Saturday morning at 8:30 AM I received a call from my mom. “I have some distressing news” she said. She proceeded to tell me about her evening and morning.
Friday night she and my step-dad were getting ready to go out to dinner for their anniversary. When my step-dad got up to go he couldn’t stand properly and complained of nausea and dizziness. My mom decided to take him to the emergency room. He was having problems with his sinuses and nothing was working; this was the last straw. So she took him in and they tested him out and scanned everything.
It turns out they found a tumor the size of a golf ball on his frontal lobe. They also found one the size of a walnut in the back of his head and one in his lower left lung. I heard all of this and could literally feel the blood drain from my head. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She told me she would call me later when she found out more, like if he would need surgery or anything. I hung up the phone in complete and total shock.
I didn’t know what to do with myself so I went outside and did some yard work to keep myself occupied. I just needed something mindless to do while I took in all of this. After awhile I went inside the house, sat down on the couch and cried. It was around this time when my older brother called me (I’d left him a message earlier) and I told him what was going on. I was barely coherent on the phone with him. So much for being strong for my family. We found out that he was going to have surgery first thing in the morning to have the tumor on the frontal lobe removed. We went down to the hospital that evening to visit him. He looked really good and it made me feel better. They had him on steroids and it was taking the swelling down on that front tumor so he seemed like his old self.
We basically spent the whole day at the hospital on Sunday. The surgery went well, thank goodness. We went to visit him after the surgery and he was kind of goofy from the drugs. He was talking and joking but wasn’t making much sense, which is totally understandable.
We went to see him Monday evening and I was really happy to see that he looked really good, especially for someone who had just had brain surgery (can you believe it? BRAIN SURGERY! It kind of freaks me out just thinking about it). He chit chatted with us and he seemed to be bouncing back really well.
So that’s where we are right now with all of this. He’s recovering really well from the surgery and will probably be able to come home soon. He is going to start treatment on the other spots very soon. ugh. I can’t believe this has happened over the past few days. We are staying positive though. What else can you do? You just fight it.
