I debated on whether or not to blog about this but decided that since it was certainly a big part of our summer that I would. So one of the things I didn't mention on my blog post about our trip to Colorado Springs trip was how for a good portion of the trip I didn't feel very good. At the beginning of June I started not feeling very well. Had some occasional dizziness and pressure in my head. Before our trip I had gone to two different doctors and had finished one antibiotic for a sinus infection and had just started a new one right before we left. Despite continuing to take the antibiotics along with doing the neti-pot and taking other sinus medicine I just couldn't seem to kick the crummy feeling. Now don't get me wrong I enjoyed our trip so much, but there were parts of it where I was in bed while everyone else was out having fun and I had such horrible nausea that I had a barf bag with me all the time just in case. The morning of our departure date I woke up with a pretty severe headache in my eye. I am not one that ever gets headaches so it was really unusual. Despite taking pain medicine it just wouldn't go away. So as you can imagine the trip to the airport was awful as was the whole process of returning a rental car, checking luggage, and going through security. I am sure my family was over me not feeling well but I just couldn't shake the horrible feeling. At one point as we were heading to our gate I almost passed out and had to just sit in a little corner and fan my self before I could continue moving on. I know if I had been anywhere but the airport I would've either gone to Urgent Care or the ER but I didn't want to mess up our flights home. Thankfully after eating and sitting down I started to feel better and once we landed I was doing much better. Thankfully I felt relatively good when Katy and the girls were here and through the weekend.
But that next Monday I woke up with a headache in my eye like nothing I have ever experienced before. I couldn't even open my eyes without being in excruciating pain. We had big plans that day to pick up Cooper and go to Sulphur for a slumber party. I still had hopes that it would go away but very quickly I realized that our fun outing wasn't going to happen. Brody was amazing that morning and completely took care of me and Meg. He also texted Gran B to let her know that she needed to get to our house ASAP and called Carolina to let her know that we wouldn't be able to take Cooper to Sulphur. He continued to check on me and see if I needed anything.
The dogs were completely confused as to why I was still in bed (this picture was taken days later as there was no way I was opening my eyes to take a picture that morning). I eventually decided I needed to go to Urgent Care. My grandmother came over to take me. Thankfully a friend of ours from church was the doctor that day and he was pretty concerned about my symptoms and how long they had been going on and the fact that my left hand gone numb at the same time I got one of the headaches on vacation. We talked about different options but eventually decided on doing an MRI. I was scheduled to have one the next morning but he told me if I started feeling a lot better that I could always cancel.
By that afternoon I finally started feeling good enough to let the kids come in the bedroom with me. I felt awful that I had ignored them all day. We managed to play battleship and Meg wanted to take a selfie with me!
These two things were always on my bedside table! My bucket and my heating pad. It was pretty lame!
The next day I did the MRI and was back home pretty quick. I felt so bad about the day before that I decided we were going to do some activities that didn't involve electronics! We enjoyed some craft and game time!
And after about a hour of activity I was done. I was exhausted and dizzy and had to resume my position on the couch!
It was about 1:00 that afternoon when the doctor from church called. He said the MRI showed a couple of things. The first was that I did have a sinus infection that was still lingering but that more importantly they had found a benign tumor called an acoustic neuroma on the right side that is on the nerve that connects the inner ear to the brain. It controls balance and hearing. I handles the new well and was just thankful that it wasn't something worse and it wasn't cancerous.
The next couple of weeks are kind of a blur of me feeling ok and me feeling completely horrible. At times I could barely walk or do common household tasks and other times feeling like myself. I spent a lot of time on the couch and my kids were awesome and so good at entertaining themselves and taking care of me!
Received these beautiful flowers from one of Bryson's co-workers
These two played and played and were just so good!
The day after I found out about the tumor we had to take Annie to the vet. I didn't think that would be any big deal but I felt so sick on the way there and then thought I was going to throw up the whole time I was there. I started to get worried that I would never feel good again!
The one thing we did do was swim. Being in the water was the one thing that made me not feel dizzy. Rob let us come use their pool one day and he was so nice to listen to all of my doctor questions I had! Since then I have just had a lot of appointments. Getting my hearing tested, seeing Ear, Nose and Throat Doctors, seeing Neurosurgeons, and meeting with Radiation Oncologists. Thankfully I have started to feel better. My favorite ENT put me on a steroid and that is what made me feel better. The doctors have different thoughts on why that helped. Some say the sinus infection made the nerve that the tumor is on swell and elevated my symptoms and another doctor thinks the tumor hemorrhaged and caused the symptoms. We have learned that doctors don't agree on a lot of things. We are currently trying to decide between doing surgery or doing gamma knife radiation. Since the tumor is slow growing we have time to decide what to do. Hopefully in September we will be able to do something. This has all made me so thankful for my family, my friends, and my church family. They have all been so helpful and supportive and their prayers have meant the world to me!
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