You Have A Tumor

In July of 2000, after a few months searching for answers about chronic fatigue and stiffness in my legs, I got a call from my family physician.  It was obvious this was no ordinary call; it was Sunday morning around 9 A.M.

After a quick exchange of pleasantries, I will always remembers her next words:  "You have a tumor."  I will never remember much about the rest of the call, beyond being told to go to the hospital later to visit with a neurosurgeon she recommended to me.

In short, I had surgery a few days later to remove a spinal tumor.  Although the pathology was not confirmed for a couple of weeks, it was later determined to be a benign ependymoma.

Today, July 14, 2015, marks the 15th anniversary of that surgery, the only in-patient surgery I've ever had so far, and hopefully the only one I'll ever have.  Several weeks later, it was followed by a six-week course of preventative radiation therapy, which I know I'll never have again.

I don't want to write much about it, I don't even want to talk much about it, but it's a good time for me to look back and consider the lasting impressions I have now:

• There is no not being scared when you are told you have a tumor.  It doesn't help for others to tell you it's going to be fine.  However, one thing that does somewhat mitigate the fear is drugs, in my case Xanax, which has a way of making you not care about things even though you know they are very serious.  This remains the only time I've ever taken something like Xanax, but I can understand how and why people get addicted to it.

• The internet is an incredibly distracting, mentally exhausting resource for looking up health issues.  It's 50/50 to me whether it was (is) a good thing or a bad thing.  But what might help is to find someone else who's been through what you're going to go through.  I wish I would have known someone else in my situation, someone who might have given credible advice.  Unfortunately, it was kind of a rare deal, so much that the internet didn't even help.

• When someone is going through a recovery and/or long-term oncology-type treatment, send them a card sometime.  Misery loves company, even when the company isn't as miserable as you.  It's just good to know that others haven't forgotten about what not only you, but also your family, are going through.

• Don't act in such a hurried or fearful way that you make non-emergency medical decisions without getting a second opinion.  I didn't, and although I feel like I had a good surgeon and a good outcome, in retrospect, I'd have gotten a second opinion on both the surgery and especially on the preventative radiation therapy.

• There wasn't anything good about this tumor/surgery/treatment, but if I had to pick something, it's that I no longer care about aging.  In fact, I've considered every birthday in the past 15 years to be a gift.  Health is a gift.  Age is a gift.  Too bad I had to spend a few weeks thinking about dying young before I figured that out.