Then and now


May 5, 1996
 I woke from a restless sleep at around 4:30AM.   My dad and I walked from my basement apartment into the sleepy Portland morningand got into my red Honda CRX. Dad turned the key and I eard the familiar iclick-click-click-click! that happens when the battery is dead. I'd left the lights on again for the bazillionth time. Was this an unconscious doing? After all, getting to a 5:30am check-in for brain surgery wasn’t something I’d been looking forward to. I’d had so many fantasies about how this operation miraculously wouldn’t have to happen. They’d looked at someone else’s MRI! They suddenly had a new, improved procedure or pill that lets you avoid surgery:
Ask your doctor about Hemangiorest today!
Or the ever-popular Newhart ending —it was all just a bad dream.
But this was real, I was going in for surgery and my car was dead wouldn’t start. We went back to my apartment and called a cab.
That day, the surgury team successfully  resected  a cavernous hemangioma from the right temporal lobe of my brain in just 8 hours. I woke up later that day. I went home two days later with a bottle of dialantin and a shitty haircut.
Since that day, I have:
Developed left-hand dystonia
Developed simple partial seizures
fallen in love
gotten married
lost jobs
won jobs
had two kids
had two miscarriages
bought a first house
sold a house
bought a second house
moved 7 times
watched my mom die
 ridden my road bike hundreds of miles
run 1/2 marathon
taken up mountain biking
planted vegetable gardens
gone to Disneyland
traveled to six different countries
stood under the northern lights during a full moon
watched the moon set and sun rise in the Blue Lagoon
made new friends
lost old friends
learned a new language
ziplined in Vegas
ziplined in a forest (much better)
laughed
cried
hoped
tried
failed
loved
hated
complained
rejoiced
complained
compromised
laughed some more
grown
accepted
thanked 
loved

You know, life.


Today, May 28, 2019
I woke to my alarm at 5:20 AM. Got up, took a quick shower, threw a couple more things in my overnight bag and went down to let the dog out. I poured coffee as I commanded Alexa to read me the news and ate a quick breakfast while standing at the kitchen counter (Spanish tortilla – gracias, mi amor).
Mark and I got in the minivan (started right up), drove leisurely to the boat, and my Uber was waiting as I walked out of the ferry terminal.
I feel fine. I will not be cut open, put under, or likely given any medication apart from my usual meds.
I’ve elected to check myself into Swedish Neurosciences for several (?) days hooked up to an EEG and a video camera so we (my doctor and I) can hopefully figure out once and for all what these episodes/spells/seizures/attacks are that I have every month. I CHOSE TO DO THIS.
Lets’ hope something happens. Maybe.




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