In my last post in 2008 I talked about my grieving at the loss of my husband, my losing the symphony gig (the post just mentions losing one song, but I eventually lost the whole position), and my sister-in-law wanting my daughter to have me committed. Yeah, it was a pretty crappy time in my life. I didn't mention that I was having serious migraines on an almost-daily basis and that I was not teaching. I missed a lot of things I wanted to do because the headaches prevented any participation in my life.
One thing I didn't miss, though, was the appointments with my rheumatologist. My arthritis was really bad. I could barely make it up or down the stairs of my house and often slept on the couch because I couldn't get up to the bedroom. He had put me on Plaquenil, a medication for rheumatoid arthritis that is supposed to slow the progression of the disease, in the spring of 2008. One of the possible side-effects of Plaquenil is retinal damage, so I have to see my ophthalmologist every six months to check that my retinas are healthy.
In November I went to see my eye doctor, Dr. Darrell Reisner, at The Eye Center. He's a wonderful doctor and a great human being. I've always enjoyed my visits with him. Well, the visit started with what they call a red target visual field exam. Once the exam was finished, he came in to see me. He looked at the results of the red target test and said my visual field was good and then looked at my retinas with the slit lamp (that's that very, very bright blue light that they look into your eye with while telling you to look at their ear on the other side.
After examining my retinas with the slit lamp, he sat back and asked me how I've been feeling - you know, any headaches, dizziness, visual anomalies, etc. I told him of the headaches - that I'd had one every day since my husband died. He was appropriately sympathetic and then asked if there was anything else. In fact, there was. I'd been noticing for several months that whenever I sneezed or coughed, I saw flashing lights (sort of like fireworks) behind my closed lids. I also told him that just the day before I had been reading a book and while I was reading a page on the left side, all the text from the page on the right disappeared - the page was still there and the area where I knew the text to be was a fuzzy gray.
Dr. Reisner then told me that when he examined my retinas he noticed that my optic nerves were swollen. I asked what could cause that and he said that anything that causes intra-cranial pressure could do it. He said it could also be a side effect of medications and I gave him a list of all the meds I was taking. I also told him that I had a very severe case of sinusitis at the time and asked if that could be doing it. He said it was possible. I asked what else it might be and he said that it was unlikely, but that swollen optic nerves could be caused by a brain tumor, and reiterated that that was really unlikely, but that he wanted me to get an MRI just to be sure.
Dr. Reisner asked me if I had seen anyone for my headaches. I gave him the name of the neurologist I had seen 4 years earlier who told me my headaches were menopausal and sent me to an OB/GYN. Dr. Reisner called that neurologist who agreed that I should get an MRI. Dr. Reisner gave me the order and told me to go see the neurologist when I had the results. I never did go see that neurologist again.
But I did have the MRI. I called to schedule it and they wanted to do it on December 21st. I was planning to fly home to Minnesota on that date to visit my family for Christmas, so I asked if we could schedule it for January when I would be back. The lady that was scheduling it for me said that she thought I should get it done before I left and she put me on hold to go check to see if they could find a time for me outside of their normal hours. She came back and offered two options, both on Wed., Dec. 19. I could have either 6:00 am or 9:00 pm. Well, if you know me at all, you know that the only 6:00 on my clock is in the pm. So I took the 9:00 pm slot.
That Wednesday night I drove to Prince William Hospital for the MRI. There was only one other patient in the MRI department - a teenage boy from the ER with a knee injury, so I got in pretty quickly. A brain MRI takes about 45 minutes. After 20 minutes they pull you out and inject a contrast dye into your blood stream and then do another 20 minutes.
When the procedure was done the technician came into the room and removed me from the "cage" that holds the patient's head still for the test. I started to sit up to get up off the table and he asked me to lie back down, that a nurse would be in to get me. Before I could ask why, he was gone. Within a minute, 2 nurses came in with a gurney and asked me to let them help me onto the gurney. I told them I could get up there by myself, and they said that I was not allowed to do that, that I had to let them help me. I asked why I was getting on this gurney and they said "We're taking you upstairs." "Upstairs where?" I asked. "The Emergency Room." "Why?" "Oh, didn't the technician tell you?" "No." "The doctor wants to talk to you, and that's where she is."
The doctor who wanted to talk to me was the radiologist who had reviewed my MRI. She came in and told me that I had a brain tumor and that I would need surgery right away. I told her that I couldn't do it until I got back from Minnesota. She said I could discuss that with the neurosurgeon who would be in to see me in the morning. I was admitted to the hospital to await the brain surgeon (always wanted to meet one of those, but not like this).
The neurosurgeon arrived Thursday morning and in 10 minutes explained that I had a very large brain tumor and it had to come out. He said that I would be transferred later that day to a different hospital - one with neurosurgery facilities - and that he would operate on Friday morning. I told him that I was getting on a plane on Friday to fly to Rochester, MN, and that I would have the surgery there at the Mayo Clinic. He said he understood why I might want that, but that he could not allow me to get on an airplane - that I could have a seizure from the pressurization of the cabin.
So I had the surgery. It turned out that the tumor was the size of half a grapefruit, had been pressing on my right frontal lobe, causing increased depression (intensifying my grief), pushing my brain to the left and rear, causing the headaches in my left occipital region, and shifting the midline of my brain a full inch to the left.
They got the whole tumor out. It was a meningioma nestled nicely between the pia and the dura, the two layers of the meninges (the lining between the brain and the skull). They didn't have to touch any healthy brain tissue to get the tumor out.
Instead of going home for Christmas, my mother came here. She stayed for a month, taking care of me while I healed. I was only in the hospital for 3 days - 1½ days in ICU and 1½ days on the surgical floor.
It's now a little over 2 years later and I have had 4 follow-up MRIs and there is no sign of the tumor returning.
It turns out that the problem with the Rossini overture piccolo part was that I couldn't count 16 bars rest and come in at the right time - it was the tumor. And my sister-in-law wanting to have me committed? Well, that was probably the tumor too - at least I hope it was.
