…as many of you may know, I’ve had a very trying November. I’m writing this to relate the events I’ve gone through and to thank you all for the prayers and thoughts over the past few weeks.
At the beginning of the month, I went in to the Student Health Center with acute abdominal pain. It wasn’t quite in the right place to be appendicitis, so they kept me for observation for a few hours (while shooting me up with pain killers that didn’t really do anything). As the day progressed, the pain moved to a more typical case of appendicitis. At that point in time, they called an ambulance to take me over to the ER.
Once in the ER, they gave me the equivalent of a morphine drip to ease the pain, and I discussed the possibility of an emergency appendectomy. Fortunately, we decided to do a CT scan, just to make sure the appendix was to blame. The results of that showed two things: one, that my appendix was fine; two, that there is a weird spot on my spine.
A few hours later, we did an MRI of the area. After some time, I was told that I had large (>4cm) tumor wrapped around the nerve endings on the right side of my T12 vertebra. Fortunately, the pain afflicting my abdomin subsided on it’s own and I was released, with instructions to contact a neurosurgeon.
Discussions with the neurosurgeon revealed that the tumor had also worked its way into my spinal column and needed to be surgically removed. The first step, though, was to do a full body MRI to make sure nothing had moved to my brain stem (a popular place for this kind of tumor). Fortunately, this was an isolated tumor, so we decided to progress with the surgery.
Last Tuesday I went in (with my parents) to move into the OR. The surgery lasted 4.5 hours and included the complete removal of the tumor and the addition of a patch to keep my spinal fluid in place (since the central column was opened). After the surgery, I spent a few hours in the ICU and then was moved to my room. I spent the next few days on a morphine drip as my body healed from the 8″ incision.
I am very happy to say that, as shown by another MRI, the tumor has been completely removed with the only negative side effect being a loss of feeling on the right side of my abdomin / back. I am now out of the hospital and doing very well. I’m still on some stellar pain killers and it will be a while yet before I can get around outside of the apartment on my own.
I want to thank you all for the prayers and support, my recovery is going much faster than expected and the future is looking very bright.
