2015 so far

This was supposed to be a great year. I finished my course in Office Administration, surprisingly enough. I still can’t believe I passed everything. It was a very hard year, studying, homework, no sleep, constantly making myself sick with worry. Worry about life, school and…February 12 of this year my son, Scott, had a seizure. I didn’t know he had a seizure at the time. He fell out of bed and spent the weekend unable to speak properly, his left cheek was twitching and he had such a headache. After Family Day, I took him to see the nurse practitioner. Luckily she knew it wasn’t good. She booked him for an emergency MRI in Thunder Bay. The next day we were on the bus, on our way to Thunder Bay. Scott had an MRI the following day. We learned that Scott had a large tumour in the right side of his brain. That’s when I learned that he had had a seizure. He had another seizure May 14th. Scott’s afraid of having another one. It seems to take everything out of him. Scott’s biopsy was March 9. The Neurosurgeon had bumped Scott ahead of everyone. We got the results from the biopsy May 9th. He has a Grade 3 Astrocytoma tumour. It could advance to grade 4 at any time...hopefully not. On May 19th we met with the Oncologists. 6 weeks of radiation and perhaps 18 months of chemotherapy will be scheduled soon. Before June, said the doctor. I’ll probably miss my graduation, on June 2nd, but being in Thunder Bay with Scott is more important. He’s having trouble walking. The left side of his body is seriously weakened. One of the Oncologists hopes that he may get back to semi-normal after the radiation. Semi-normal meaning, his walking has never been entirely normal due the neuromuscular disorder he unfortunately inherited from me. He was doing better than my other son, Will and I, but now he’s worse off. I’ll try to get him a walker before we go or I’ll borrow a wheelchair from the Cancer Society or Red Cross. The Neurosurgeon said it was too big to remove, 7.5 cm. The Radiology Oncologist said that they can’t remove it. They’re going to do the best they can to shrink it and put it to sleep. Is it going to wake up again? Hopefully not. Will Scott’s life be shortened somewhat? Yes, that’s what the Neurosurgeon told me. Will Scott get through 6 weeks of radiation and 18 months of chemotherapy? I hope so. I get the feeling he’ll sleep most of the time during those 6 weeks.