Guest Blog by David Hunt #2: Brain Tumors... Not So Bad

For this week's guest blog, I asked David Hunt if he would write a second post for us.  As many of you know, Dave did battle with a brain tumor last fall and thankfully won.  I know there are a lot of people out there fighting with various things in their life and I felt like Dave's story, from learning he was sick to thinking he was going to die to the aftermath of the surgery, might provide a little insight and relief to those out there who could use it.  Regardless of how he would like to downplay it, I hope you'll join me in thanking Dave for sharing his story with the unique brand of candor and humor that only he can. 

Once again ladies and gentlemen, David Hunt...

So back by popular demand, okay, so maybe only one request, I'm writing another blog post.  Once again, I'm not really a writer so I feel a bit like the black guy in the sperm suit in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask:  "What am I doing here?  What am I doing here?" Anyway, the topic today is, sadly, NOT 101 funny things to say after surviving brain surgery.  It's not even the humorous events that took place after my surgery.  No, by request, I'll try to share what was going on in my head when I thought I was about to die (see what I did there?  Brain tumor?  "Going on in my head?"  Nothing?).  I regret to inform you there will be no Twinkie references from here on out.

Sometime in October 2011 I experienced the "tumor headache."  This was a kind of head pain that hurt so bad it was shocking.  I remember thinking when it started, "wow, my sinuses are REALLY bad tonight."  Within perhaps five minutes of that thought I was clutching the side of my bed with a fist full of cordless house phone and a bottle of generic Tylenol (yes, both in one hand, hey I got big enough hands...).  The phone was my last resort plan.  If the pain got much worse (as it was steadily doing), then I would have to break down and call for help.  The Tylenol was (foolishly) plan "A."  I'm not someone to take pain medicine for any reason.  I had the bottle for guests.  Anyway, I took two and, if I lived, I planned on calling the doctor in the morning. 

Now let me just stop here for a moment and explain some things.  I'm not REALLY a moron.  I knew something was seriously wrong.  People don't just get headaches that are so painful they can barely move or even open their eyes.  However, the Tylenol helped a great deal and I managed to sleep through the night AND wake up in the morning.  This was the first of many many many mornings in which I woke up surprised.  Surprised by what some of you slow pupils might be wondering?  Surprised that I woke up alive and not dead.  Try to keep up.  So, I'm not a moron but I allowed myself a little dose of denial.  Besides, I had a regular doctor's appointment in a few days anyway.  I'd decided to wait and ask him about it then.

Alright so let me skip ahead (I think I'm losing some of you).  Doctor one struck out:  "probably sinuses."  Nurse practitioner from work struck out as well:  "classic sinusitis."  So after taking some strong antibiotics for my "sinusitis," I woke up to a world that spun so violently that I couldn't raise my head more than two inches.  The vomiting was epic.  No, really, I thought I would die just from the vomiting.  I know I SOUNDED like I would certainly die.  After each...session, I would fall back onto my bed panting and gasping for air.  Four days later, I stumbled into my doctor's office weighing 15 pounds less than I did a month ago.  He sent me almost immediately to get a CT scan (they don't call it "CAT" scan anymore so I was robbed of several jokes).  The radiologist tells me I am to go BACK to the doctor's office immediately.  Fine.  The doctor sweeps into the room after just a couple minutes' wait (this is a bad sign).  He looks at me, pauses, and decides HE has to sit down. 

This is it, kids.  This is the "boom." 

He had to write it down to get it right, starts to read it, stops, then hands me a five inch slip of paper with "HEMANGIOBLASTOMA" written across it.  Boom.  He tells me it is roughly 4 cm in diameter or about golf ball sized. 

That was it.  That was the moment when everything changed. 

Read it again.  It was a profound moment in my 36 and a half years (at the time). 

A tumor the size of a golf ball was in my skull, pressing on the back of my left eye, clogging up the flow of spinal fluid, causing the mother of all sinus congestion, and pressing on my cerebellum causing me to lose my balance.  This was the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.  The Friday after Thanksgiving was the start of the aforementioned vomiting and vertigo.  Happy Holidays indeed.  So, again, I'm not a moron.  I know what comes next: surgery.  But this is a BIG tumor.  The doctors have had a hard time hiding their concern.  Naturally, I put it together and decided, they will kill me when they try to remove the Titleist from my brain. 

Well, again I've written a post slow getting to the intended point.  Now that you know the background, perhaps my thoughts on dying will make sense.  After a little run around with a neurosurgery team in Charlotte who wanted to do a consult December 12th (probably 3 days after the tumor would have killed me), it was decided I go to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC.  This was a little over one hour driving time from my home.  I cannot say enough about these people.  Wonderful.  They even made me almost believe I was NOT going to die.  Almost.  The surgeon came in and explained what the plan was, told me, "we do this kind of surgery once every week." 

Hurray! I thought. 

Then he says, "but, it IS brain surgery and a lot could go wrong." 

And, I'm dead again.

Now, I must point out that I was never really afraid of being dead.  I knew I'd never feel a thing under anesthesia.  What I had a problem with, and what this long winded post is supposed to be about, was my friends and family.  Especially my parents.  What could be worse than having to bury a child?  Okay, so I was 36 and not a child but I could tell by the worried look in their eyes that this was much worse for them than it was for me.  I worried about finances from the moment my doctor hit me with the boom.  I calculated what my life insurance plus my investments would come to minus my outstanding debt and came to a number divided by four (two parents two sisters) and that was the amount I would leave them with.  It just was not enough.  This caused my heart to ache.  How could I be so unprepared?  This amount was not enough in my mind.  They would have to try and sell my house and in this market, that would be hard to do and how much could they get for it? 

These were my thoughts.  How would my family cash out once I'm dead.  Practical, cold, logical thoughts of: "my death is a foregone conclusion, but then what?"  It was not even regret.  All I could do was make sure the forms were filled out correctly.  I mean, I was already dead so might as well do what I can before going under.  Then something else occurred to me.  I needed to tell my friends.  I posted the news on Facebook but I needed to inform my other friends.  I sent an email to the two addresses I could remember.  One email was blocked by his company firewall.  The other got through and we exchange brief emails.  My final email was to tell a friend and former coworker that it was my honor to call him "friend." 

That was tough.  I realized then that I did not have time to tell the six people in the world who I call "friend" that I appreciated them, admired them, was honored to have known them, and only regretted not having more time to spend with them.  My surgery was to take place in a matter of hours.  It was after this last realization that I had failed my friends that I knew sadness.

So let’s see, on Saturday doctors and nurses were reassuring me that surgery would not be Sunday.  See, Sunday was reserved for emergency cases that came in over the weekend.  Sunday morning, they woke me up to tell me they were taking me to surgery.  Wait, what does that mean?  Am I an emergency?  What’s the rush?  What’s going on?  Anyway, there I am, in pre-op listening to the nurse explain what is about to happen.  Mostly, she told me what would happen AFTER surgery.  They will wake me up then ask me questions.  The quicker I answer the questions, the sooner I get out of ICU.  Next I meet the anesthesiologist.  He asks if I have any questions.  All I can say is, “just be careful.”  He pats me on the shoulder and says, “we always are.  Let me give you something to take the edge off.” 

And, I’m out.

I know nothing but complete black.  Vaguely, I have the sensation of three flashes of blue-white light on my right side.  I’m barely aware of being alive.  Ludicrously what little conscious thought I have searches for “the white light.”  Whether or not I would have tried to resist going toward it, I do not know.  Time loses meaning.  I know nothing else but black.  Then I hear a faint call.  No white light.  “Mr. Hunt.”  Still no white light.  Where is my white light?  Wait, where am I?  Oh, crap.  What happens when you go to the “other place?”  “Mr. Hunt.”  Wait a minute, that sounds like a woman’s voice.  “Mr. Hunt.”  Yes, that’s definitely someone calling my name.  I wonder what that means?

“Gasp!” 

I wake up with a start.  I’m surrounded by ICU nurses who are pulling hoses and wires (and hair) away from my body.  One nurse to my left has been calling my name.  I’m somewhat aware that she’s still talking to me.  What does she want?  Doesn’t she understand I’m in no mood to talk?  Wait, what’s she saying?  Wait, what did the pre-op nurse say?  Oh.  Maybe I should listen.

“Do you know your name?  Can you tell me your name?” 

“David Hunt”

“Do you know where you are?”

Okay, at this point, I’m in full on “answer the questions so I can get out of here” mode.

“Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.” 

I shit you not.  I said that.

 I am nearly blind without contacts but I am aware of the nurses exchanging looks.

“Do you know what day is it?”

“December 4th, 2011.  If I’m lucky.”  Again, I kid you not.  I caught on that the nurses knew I was okay from my previous answer.  This one was a warning shot that they had a fully conscious smart ass on their hands. 

“Okay, I think you’re okay.  What’s the square root of 16?” she asks sarcastically.

If there is anything I’m better at than quick, sarcastic, witty responses, it’s math.  “Four” I croak weakly.  The smartass nurse had turned away but laughter erupted from my right.  The nurse to my right pipes up, “Hey, he answered that one too.”

Sarcastic nurse turns back and (I assume since I’m still blind) smiles saying, “we’ve never had anyone answer that one before.”

Suddenly, I’m aware that I’m alive.  Wow.  Didn’t see that coming.  Wait, I somehow have an iv in each hand (to go along with the one in my arm), my feet are dangling off the end of the bed (apparently the beds are only for people under six feet tall), my neck is stiff, and I’m surrounded by women I can barely see and cannot touch.  Where am I again?  I don’t feel any burning…

Okay, so here’s what happened:  they shaved the back of my head and neck.  They cut me down the back of my head and neck and pulled back skin and muscle.  They cut a large hole in my skull.  They went in through part of my brain to get at the tumor.  They cut the tumor free and removed it (I presume through the hole but my sinuses HAVE been bad lately…).  They returned my skull and sewed me up (see picture in prior Cynical Sarcastic blog post).  They monitored me for a while.  They discovered that fluid had started to build up on my brain.  They continued to monitor me.  They decided that the fluid was NOT going to kill me.  They woke me up.

Now, surgery took one and a half hours.  I did not wake up until 4:30 that evening (prevening?).  My internal clock registered about ten minutes from “nighty night” to “Mr. Hunt?”  I had to stay in the ICU for an extra day (for a total of two) so they could closely monitor me.  They continued to come by and ask me “brain work good?” questions and my answers became more and more sarcastic:  “where are you?”  “a bed.”  “you’ll have to do better than that.”  “a short bed.”

It was all pretty much General Hospital stuff from here on.  As I mentioned before, I didn’t expect to be alive.  This was all “bonus time” in my mind.  Plus, the ICU is a terrible place.  Two broken necks, one guy with some undisclosed (to me) brain trauma (he kept answering “1985” to the question “what year is it?”  Freaked me out.  I thought, “wait, is that right?  Maybe I’m wrong and something bad happened to me.”), and worst of all one lady was brain dead.  I hope I have not described my ordeal in a way that makes you believe “wow, that’s tough what you went though” because I’m here to tell you what I went through was NOTHING when compared to what everyone else in that ICU was going through.  I woke up to the sobs and good-byes of the lady’s family.  The doctors were keeping her body alive until they could find patients for her organs.  They allowed her family in for a final moment with their beloved mother.  Hearing the sorrowful goodbyes, I could not help but share in their grief.  I pulled the towel over my eyes (there to keep the light out so I could sleep) and tried in vain to stifle my sobs. 

In a couple days I went home. 

Did I mention I’m the luckiest person I know?