I haven't mentioned this to very many people, but over the last month or so I've been going through a fairly nasty health scare with my mother.
Last month, actually on the SAME FUCKING DAY I lost my previous job I took my mother to get an MRI connected to some hearing loss. Since she's intensely claustrophobic, it was a bad day all around, to put it mildly. Anyway, it turns out the MRI didn't find any thing to worry about vis a vis her hearing loss, but guess what.... the general scan found a small tumor on her frontal lobe.
What?
Yeah, yeah. Brain tumor. Oh shit. Brain tumor.
So we've been waiting for her appointment with a neurologist in San Antonio. Today we made the trip up there (in a rather nice rent-a-car, since her rolling POS wouldn't make it up there and neither would mine). The actual consultation was only about 20 minutes, very matter of fact.
The doctor seemed very cool, very competent, and his opinion was that
the tumor was benign, and very commonly encountered in his line of work.
After reviewing the MRI with us, he ran my mom through some simple tests-
mobility and sensation- he touched her on various places on the face and
body to make sure she had full sensation, and her pull against and push
away with each extremity while he held the limb, stuff like that. In all
cases, he was unconcerned, said she was in good health generally.
Basically,
a year or so from now, he's going to have her take another MRI to see
if the tumor is growing. If it is, or there are any worrying signs this
time next year, he'll remove it then. Otherwise, I think he'll just
continue to do a yearly MRI as a diagnostic measure.
Anyway, the pagan in me felt the need to offer some sacrifice to the gods of home and medicine who kept my mom alive for at least a little while longer. As I own no oxen to slaughter, and since Ebola is currently eating West Africa alive, I dropped some money on Doctors Without Borders. Anybody wants to do the same, I 'd appreciate it.
Anyway, more gaming news later.
CHRIS
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