Clinics! Yay!

So, for those of you playing the home game (that is, "friends" of mine on the Book of Faces) you'll have noticed yesterday's joke competition. Let me first say, thank you to all entrants, it was awesome, y'all are hysterical, and this is what I mean when I say "It's been great to have the humor and support of friends and family."

But, it also led to some questions. By many. The most common question was, "But wait, I thought we already knew what Sylvia was. What happened?!"

Eh, sort of a long story. Firstly, about yesterday - had an early-morning appointment with my neurosurgeon for a "wound check," so he could look at all the new scars he created and pat himself on the back. Which he did. Because, seriously, he did an amazing, awesome job. The one "visible" scar is the one on my forehead, and he cut a line that matched perfectly and exactly to where one of my natural creases/furrows already was. Yesterday morning before the appointment I went in to the Station, and I had to seriously POINT OUT the scar for guys to see it. So, two weeks after surgery and guys already can't tell where some dude cut into my skull, *I'll* give him props that he did a great job.

I complained about the stitches, so he cut the remaining three out. He said, "They should dissolve, but they're the type that'll take another month or two, so yeah, I can trim them out." And out they went. Last night, for the first time in...uh...4 weeks? 3 weeks? Something... I had a normal shower. With real shampoo. And without feeling fishing line in my hair.

So then Doc starts talking about Sylvia. The pathology report has not yet been signed, and that's okay. She's still benign, non-cancerous. She's still something that was (hehehe...*WAS*) just a lump in my brain. But instead of the tiny little sliver that was initially shaved off for the biopsy, this time they've got the whole damned thing to play with. So they can test her with all sorts of stains, and reactive chemicals, and microscopy thingies. I dunno. I'm not a frikkin' neuropathologist. But in any case, there's a metric buttload more of her now, so they can run all sorts of exotic tests.

So, there is the *possibility* now that she's not a central neurocytoma. Could have been something else. They're still testing, but it seems like, from the way doc was acting and what he said, that it might actually be something else, even MORE exotic and rare. But the key there is "have been." Because it still remains that she's out, gone, done. And is still non-cancerous, so still no need for aggressive anti-cancer treatments.

What remains? Well, a small part of her does, in fact, remain in my head. They shaved off layers and layers, but although she was in the 3rd ventricle, she rested on the brain stem and the hypothalamus. Both are sections of what the Doc called "important brain," and he told me ahead of time he'd rather leave bits of her in there than take out my ability to control my bowels. Etc. And to reiterate, I'm totally okay with that.

My neurosurgeon and I basically parted ways, yesterday. He was awesome, and you could tell (Laura noticed this, too) that he was really happy to have had me as a patient - that my case definitely went in his book as one for the win column (like, hopefully, UNC will do to Dook tonight). He was a great guy, brilliant neurosurgeon (seriously, is there any other type?), and he genuinely seems to think everything will be coming up roses.

Moving forward? Well, tomorrow is my next appointment, this time with the oncology clinic. This doctor keeps coming with rave reviews - everyone says he's really one of the best and VERY good at what he days. He actually works in two clinics - neuro-oncology and radiation-oncology. He's taking over my care - all my follow-ups and treatment plan forward will come from him and his team. The word from the first doc - the neurosurgeon - is that it *might* be decided to just leave the bits of Sylvia that remain with no further treatment, except to monitor that she doesn't start regrowing. (Can anyone say MRIs for the rest of my life?) Or, there may be the radiation treatments. Right now, we don't really know. And tomorrow's appointment alone may not decide.

So back to the beginning of this post - in the vein of a "Yo mamma..." joke, I started a thread of "Your tumor's so rare..." jokes. And they were epic. So I'm going to reshare them here, because they are quite funny. And please, as before - feel FREE to use the comments section to come up with your own. (If anyone on here is concerned about privacy and having your name attached, please let me know and I'll take it off.)

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Rob Grau: Your tumor's so rare, it was just appraised on Antiques Roadshow.

Benjamin M Atkins: Your tumor's so rare, if it lived in Chicago it'd be a Libertarian

Jen Morse Durham: Your tumor is so rare, if it was a guest on the Maury Povich show it WOULD be the baby's father!

Kevin Ham: Your tumor is so rare, that when children all across turn 12 they're told that it doesn't exist, and it's actually their parents who put the presents under the tree at Christmas...except it's real.

J Michael Charland: Your tumor is so rare They made a holographic pokemon card for it

Christopher Gorski: Yo' tumor so rare Lloyd's of London didn't know what to do with it.

Christopher Gorski: Yo' tumor so rare I heard Andy Williams singing a song about it.

Christopher Gorski: Yo' tumor so rare I heard Ahnold gave up and got out of the movie biz.

Kaiti Fenz-Trimble: Your tumor's so rare even conspiracy theorists don't believe in it.

Annie Lusk: Your tumor's so rare the leprechauns tell their babies legends of it.

Rob Grau: Your tumor's so rare, Moby Dick is jealous.

Lynn Brugnolotti: Your tumor is so rare, there's an environmental group studying it.

Rebekah Morgan Klein: Your tumor is so rare after they picked it, it ran into a falling bowl of petunias and a rather surprised looking whale...

Bob Goley: Your tumor is so rare it's as common as someone BORN in Washington and still living there 65 years later.

Andy Greenwood: Your tumor is so rare it's the being made into a movie. "Indian Jones and the Tumor of Sylvia"

Stephanie Porto: Your tumor WAS so rare that it had stripes (medical parlance - when you looking for rare is that you are looking for a zebra in a herd of cattle.) But I really think it was a misplaced cheese ball.

Lisa Biegel*: Nope, it's not rare - looks like the common U.S. tumour with the second "u" missing ; )

Benjamin M Atkins: Lisa Biegel*, well, it IS pronounced "TWO-more," not "tomb-OUR." Silly Poms (and their "subjects") inserting perfectly useless "u" where it doesn't belong.

(*My good friend Lisa is a former flatmate from when I lived in Perth, Australia. She now lives down in Albany, West Australia, having been born and raised in Zimbabwe and spent a period of time practicing law.)

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I hate to show favorites, but I do rate Bekah's reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as #1. Rob's Antiques Roadshow and Jen's Maury jokes are a close second and third.