Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Eliminating Stress on the Brain.

I feel so behind on posts! I really need to post about what an amazing big brother Cooper is and what an amazing baby Griffin is, not to mention Griffin's lengthy and drama filled birth story and then some. I will get to it. But right now, sleeping when the baby sleeps is more important.

I say that like that is what I am actually doing. 

I typically sleep during one of his naps, the other naps I am working from home on the few projects I have held on to from school, or working on those projects we started around our house but never finished, or spending some much needed QT with my sweet Cooper.

Today, during Griffin's early afternoon nap, we met with the neurosurgeon.

Dun dun dun....

It was originally scheduled for Friday, but since the timing was not ideal for Rick's work schedule, I called to see if we could find a different day for the very first appointment or the very last. They called me back yesterday and said they could see us at 3:45 today.

We looked at the MRI's. (It is SO WEIRD looking at pictures of my brain.) We discussed options and Dr. Alexander let us ask a million questions. Some of which he knew the answers to and some he didn't know the answers to but had enough confidence to be honest about it.

He said right now the risks of biopsy for a "lesion" that has made absolutely no change in the last 5 weeks outweigh the benefit of us knowing what this lesion is. When I asked him about the 2nd abnormality, he led us to believe that was of zero concern.

He said the 2 episodes I had in the hospital were classic left brain seizures. My symptoms followed the order in exactly the way a textbook left brain seizure would. He said, you just can't make up stuff like that. With that being said, my 6 months of no driving as set by VA DMV laws began February 21st. So the next time I will be able to drive will not be until August 21st, provided I don't have another episode.

He said with things like these, you can't really tell if they will always behave so mildly. There are types of tumors that turn aggressive and need intervention and there are other types that never change, that the individual probably has had all their life and never cause another issue. We are obviously hoping for the latter. 

So we go back in 3 months for a follow-up MRI and if that is the same as the most recent, we will get a longer leash, like 8 months and then probably just follow up yearly. If things do change, well there is no point in crossing those bridges until we get to them, if we get to them.

Obviously, weighing the benefits and risks will change if more symptoms or episodes arise. For now, he said I need to give my body time to adjust to delivering a baby after a major surgery shortly after having 2 seizures back to back. He said whether or not you feel stressed or worn out, your body just ran a triathlon so to give it time to relax. He obviously doesn't realize relaxing is not my strongest quality.

So here I am realizing this message was sent louder than necessary was sent LOUDLY because it was one that I obviously wasn't hearing. So I got the message, I guess the next 6 weeks would best be spent figuring out how I can eliminate some stress in my life and hopefully eliminating the stress on my brain as well.

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