November 2002 rediagnosed with a recurring tumor I am going to bring you through the whole fun thing
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This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
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Brain Tumor History And Other Rants
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003
So here I am doing a recap. I am going to take you back 4 years from now to when I found out that I had a brain tumor to begin with. So if you haven’t heard this here it is. If you lived through this with me, maybe you forgot some of this. Read it again. I typed it you read it!!!
So life starts to change when we hear my company is being sold. But for the day to day activity is still the same, until someone officially tells us what is going on. They had gotten some vouchers for us to get some computer training. When you can get a day out of the office and they are letting you learn something, go for it. So that morning I trek into the city. The training center was in this building on 34th street right over Madison Square Garden killer view of the city from like 23 floors in the air. The class I took was with several other people from my office. It was an intro class to Excel. The class takes all day. We got through the whole morning some of it pretty mundane, but a few new tricks. We broke for lunch and went to Wendy’s, a normal day by anyone’s standards. On the way back from lunch, one of the guys said he wanted to go to the bathroom. I think I went before lunch so I was OK, but went for the walk anyway. So the bathroom was on the right side of the bathroom I had been to it earlier. All of the sudden my head pinned left, I was like what the hell?
I heard the guy with me say, “Hey Bob here it is you passed it.”
So I headed for his voice I said, “Doug I need your help.”
“Bob what’s wrong?”
At this point I couldn’t talk I think I got out, “Sei Sei Sei…” As if I was trying to say seizure. Then As I fell everything went black.
From what I was told Doug caught me so I didn’t fall, and I think my other co-worker Jeff was bugging out. Doug told Jeff to go call 911. So Jeff who probably wanted to pass out himself ran into the hall and yelled for someone to call 911. Remember this wasn’t our office and here is this stranger running out of the men’s room yelling call 911.
Now the only thing that ever happened to me like this was the day before when I was having a conversation and while I was talking my head turned left. It was weird because I was having a conversation and without my control my head just tanked slowly all the way left. I never lost my train of thought but when it was done. I was like what the hell was that. I didn’t turn my head left myself. I drove home that night that was the scarier part in looking back.
So the next thing I remember was waking up and having a lot of people there with me in the men’s room. There was Doug, Jeff, the owner of our company’s assistant, who was a woman, in the men’s room, who let her in here!! And there was 2 medics asking me questions. I knew the answers and then they were like well we have to take you in. I was like wait a minute I am not going anywhere. I have to go back to my Excel class and we have to go back to work later….. They said, no you are coming with us. But just know I went out kicking and complaining.
So we are on 34th street and instead of going to NYU on 34th and first they take me to St. Claires on 50th. First bad move right there by the medics, but we won’t get into that yet.
They take me in and ask me a bunch of questions, all routine, take me in for a Cat Scan, the whole time Doug who came with me is waiting in the waiting room. Now you know unless you show up with a major gun wound you wait in an Emergency Room, so eventually I get taken to a Cat Scan to peek under the hood. Then they brought me back to the E.R. The woman on one side of me (behind the proverbial curtain) is a pregnant junky. On the other side of me (behind another curtain) is a man sick with aids, he is getting quizzed if he has been careful and told all his sexual partners. I am having a good time, by now my parents have shown up. They come in and ask me what’s going on, I told them of course I don’t know. Then a doctor shows up and tells them he has to talk to me in private. So he throws them out of my curtained room. And I remember he leaned over me as I laid on the gurney, and said, “You have a brain tumor.”
So right there I don’t know what the hell he is talking about and I am about to punch out world. I figure it’s a wrap, I am done, what do I know?
So they tell me I am staying for the night. Great!
They also tell me they don’t have a department to treat me there but they will send a neurologist to see me the next day anyway.
And I am being made to stay here, why?
So this is my October 11th, 1999 what were you doing on that day?
Nobody else probably remembers that day at all!
Side note Doug was sitting in the waiting room right next to my parents and they didn’t realize they were both out there for me.
I think there was a really smelly homeless guy the hospital kept out there that everyone was pre-occupied with supposedly.
The next day I am just hanging around. Some budget neurologist comes to see me. He sends me for an EEG. To check what’s doing up there. But again there is no department to treat me there. So I get a call about a doctor at NYU to check with. He came under recommendation of a person who went through this and researched doctors. So I called him left and left a message. Around 7pm I got a call back. He said I needed to get out of St. Clairs (By now even I knew this). But said either get to Columbia or NYU. I was impressed that he didn’t just say I had to come to him. I said can you put in a transfer for me to NYU. He said if that’s what I wanted he would put in the order in the morning.
So first thing the next morning I had to sign off on my transfer, and wait for an ambulance to drive me across town. I did get one more visit from the budget-neuro doctor. He came in and said, “So you’re getting transferred?”
I said, “Yes I can’t get treatment here so I am going to NYU.”
So he replied, “Well good luck.” And left, they tried billing me like $350 for that (which they did send to my insurance company after they shook me down for it)
So that afternoon I got another ride in an ambulance to NYU, and I started getting some results and answers about this crap dammit!!!
And my accommodations kicked ass, a solo room, overlooking the river nice digs!!
There were a couple calls made I heard to push me into such digs. But the people were great there. All the nurses were really nice.
I had a camera mounted on the ceiling watching me and taping me 24 hours a day. I had a private bathroom and shower, which I quickly demanded to be able to use. It had been 2 days! So there I am and now if I can even remember it, they start parading doctors in to see me. My dad was there like 16 hours a day. Some people came down from the job. My old companies original owner had announced when I went into the hospital, that he sold the company, but the gossip that went on during that was, did you hear Bob is in the hospital (There I was stealing the mans thunder on his day). He finally climbed high enough in his years of hard work to reap the rewards and I try to steal his thunder! So they tell me after an MRI and some other tests that we are going in for some standard brain surgery for my tumor. Wait a minute standard surgery for a brain tumor, can I get a week to think about it (NO). They tell me I have to have a 2 step process. The first surgery, they open me up and put in a grid with wires that come out of my head. They use this to map my brain for the second surgery. They map my brain with little bolts of electric to my brain, but more on that later. So meanwhile during this time a piece of my skull stays out of my body on in a freezer somewhere in the hospital. But again even with all this crazy planning, all the doctors and nurses are great.
To be continued…
8:21 PM
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