When it Rains...

...it pours.

Before LD weekend, I got a call from my mother. Sidebar: she lives below the Mason Dixon, and I'm all the way in New England. Needless to say, I dread the day the phone rings, and I'm not greeted with positive news. Back to the story: She informs me that during a routine mammogram, they come across something. Suspicion leads the specialist to believe that its nothing more than a calcium deposit, but just to be safe film is passed on for a second opinion. Come to find out, it's actually a mass that will require immediate removal. She (Mom dukes) sees the surgeon on Thursday of the same week and he wants to get her in a bed immediately. One problem: there are no beds available. She waits until Monday, and is able to get in, have the mass removed and sent away for biopsy and testing. Turns out, it's benign.

Score: Man Upstairs-1, Other guy-0


Following the surgery, I receive a phone call at work that my mother has just had a seizure sitting in the living room of my grandmother's house in front my my family. Yeah, I said seizure. No, she's not epileptic, but she has been experiencing these seizures all summer. Here's the catch; most people who have seizures know they are having or have had one. My mom doesn't know she's having one, can't hear you speak to her during it, and has no signs that one is coming on. While that might not seem all that crazy, the first 3 seizures she had occurred while she was driving. Had someone not been in the car with her....we won't go there. Luckily, she has a passenger when she ran the red light, stop sign and intersection because she was seizing when it happened. And everyone survived.

Turns out, she has something called Petite Mal or Silent Seizures. Instead of the shaking, eye-rolling, teeth-grinding episodes that people who suffer Grand Mal seizures experience, she experiences episodes where she looks like she's sleeping with her eyes open. She can't hear you calling her name. She makes a noise as if she's humming. She may slump over, and blink a lot. And when it's over, she's just as alert as can be. She's thinking that time is where it was 20 seconds earlier, only it's not.

You can imagine how scared I was when my aunt leaves this message on my voicemail at work: "Hey, it's Aunt Ash. Your mom just had a seizure, and I'm taking her to the doctor right now. Call you when we know more."

WTF?

Luckily, her seizures can be controlled by medication, and as long as she stays consistent she should be fine. Her neurologist (who is fantastic by the way) says that she shouldn't have to limit any of her normal activities of daily living.

Advantage: Man Upstairs

In addition to all this, my mother also has a small tumor on her brain. It's currently benign; but inoperable. It's called a menigioma (tumor of the meninges). Basically, it's right on the surface of her gray matter, and they can't risk going in to remove it without doing damage to her frontal lobe.

Crazy.

Needless to say, I'm keeping the faith. I understand that when it rains it pours, but then again, nothing grows without a little rain right?

My faith is growing every day...