Interim

It's funny, because I wrote this add part of a something yo do. I've got 4 posts sitting in the queue waiting to go live later, and this one's ironically talking about "the interim" and suddenly the interim has changed.

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So what does a guy do in the interim? We're in a weird limbo here right now - there's nothing to do. I don't even have a single med to take - Tylenol for pain, but even that's been minimal.

The story of diagnosis and discharge is already posted. To clarify, though, I don't really have a diagnosis. My diagnosis is "Brain Tumor." We know nothing about the type, size, location, aggressiveness...nothing. Well, I mean, I know a few tiny things. But really not much.

I DO know enough to NOT Google "Brain tumor." There is NO WAY that will end well. Like wearing a red shirt in Star Trek or running upstairs in a horror flick, it's just got stupid written all over it.

What I do know is that I've got a "mass," a tumor. It's in or near or somehow blocking the 3rd ventricular space - an open portion of the brain that naturally collects cerebral spinal fluid, CSF, and then drains it down to the basal cisterns. And because it was blocked, the CSF built up, caused some swelling (hence the secondary diagnosis, "hydrocephaly," which literally means "water brain").

So, they performed the endoscopic third ventriculostomy, or ETV. This is actually safe to Google, or Wiki (ETV on Wiki), since it's a one single action that's already happened. So now, hopefully, my brain is better draining the CSF to wherever it needs to go. Seems to be working, because the diplopia and headaches are greatly diminished.

But it's not perfect. Riding in cars is a BAD IDEA. I think it's the constant changing fields of view, from clouds miles away to that asshole that just cut us off, that there's just too much visual information for my brain to keep up with. Within a minute of getting in a car the double vision is back, and it just gets progressively worse.

So again, the interim. Well, riding in cars is no fun. Driving is obviously WAY out. So, sit at home. Shop on Amazon, do taxes, clean the kitchen. I'm not an invalid, so I try to stay as active as possible. But by afternoons and evenings, I think my brain just starts to give up. Diplopia returns, headaches return, and more time is spent horizontally on the couch. I still play with Teddy, even though I'm not supposed to pick him up. Supposed to. I'm smart and careful. I pick him up for short times, hold him close to me, and only when I'm feeling my best. We do a lot of sitting on the couch together, but sometimes a boy just wants his daddy. And I can't say no. Hell, he even got a cookie before dinner the other night.

You know what else can be done during the interim? Write a metric butt-load of blog posts.

We don't even know how long this interim will last. At discharge, I had a piece of paper saying I would have a follow-up with my Doc on Wednesday, 5 Feb. Call for time. Well, so we called for the time, and found out that was the recommended follow-up time. The scheduler instead got me an appointment for Monday, 3 Feb. That's great, right?! Earlier! Except she said it was for "wound care" only - to check up on my sutures. Funny, they like to look in on sites where they drilled a hole into my brain.

We explained that we're still awaiting biopsy results and treatment plan and dammit someone talk to us, and she was very nice. If we don't hear a definitive appointment plan by tomorrow, we call back.

But here we are, still. In the interim. The meanwhile, the holding pattern. The "let's do something to take your mind off it." And with that, I'm going to go play some Call of Duty. Because, why not?