Hip, hip

So I’m not doing so well with the braining today and everyone else has a really busy and hectic day on tap. I am going to put this out there and assume Frank will fix the errors when he sees them.

We found our guy. Instead of Dudes in White Jackets telling me why I should believe them instead of my lying dizzy headachy self, I found a Dude in a Hawaiian Jacket who listened to a symptom and then tried to explain how this tumor could be causing it. My tumor is in the very center of the brain and constriction there can affect almost any part of my body, basically. He is such a radical change from all the other guys. He came back to Hawaii after growing up here and doing most of his doctoring all over the mainland. He was hired by one of the five guys we had targeted in SC once upon a time. What a small world this is. Most of his experience in this area of the brain is on children, because sadly it’s most commonly found in children in this part of the brain. We all feel very comfortable with him.

I will say that I swear Lili and I were treated differently when Scott was there. But maybe we just found our guy. Or both.

So it’ll be on a Monday within the next month. Wow! No date yet, but soon. Straub in Honolulu. Fly over on a Thursday, be seen by him in clinic on Friday, tests over the weekend, surgery on Monday. Most likely path in is through the top of my head, between the two hemispheres of the brain. Piece of cake. Back home in a week. Two months tough recovery, and I’ll feel almost normal in a year. Fair enough!

No date yet. But good news. I’m afraid to be too hopeful, but I am trying to focus my energy on good and positive things. No fretting. No crying. No worrying. All of that makes my headache worse.

And no flitting about and flipping my hair and spinning, which evidently is something I do. A lot. I’ve always been a busy bee, but I never realized how frenetic I must have looked until I started noticing it because it makes my head hurt so much. If nothing else, Hawaii is teaching me to chill out already.

Just enough time to plan, right? If anyone can help Frank with those dang goats, please seriously do it.

He’ll need a dogsitter too … maybe someone local has a teenager who could stay there? They are easy keepers, love to hike. It’s almost time for them to be able to come over, so I’ll have them here with me when I’m healing. YAY.

Imagine how well my internal GPS will work once it has enough blood flow. Maybe I won’t spend half my life lost anymore!

Coming to Hawaii to live instead of to die is way, way better, just for the record. Lili and I have so enjoyed working together on this project that we are busy planning what our next endeavor will be. Watch out, World.

I will point out that I both wore my favorite dress and brought my lucky notebook to this appointment. (wow what a difference three months make — the one of the left is when I got here, the one on the right was yesterday) Like Jeremy said, you look like shit, well I mean not like shit, but wow, you look like shit. You can tell he was raised by frank Frank. That dress got caught in a gate years ago in Vermont, but I’ve got it duct taped on the inside. I’m pretty sure it’s like fifteen years old or something. I love it. I don’t remember where Frank got it for me. Brattleboro? Ambler? I love that I now have matching hat and sandals now.

My lucky notebook sure dates me, doesn’t it? President of the NH Chapter of the OS/2 Nerd Club in the very early 90s. There’s a small burn on the back of it from the woodstove, but otherwise in great shape. I’ve had some great things happen with it with me, and some horrible things when I’ve not had it. I can’t believe I only recently realized I left for Hawaii without it, but Frank mailed it to me the other day.

I’m not sure why I’m obsessing about it, but I want to shave my head completely, before the surgery. I’ve heard from enough craniotomy folks that dealing with blood in the hair and tangles and all that crap is horrid, and it squicks me out just thinking about it. I have a very tender scalp. So my theory is going to do it when I really believe it’s going to happen, when I am in Honolulu, after I’ve been seen by him again. Please, please, please, I am ready to have this OUT of my head please.

Instead of hip, hip, hooray! playing over and over in my head, it’s hip, hip …

I hope this isn’t too convoluted. It’s taken me hours and hours to write it. I think maybe some other voices might want to chime in from time to time for updates, as I become less able. It’s like a guest writer when we were all journallers before blogging!