To start off with, when people think of me, they generally think of a physically impressive man with tons of strength and a wide array of physical abilities. Coming into this year, I was able to bench press more than 350 lbs, squat more than 500 lbs, and dead-lift nearly 500 lbs. Basically, that's stronger than many pro football players.
Many sports also came easy to me and I easily achieved a respected status at them. I was captain of my college rugby team and was named to the Midwest select side team. In high school, I also captained my wrestling team and won M.V.P. honors. Before that I was a all-star baseball player on several levels of Little League and Babe Ruth. I also ran track in grade school being very competitive in shot put, discus, hurdles, the 400, and as the anchor man of the 4 x 100 relay. I even held the league's highest average in several years of bowling. Don't get me wrong, I've never been obsessed with these achievements, they have always been just a part of who I am along with being an honors student and even receiving two awards for my work as an editor in the textbook publishing field.
Over the past 10 years, I've become interested in, almost obsessed with, cycling. I've learned to mountain bike some of the hardest trails around and have even managed to ride to Bogus Basin, the ski resort located nearly 4,000 vertical feet above Boise. However, last Thanksgiving I flew to Georgia to stay at my sister's mountain house but became ill during the trip. It seemed like migraines so that is the way the doctors started treatment. By January 5th some problems had become obvious with my right eye, such as the lid drooping and having a sort of tunnel vision. So my doctor sent me for a CAT Scan and MRI on that day. Then he had me come back to his office and informed me that there were two tumors in my head.
The following day, I visited Dr. Little. He's a young neurosurgeon and an incredible man and surgeon. He has an ability that few neurosurgeons have. He doesn't talk down to you and he's willing to work his butt off to make you better. From the MRI that he showed me and my medical writer friend, Chris, it was obvious that the two tumors were friggin huge. They appeared as giant black orbs in my head. Dr. Little thought that the one affecting the eye may have burst already, so he scheduled surgery to remove the tumor for the following day, January 7th. It's funny because all of my life I've been a relatively tough guy, but just finding out that I was having brain surgery turned me into a weeping mess. I didn't just cry that day, the tears seemed to keep coming for weeks and even months.
The 9 hour surgery was a partial success. Dr. Little was able to remove most of the tumor, but since it was growing out of the third cranial nerve, he had to leave a portion of it in my head so as to keep the nerve intact. That would give this poor writer/editor an opportunity to use that eye again. My recovery from the surgery was fairly remarkable and by the end of January I was even out riding my bike again. These weren't 30 to 50 mile rides as before but ranged from 5 to 10 miles. My idol, Lance Armstrong, would have been proud of the effort.
Perhaps the hardest part of the first surgery was ending up with a right eye that didn't work. The lid wouldn't open, the eyeball faced out the side of my head, and my pupil always remains dilated so that even if the eye would open, there'd be too much light to see.
My second surgery was on March 14th. The tumor was supposedly the furthest into someone's head that Dr. Little had ever gone. It was about the size of my sister's fist, which is scary for something growing inside your head. Once again, after a few tough weeks of adjustment, I was back on the bike again. I even went to Yellowstone to ride the park with the roads closed to general traffic. This occurred on April 14th. Unfortunately, I took a good fall from my bike, which set my progress back.
The problems that arose from this fall included significant swelling of the head, a discharge of cerebral spinal fluid, and infection, which led to having a significant portion of my skull removed to allow it to heal. Since I now had a hole in the protective layer covering my brain, I was given a custom designed helmet to wear to protect my head for the summer. It was actually just a professional level hockey helmet, with some minor adjustments that cost a shitload of money. Boy was it unpleasant to have to wear around on 90 to 100 degree days.
In June and July I had to endure 26 sessions of radiation to attempt to knock out what was left of the first tumor. These sessions cut my energy level drastically and even gave me a bald spot on top of my head. Once these were finished, I had the easiest surgery of all in which a fake skull-like material, similar to Bondo, was used to form my head. After a few more weeks, I was back on my bike a bit. I even rode in the Fat Tire bike parade dressed as Elvis. Boy it's hard riding with about 1,000 people when you cannot see out of your eye.
On November 17th, Dr. Little went back into my head to remove the third cranial nerve, so that that first schwannoma tumor would be completely gone. The main reason for this is because even after significant testing of the tumor at Emory University and the Mayo Clinic, doctors cannot conclude that it isn't cancerous. They don't think it is cancerous, but there are enough unusual variants that cancer cannot be ruled out.
Following this surgery, Dr. Little informed me that a portion of the tumor had migrated to the brain stem in an inoperable spot. He set up an MRI and CAT scan for the following day. He then determined that in 6 weeks I'd have another MRI and that we'd use the data from that to go in and finish off the tumor with a massive dose of radiation. This surgery left me looking like this:
However, with how much my life has been affected this year, I feel like this:
So enough feeling thankless on Thanksgiving. This year has demonstrated for me how many people around the country, no matter what religion really love me and have been praying for me. The efforts my friends and family have made, show me that even though life isn't looking so bright right now, there's still a lot of opportunity that lays ahead for me.
In January I'll return to school after 15 years to start a masters in technical communications program. This should utilize my experience as an editor/writer as well as teach me the skills needed for web and page design. Hopefully, once I'm back on my feet, I'll feel like this:
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