Chronically Alive

Early Morning Surgeon and Physical Therapist Visits

Waking up early in the morning is never fun. It’s downright disconcerting to wake up and not know where you are for a few minutes. The smell of burnt toast mixed with stale urine and antiseptic permeated the air. At 6 AM my neurosurgeon Dr. Swearingen woke me up. It was the day after my surgery when he had removed a brain tumor from my head, I actually didn’t mind any of those factors. I didn’t even mind that I fell back asleep after he left and three hours later the physical therapist woke me up.

I know that sounds odd, but waking up meant I was alive, and being in the hospital meant I’d had my surgery, I wasn’t a vegetable, and the tumor was gone! So bring on the assault on the senses, the sleepless night, the post-op pain.

Dr. Swearingen … Find Out What Happens Next

Life With a 60-Hour a Week Part-Time Job

My mom claims that she works part-time. She works mostly from home so there’s not really a way to accurately assess exactly how many hours she works. If you ask her about her job, she’ll say, “oh, well, I have a part-time job as an early childhood educational consultant. That way I can still have room for other parts of my life besides just my career.”

However, I’ve observed her. My mom actually works all hours of the day and night. This adds up to what I would guess to be at least 60 hours. She works on various extremely complicated and involved projects for her boss. Her boss is a billionaire philanthropist

She can be found awake on her computer at 2 AM perfecting a Webinar for a presentation. Otherwise, it may be 5 AM and she’s putting the last finishing … Find Out What Happens Next

Three Weeks Out of Surgery

The evening of January 12th seemed like any other evening.  Looking back, I think my head might have started throbbing that night before I went to bed.  But I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly or if it’s just a case of hindsight being 20/20. Either way, I didn’t have an inkling that within a few hours, I would be bleeding out my nose so much it would look like a murder scene.

Three weeks earlier I’d had a brain tumor surgically removed from my head. From December 23rd until January 12th, I’d been working my butt off in all kinds of therapies. Every day, I had been gaining strength. My vision wasn’t as blurry. I had more energy. The blood pressure cuff was showing me readings that were the most normal I’d ever seen in my life.  

All the weight that had mysteriously piled … Find Out What Happens Next

Waking Up Oblivious

The day after my world record nosebleed, when I woke up at 9 AM, I didn’t know what a torture device called a rhino rocket was. I had never been in a Life Flight Helicopter, I had only ever had four surgeries in my life and Mass General had only operated on me once before.

That morning my mom called Dr. Swearingen as soon as his office opened.

“We were in the ER until about 3:45 AM getting her nosebleed stopped. The ER doctor finally stopped it with this contraption made out of popsicle sticks that he fashioned up and stuck in her mouth,” my mom told Dr. Swearingen. “He said if that didn’t stop it he was going to have to use something called a rhino rocket to stop the bleeding and that she would hate that.

Don’t Poke the Angry Surgeon

“Hmm,” said Dr. Swearingen.… Find Out What Happens Next

The Remnants of Emergency Surgery

Three weeks ago, I had a tumor removed from my brain. A day ago, I’d had a whopper of a nosebleed that had been mistakenly passed off as nothing to worry about. Then earlier today I’d had the mother of all nose bleeds. I had been life-flighted from my local hospital two hours away to Mass General for emergency surgery at 3 AM.

When I woke up from my five-and-a-half-hour-long surgery to fix the post-op bleed in my brain I was wrapped in some kind of silver warming blanket. There was an IV in my foot with blood going in. Another bag of blood was running through one tube in my recently placed central line.  In the other central line lumen, I had some other bag going through. An IV in my left knuckle was hooked up to a bag of something else.

Re-Orienting Myself

… Find Out What Happens Next

A Blood Faucet

In the middle of January, I woke up in the middle of the night with my nose gushing blood. It was like a faucet turned on full blast. As soon as my mom saw how much blood was coming out of me she called 911. Originally we got an idiotic doctor in the ER who insisted it had nothing to do with the fact that I had just had a brain tumor removed through my nose three weeks earlier.

We got home from the hospital around 4 AM. Around 9 AM my mom called my neurosurgeon who was irate that they hadn’t tested the blood for cerebrospinal fluid.

“Of course, it’s related to her surgery,” he’d fumed, as he made an appointment for me to come to see him in two days. His strict instructions were to immediately return to the ER for any more bleeding.

“Have … Find Out What Happens Next