters.

The next few days were spent in Jacksonville seeing several doctors and actually looking at the films of what this BRAIN TUMOR looks like. I don't know that could have set in completely until I saw the films. How could I still be functioning with this thing that looked to take up a good 1/4 of my brain? The rest of my brain was completely compressed against the other side of the skull. Those pics were AWFUL! It made my stomach sick just to look at them!

It only reaffirmed what I had already been told...I have a brain tumor!