Lots of research

I woke up this morning when Holly kissed me goodbye before she went to work. My sinuses and head are congested and I have a headache, but my throat is definitely much better. I’m going to actually eat breakfast today – yesterday I didn’t eat anything until almost 4pm, which was 22 hours after my last meal. I know – I need to take better care of myself. Today I am waiting for a call back from the First Sergeant of the Medical Hold Company at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) regarding what my status will be when I go in for surgery and what our housing situation will be. All indications are that there won’t be any issues, but I want to make sure. The last thing I need is to move out after brain surgery. I am also waiting for a letter from my doctor basically excusing me from work so that I can take care of all these little odds and ends. Unfortunately, I need to make sure that all the legal paperwork that will take effect in the event that something “happens” is still in good order. I also need to look into our life insurance policies to make sure they are also in good standing.

I also need to take some time to do some research on the two types of tumor that this might be. I have not even had a minute to do that and I want to better understand what I’m up dealing with here. This morning, I got some emails from friends and family as far away as CA and WI. Hi to Dan and Andi in WI! The email from CA was from Jeff and Vera, the parents of my good friend since 5th grade (you read that right), Cassie. It’s funny – the last time I saw my brain in detail was back when I was about seven years old. Cassie’s dad worked for a company that, if I remember correctly, installed one of the first MRI machines at UCLA in CA. They needed baselines and he asked me if I would be interested in participating. After all, I’d get paid $15 just for laying in a new machine for about an hour. How could I say no? Anyway, they imaged my seven year old Hispanic brain and I suppose they used it to compare other kids’ brains to for several years. I hope there wasn’t something there that was abnormal that they thought was normal! Every kid after me would be diagnosed as abnormal!! I doubt that happened… I’m pretty sure everything was fine back then. But, amazingly, I still have a copy of that film in my closet back in Austin. The doctor is actually interested in seeing it and wants us to get it to him so he can take a look at it. Interesting, eh?

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