Hi Everyone
Thanks so much for all of the messages, positive thoughts, and prayers you sent my way after I shared my brain tumor story last week. In case you missed that story, here is a blog that shares the story.
Earlier this week, I had a wonderful doctor visit so thought I'd update you on my recovery and start to introduce a concept I'll write more about after living through this experience.
First, my surgeon Dr. Leng examined me and asked questions about how I'm feeling. He was excited about how everything is going including that my speech, balance, vision, and brain processing are all doing great -- some areas even better now than prior to the surgery to remove the tumor. He said this is all possible that some areas will now have better performance.
Importantly, he said that my high health and fitness level prior to the surgery means that my ability to both handle the stress of the surgery and ability to recover strong from the surgery are much higher. This is something I will build a program element around. Basically, when you are working to get healthy and fit, you are investing in yourself as preparation for true life or death events. This is yet another reason to "choose health."
Since I could already sense the recovery was going well, the next part was the best news of the day: he said the tumor was a grade 1 meningioma. This is the most benign of the three grades. He said, "you did not and do not have cancer." He said this means the odds the tumor re-grows are extraordinarily low. They will give me an MRI periodically to confirm this and worse-case could use very targeted radiation if anything shows up, but he doesn't think this will happen.
He did say the location of the tumor made for a challenging surgery. Since I had an abnormal type of meningioma tumor that was starting to grow into the brain, and it was by the part of my brain that controls speech, he had to be very careful in removing the tumor. So, he was extra happy to hear everything going so well with the recovery.
He said it's hard to know how long the tumor was there -- it could have been as long as 5-15 years. And he said the seizure was most likely a blessing because the surgery would have just gotten more and more complex as the tumor grew into my brain. He said seizures are a bit like rapidly draining a battery, but the battery (brain) can usually be recharged without damage.
Around this time, my wife lost it and started crying thanking him for his work and I gave him a big SparkHug. You can tell he is a very caring person and put in a lot of extra effort to make this go well.
One interesting point is that my driver's license is legally not valid now since I had a seizure. Dr. Leng says it's very unlikely I'd have another seizure now that the recovery is going so well. I'll see one of his colleagues in about 6 weeks who will help me figure out the next steps with this.
I even had the staples from my scar removed today. That makes it easier to open my mouth :).
I'm so fortunate to continue improving in noticeable ways every day. I'm not pushing anything and just keep going to sleep or laying down if I get tired. I also continue eating good food (thanks to help from my wife!), getting loads of sleep, taking my medication and some brain supplements from my other doctor, and letting things come to me in terms of doing activities.
Bottom line, it's great to be alive and I'm grateful for everything I can do!
I hope you are able to use my story as a spark to keep taking one positive step forward at a time to reach goals in all areas of life -- and especially to enjoy every day!
You can leave me a note on this blog if you'd like.
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Chris "SparkGuy" Downie
Chris (SparkGuy)
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