This really isn't related to Lyme but I had to share. I started college in Aug of '06 and in September met my best friend Amy. She was always there for me when I was having problems (including a pregnancy scare after a rape) and quickly became like a big sister to me. I was in the hospital at Topeka, KS from April 27, 2007 until May 7. Two Days later I went to stay with Amy before she left on a trip (through the school) to Ireland and take her the next morning to a clinic to have her eyes checked. A few weeks before she'd been very out of it and I noticed at the time her eyes always seemed glazed and she really just wasn't herself. She couldn't drive because her vision was suddenly so blurred and her family lives four hours away in Oklahoma.
That night was normal and we joked around as always and even moved furniture around in the middle of the night when we decided we didn't like how far apart the beds were and wanted to be able to lay in the two beds and talk.
We left at eight o'clock the next morning and drove to Lawrence, Ks (a twenty minute drive from the college we went to in Ottawa) and went to the Indian Clinic at Haskell to try and get a walk-in eye appointment since the waiting list was several months with doctors not visiting often. They told us they hadn't had a walk-in make it in for six months but Amy made it back after two hours. They said her optic nerves were swollen either from blood pressure or brain swelling and sent us to see an eye specialist as the hospital's sports clinic. They had an opening and she got in right away. First thing they did was check her blood pressure and it was normal. They gave her eye drops to try to help with the swelling and scheduled an MRI. The MRI was at two and by this time it was almost noon so we drove across town to find the hospital and then ate at Taco Bell which is Amy's favorite. She took the break after we ate to make a couple calls and update friends and family, her parents decided to drive up as soon as they could that day. We made awkward jokes to pass the time and try to ease the growing fear but still were trying to stay calm and say it was nothing and would be ok with a little medicine.
The MRI time came and we got checked in. By this time I had Amy's information and was filling out the paperwork for her. We started joking I was her personal assistant and when I would do something good I'd get a raise or something bad and I'd take a pay cut. Either way it was just for fun. It took from two until after three and while I waited I went in the gift shop and bought a stuffed Garfield. Her Dad gave her one when she was born and I knew she needed something for comfort. She got out and the radiologist walked with her to find me and tell me they moved up the appointment with a neurologist that was supposed to be the next day and that we needed to go straight there. It was just upstairs at least and the neurologist joked with us a little while examining Amy. Then he had her walk down the hall and see how she did before calling me out as well to show us the MRI. There was a baseball sized mass in the right hemisphere of her brain. Finding it even two weeks later would've been too late (I learned that more recently). We were allowed to go outside where Amy had her very last cigarette with an iv hanging out of her arm while I text messaged her family and friends and the doctor called her parents and told them the news. When we went back inside we were told to go to the ER where she'd be transfered to KU Medical Center that night. While we were there the nurses were very helpful. One even told us about a family friend of hers who had been given six months to live after finding a brain tumor and six years later was living in Hawaii.
I made a list of things she wanted and when they took her in the ambulance went back to the dorms where I got her things and had my mom meet me with some clothes. Two of the things on Amy's list were her Garfield and her Bible.
I stayed with my dad who lives close to KU and went to see Amy as soon as I could the next morning. I was surprised to learn she was in the neuro icu but was glad when her family was there, not the ideal circumstances for meeting them the first time.
I stayed there the whole day and at lunch time went with her dad to the cafeteria to get food and drinks for everyone. One the way back her told me they were going to do surgery as soon as possible and that they had to get 80% but thought they could only get 75% because of how it was branched. That day was Friday. Amy had the surgery on Monday. I was told they got 80% and that the mass was cancerous.
The doctors said it was most likely started forming when she was in Middle School and that her skull had formed around it. It was paper thin on the right side and if she'd ever been hit on that side she would've died almost instantly.That being said she has been thrown from a horse and dropped on her head two other time but never hit the right side.
Her birthday present Sept 3 was another surgery to remove the cyst the tumor was draining into and put in a brain drain. By this time she was becoming herself but better. She looked so much healthier besides the side effects from the chemo and looked like she felt better. She got through by reading a passage in the bible she'd found that described pruning the bad to allow the good to grow. She said she was pruning out the bad. A few months after the second surgery she found out that her skull had crumbled and they had put in a plate. I remembered after she told me that how she'd showed me a bump under the skin on her right temple. After we learned they'd put the plate in we found out that bump was a screw.
Amy graduated with her Art Major this year and I got a text message from her yesterday saying she'd just gotten the results from her last MRI and that the once baseball sized tumor was now now the size of the tip of a pen and that they think she will be cancer free by Aug.
I will keep you and her in my prayers.