My Sister Saved My Life

Let’s start with the good news. Nay, the AMAZING news. I had my post op appointment with the oncologist and received the pathology report. I am clean.

Huzzah!

Now that I’ve had a bit of time to process this news, I’ve come to one realization. My sister saved my life. To explain this will take a bit of rewinding.

In the hazy past (no, I don’t recall how long) my sister had a cyst the size of a soccer ball when it was found (not jealous of the size). Like me, her invader was removed as quickly as possible. Unlike me, her unlamented creature was completely benign (that’s the part I’m jealous of). After her surgery her migraines abated.

Fast forward to me last year. In addition to a myriad of problems I was trying to deal with, I was having cognitive issues. My migraines had ticked up slightly (hadn’t missed their absence), but worse was reading and writing.

By December it had progressed to where I could not read, nor could I write. Not more than a couple sentences every several hours (talk about a flow killer). If I tried, my brain felt like it was literally vibrating in my skull. Or at other random times like my skull was squeezing my brain even when I was behaving. If I ignored the warning sign of buzzing brain, I would break out into physically trembling all over. Once I hit that point, I’d need several hours in a very dark room doing absolutely nothing before I could to do anything again. I do mean anything.

I also, I wasn’t enjoying light at all. Okay, light and I have never completely gotten along (the sun is an EVIL day orb). But this was to the point I kept the lights off in any room I was in and my wonderful friend blacked out the windows as much as possible too. I could not stand light.

Yep, a lot of symptoms were centering around my head. Okay, these problems are only a small portion of what I was dealing with, but they had major impact on my functionality.

When I had a follow-up with my primary physician in December, specialists had already ruled out some things, and we were going to start exploring others (yay, more doctors). The neurologist was progressing slowly. I’ve discovered those are extremely busy doctors and as a result have long intervals between appointments. But while my PC and I were discussing this, my sister and her cyst’s effects on her head jumped into mine.

I asked the doctor if it would be worth checking.

He agreed to check.

The creature was found.

The creature was removed.

The cancer was found, and things spiraled quickly from there.

Whoosh.

No wonder I feel a bit dizzy about everything that’s happened right now.

I am certain if my sister hadn’t had her creature, I never would have thought to ask my doctor to check that. They wouldn’t have found the cancer as soon as they did and everything would have been much, much worse. Possibly, or maybe even probabl,y deadly.

But she had her creature which led me to asking the question that revealed mine. So now I’m here, healing and looking to my future.

As a bonus, today is also three years since I got my surgery recovery friend. This dragon has made an incredible pillow to help me battle pain.