Recovery strides and introducing Neil

I'm sleeping better, so that helps everything.  About a week ago I had my first uninterrupted night of sleep since surgery.  I think I figured out why I feel like massive headwound harry:  I have extensive numbness from right eyebrow carrying up through an entire quadrant of my scalp.  The surgical resident said that it might be that way for the duration, or I might regain feeling over the next three months.  It's a very strange sensation, but I can get used to it.  Oh oh oh and guys, guess who can still raise both of her eyebrows!  Me me me!!  Functionality not lost!  Cognition still getting fired up.  I kinda hate it when I'm doing something and someone tries to talk to me about something else.  I just can't track two things at once very well.  Not that anyone can, but right now if I fall off of a thought train, I'm not getting back on without help.  Before brain surgery I could sorta hop around the thought trains, losing some trains occassionally when tired, or hungry, etc. but right now the trains seem to be flying past me and I best not get distracted once I'm on one. 

Apparently in addition to Pearl Jr (the tumor tidbit left following the debulking of Lloyd) I have another little brain tumor tucked away in there, I think Dr. SRS expert said near my right ear?  So the plan is to CyberKnife it at the same time that we CyberKnife Pearl Jr.  I was tossing around several name ideas, and this silly little inconvenience is going to be called Neil, because as I've watched the film footage of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, the image I saw of my new brain tumor looks just like Neil Armstrong's bootprint on the moon, minus the boot texture.  It's my understanding that this new (small) brain tumor (Neil) was just discovered on my midnight post-operative MRI. Dr. SRS expert is the only one who has discussed it with me so far.  (commercial break to tell the tale of my midnight MRI: that was an adventure.  My nurse zoomed me through the hospital in my bed, literally pushing a button on my bed that audibly said "zoom" to get over door bumps.  We took the elevator down to the MRI place in the basement, I tried to crack a joke about whether we'd find Milton working down there (my nurse was too young, he didn't get the reference to Office Space.  Needless to say all of that zooming made me nauseous, apparently, because I puked all over the MRI technician when we arrived.) In my defense, people kept giving me my medicines(pills) on an empty stomach.  No!  Let's put some food in there first, please. Otherwise we'll have trouble when you zoom me down to MRI...

Recovering!  Infrequent visitors tend to be the most uplifting because they come in and tell me how great I'm doing compared to the last time they saw me.  The folks (i.e. my immediate family/roommates) I see every day don't notice my improvements as much.  Still wearing a coban turnicate to keep my goose egg from popping out of my bone hole.  I went to the surgeon last week for him to check out my goose egg, and he says its fine.  He expects it to be healed in about two more weeks.  He ordered a CT scan to check on fluid build up in my brain cavity? cavities?  I'm not sure about the vocab.  What I know is that the outcome of the CT was fine...it did not reveal too much fluid in places it shouldn't be, I guess, because if that were the case he'd have to put in a drain and no one has called to tell me I need a drain.  I'm too tired to login to mychart and find the actual results to report to you.  I think this is good enough to convey the point.  The surgeon thinks it's fine, so that works for me.  He also asked me who is in charge of my steroid dose?  I told him that he is right now, until Dr. SRS expert takes the steroid baton next week.  Dr. Deep Seated Brain Tumor (DSBT) Surgeon decreased my steroid dose down to 0.5 mgs per day.  I love that authority!  This change in dose I think is making me feel even more sleepy during the day, but at least I can sleep at night, and possibly even get higher quality naps!  Dr. DSBT Surgeon wants to see me again in two weeks to check on my bone hole goose egg. 

I'm doing my physical therapy daily like a boss, until my head starts to throb and then I lay down for a bit.  And I ice my bone-hole goose egg.  The throb is strong enough that it visibly bounces my ice pack up and down.  For awhile I was having a sharp pain in my head, but that hasn't happened in about 4 days.  My daily goal is to do just enough physical therapy before the head throb starts.  My tray on my walker is awesome.  I can carry around my  own stuff now, like a plate of toast. Before i was limited to what I could carry in a pouch on the front of my walker.  A word of caution about the tray:  I shouldn't carry my pillbox on my tray.  I tried once, and it slipped off.  Fortunately only two pills popped out.  Also, just because i can carry all manner of things doesn't mean I should.  Carrying stuff on my tray makes my walker much heavier, which is bad for my head pressure.  Another walker update is that I've finally got some tennis balls on the two legs of the walker that lack wheels.  The dog now attacks these tennis-ball-clad walker legs.  He's so confused by them.  He has his own tennis balls outside.  His inside toys are stuffed squeaky squirrels and ropes. 

Finally, I think I figured out why i was getting so hungry at night at the beginning of my recovery.  It's because my temporary bedroom is adjacent to the kitchen, so I could smell the dinner smells all night an longing for Ami to bring me a snack.  That and the fact that healing takes a lot of energy, so i am eating a lot.