Namaste!
Well, I think I'm only supposed to say that at the end of the yoga practice, but I thought I'd throw out there the new word I learned today! Yoga practice today was to say... the most amazing experience I've ever encountered, close to what ballet makes me feel, but instead of being a restrictive escape, it's a flowing escape. It was my first real yoga class ever, and I found I could do many of the positions easily (i suppose from ballet). My instructor was very surprised, to say the least. I attempted to do the "crane" I believe it's called and succeeded for about 2 seconds before I fell forward, LOL! But overall, it was a great experience, and will definitely be a lovely addition to my stressful week. An hour and a half of relaxation and me time... ahh....
Anyway, on to other things besides my lovely yoga session and hot bath, and soon to be deep slumber...
I'm nervous for tomorrow.
I'm not sure how else to say it but nervousness. I haven't written about it here, but I have a small tumor in my brain next to my pituitary gland... it's also known as a pituitary adenoma. It's been causing (or so my doctors think) the seizures I've had on/off for about 2 years now, as well as low blood pressure and obscenely high hormone levels, of which I should be extremely obese by now if my levels were any indication of my health (and trust me, I'm not... 5'8" and 135 pounds at which i've been working extremely hard to maintain LOL!).
So back on to the topic, I'm going to visit my neurosurgeon tomorrow (or at least, the first neurosurgeon that I will be visiting and hopefully the only one). He's specialized in gamma knife surgery / radiation, where they aim about 120 beams of gamma rays at one localized spot (where the tumor is) and essentially "burn" the tumor right off. You do, however, have to look like Frankenstein for about 6 hours while they bolt some kind of device to your skull to get the right location. That's the part which I don't like, which led me to talk to an old professor of mine who also had seizures and a brain tumor, and where I found out about...
Dun dun dun...
Cyber knife surgery! Same thing as gamma, radiation and all, except I don't need anything bolted to my head! There's a continuous stream of X-Rays being taken of my brain to make sure that the rays are being directed at the right spot over the course of the treatment (usually half an hour to an hour). My tumor is very small, so hopefully it'll only take one dose. From what I know, there's very little side effects: possible hair loss at site of radiation (bummer, i love my hair), brain swelling and seizures (which are the worst and what they look out for immediately after the procedure) and that's about it.
The only thing that scares me about these procedures is that they are relatively new... meaning, long term effects are still not known. I'm scared that perhaps this radiation will burn off the current very small tumor, but cause a larger one somewhere else, and somehow mess with my body more than what it's messed up as of now.
I've only had 2 seizures in the last 8-9 months or so from what was a seizure EVERY month about a year and a half ago, so I have improved. I believe that the time of the worst seizures was when it was growing... in the last 6 months, it's ceased growth. I haven't had many problems except occassional tiredness and fainting, but nothing huge... so I don't exactly want to have the procedure done. I'd rather just have MRI's done every 6 months to check on its progress.
HOWEVER.
If by chance, it grows in those 6 months, drastically, and it's not caught, there's a potential for it to press on my optic nerve which is very close by and I could lose my sight... going blind = not happy Karina, lol!!
So these are all the debates going on in my head... I suppose tomorrow will answer a lot of questions.
On a brighter note though, my dread chemistry exam got moved over from tuesday to thursday (HURRAY!) and I got to spend some time with my amazing boyfriend earlier today, even if it was for just half an hour. We laid in bed together... there's just nothing better than that. It's the perfect place to be.
Well, I'm off to bed. Have a blessed night wherever you are!!
Namaste!
:)
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