Chapter 25

Chapter 25
February 2010

The call comes in! Surgery is scheduled for the 22nd. Great as I’m starting to have a few problems with my body not doing what I want it to do!

I want to stand up without the world spinning around me! I want to be in the sunlight without it hurting my eyes. I want these headaches that are getting progressively worse to stop! I want to walk without tipping to the sides!

I just want my life back as I thought it was supposed to be when I was told there was no more cancer! This isn’t fair! I’ve played by the rules and my body is taking it to another level! OK I’ll play along again!

I have decided that I will not ride the bike or drive the car as I’m having dizzy spells again but this time it’s not from vertigo but this stupid invader in my head! I just can’t take a chance of having a spell and causing an accident where either I or someone else is hurt or killed. Now this isn’t going well with Barbara as she hates to drive while I’m sitting in the car. I’m a big back seat driver! I’d be just as bad if I had a pilot’s license. If I’m not in control you ain’t doing it right!

I go in and have another MRI the week before the surgery date and then go in to see my new doctor, Dr. Scarrow, my Nureo surgeon, and he explains what they will be doing. I ask about a biopsy but he tells me due to the location and he shows it to me on the computer they have no choice but to go in and remove this lesion and then do the biopsy after they have it removed. This thing is located on the bottom of my brain sitting on the brain pan behind my right eye. It’s directly behind where the big tumor was behind my eye.

And it’s grown! It is now not measured in centimeters but in inches! It’s 1/2” x7/8” x1/2” or about the size of a jelly bean! Now it’s real, I get to have my skull split open and I have a short list of things I need to know such as what’s the long term effects of this going to do to me, how long will I be in the hospital and quiet a few other things. The main thing I need to know was the long term problems. His answer was I’d have a 10% chance of a stroke or seizures which I decide right away I can live with. He goes on to tell me that they will be drilling a series of holes in my skull and then sawing between them to remove the skull to get into my brain. This I figure out as I’ve done a little wood work in my life to understand that process. The cool part was this stage was going to be done by a robot!

Anyway all of these problems I’m experiencing are actually coming from all the fluid buildup from the lesion. Lets get this show on the road as I want my life back!

I also get measured for some special “socks” as they call them and am told all the things I can expect after I wake up and we get to go home to wait for Monday to roll around.

Monday the 22nd rolls around and Barbara and I are back in St Johns checking in at pre op. I get all the usual things done like get undressed and this time I can’t wear my jammies! I have to wear the oh so wonderful open in the back hospital gowns, but I get a break and can put 2 on one facing the wrong way to cover up the rear facing part of my body! And I can wear my socks! I get my IV inserted and I go to the bathroom so I don’t have any “accidents” and then I’m put on the bed! Bags are put up and hooked to my IV and I’m rolled out for another CT Scan before they open me up. On the way back my preacher Dennis Jennings is coming towards us and he escorts us back to the pre op room and we talk for a couple of minutes until the nurses come in to take me to surgery. Dennis offers a prayer and when done the nurses who actually prayed with us take me out for my next journey into the unknown that I’m starting to call my Frankenstein Experience!

Into an impossibly cold room that looks nothing like what you see on the TV except for the nurses and doctors and the fun begins for them because when they hit the plunger to shoot the sleepy juice in and it was lights out for me till get this, Tuesday afternoon!

I’ve been know to sleep for awhile but this was a record! I do remember someone in a dream offer me some orange sherbet. It was a great dream but when I woke up the pain hit until the pain meds kicked in. Oh crud! Morphine again! I hate morphine. It makes me try to throw up brown rings! But I have no choice in the matter. Barbara is standing there when I woke up and she asks me how I feel and I tell her like someone hit me in the face with a ball bat! The nurses are therealso and start to lok me over and ask me silly questions like what day it was which I got wrong right off the bat! It ewas Monday when they put me out but they didn’t tell me I wasn’t going to wake up till Tuesday! I did get the month and my name right which was a prize winner as I got to have COFFEE! I also got to have chicken noodle soup which is still on my all time favorites list and then someone puts a bag of ice on my right eye and side of my head. It hurt the eye but felt great on my head.

Then I notice that I need to go to the bathroom and that’s when I’m told Mr. Purdy you have a catheter in so you don’t need to go to the bath room! WHAT?? And of course I reach down under the covers and sure enough there it is the infamous tube! OH freaking great! At least I was a sleep when this one was put in but I really don’t want to go through another one being pulled out! The United Nations has a rule against cruel and unusual punishment! I guess this is going to happen tomorrow but again I’m wrong as They don’t want me up and wandering around until I’m feeling a little bit better!

The good thing about this ordeal is the biopsy of the thing in my brain came in Tuesday evening and it was great news. There was only 2 things that this could have been. One was a new cancerous tumor or it might be a radiation narcissus tumor. We were hoping for the latter and that’s what we got! Nothing now to worry about now except keeping air going in and air going out.

Wednesday rolls around and I’m moved out of ICU into another room and I fall asleep after they hit me with some more morphine and wake later and For some reason that I’ve noticed every time I wake up and a nurse is around I’m asked if I know what day it is the date and my name which is actually really funny as it goes like this,
“Mr. Purdy do you know what day it is?”
“Yep, its Wednesday right?”
“Well that’s right Mr. Purdy! Do you know your name Mr. Purdy?”
“AHHH, Mr. Purdy???” Hoping I can get a laugh out of her, but for some reason when doing the 20 questions after surgery, humor is not a good thing to be trying for!
“No Mr. Purdy, what is your first name?”
“ahhh, George???” and I get the pat on the arm reward that nurses are so good with! And that’s the end of the “Do you know show?”

Then I am asked a question I can’t answer. “Have you seen your surgery site yet Mr. Purdy?” and I have to answer no not yet but she has an ulterior motive for that question and it’s called Physical therapy! I need to get out of bed and walk so I don’t get any more blood clots and I’m ready to go exploring!

As we walk past the mirror over the sink she stops and lets me look and I’m standing there looking at someone who looks like he’s been on the loosing side of a baseball bat fight! I tell you I looked like crap! My right eye was completely red! I had a black eye the likes of which I’ve never had even in my worst fight! It was from my eye lid all the way down to below my nose and another bruise from in front of my ear to the corner of my mouth!
I turned to her and asked her if the surgery team had assaulted me or if they at least got the tag number of the truck that ran my arse over! I finally got a laugh out of a nurse!

The scar from the incision started from the center of my fore head at the hair line and went up onto my head and came around and down in front of my ear and stopped right in the center of the ear! And it was ugly! I really looked like I was in a horror movie and I was the new Frankenstein!


We finished our little walk and I didn’t even look in the mirror when we walked by it! That guy I last saw in it scared me to death!

Barbara and Jerry, my youngest, came in and Jerry looked me over going wow Dad a few times and I told him to take a few pictures which he did! I have them on my Face Book page along with a few other pictures!

They finally decide to let me out on Friday and this is when we find out a small problem. On the way home Barbara is not driving the way I would have driven home and what’s worse she pulls into the driveway of a house I have no idea as to who lives there and I’m getting really mad at her and ask her where we are and she answers me ”babe, we’re home” and now I’m panicked! WHAT? Did you sell our house while I was in the hospital? And she looks at me in fear and tells me to go in and see my sons and Abby our cat!

I go in and I don’t recognize a thing except for my two sons and my cat Abby! N3eedless this scares Barbara badly and it does have my attention! It wasn’t until later that night that I figure out that it is my house and things settle down some.

We were told that there would be a “little” short term memory loss but this was a big surprise! And it scared the hell out of us! Once I got those memories settled the rest come together!

I’m having the usual problem that brain surgery gives a person which, having been back for my follow ups Dr. Sarrow assures me is normal. Things like dizziness or vertigo, numbness of the surgical site and pressure from the fluid build up and bleeding from my ear and nose. Memory loss is making me nutts as I had written 6 chapters of a story and after the surgery I’ve been able to do ½ of a chapter! I can’t get a train of thought to come together as I’ll be going along and it’s like hitting a wall! Some call it writers block but for me it’s a complete blank wall. My spelling is terrible and because of the fuzziness in my right eye the keyboard is off center and I miss a lot of keys and even though I’m a 4 fingered typist this is terrible! I’ve spent 3 hours on this little chapter and it shouldn’t have taken me even 30 minutes.

I’ve become an old man in the last 3 months since the pressure started to build up in my brain and until it goes down I still am an old man at 55. I stand up and I’m glad that this desk is in front of me to grab hold of and I’m glad there are a lot of things in the house for me to reach for to steady myself in case I start to tip over. When I go outside I have my trusty friend Mr. Cane to keep me upright!

It’s April now and the last 3 months have been a joy to live! Yeah right! It’s been an aggravating pain in the arse! There have been some good things thats happened such as I finally got Disability which is a laugh as what I make in a month I used to make in a week! I have food stamps which is another laugh as it’s only $250 a month for a family of 3 so Barbara and I get to go to the shelters and food banks for handouts. We were able to finally pay the lawyer to start the bankruptcy proceedings after we got my tax return, and we now have the case number and a date and the phone is finally quiet! NO calls from bottom feeder collection agencies! I also sold my motorcycle to help pay on my second mortgage so we wouldn’t loose the house but getting Medicaid is a problem. My son has his and I get to pay $499 a month out of that large $1500 I get for disability unless I can rack up that same amount in doctors bills which is called a spend down which I still don’t understand!

I had someone ask me why don’t I let the house go? Well rent is about the same or more for what we need! And that’s actually taking a step down from what I have here! So I’ll keep the house thank you! Besides we were able to get a HUD help deal from the bank we have which was a surprise as this bank to remain nameless has been a PITA to work with! They reprocessed my pick up truck, hounded us to death on the second mortgage even after they heard what I’ve been through since April of 08. It’s true some banks have no heart and this bank was voted in the top 5 best banks in America this year. You’ll have to wait till I pick my arse up off the floor from LMFAO!
I guarantee if I can get someone to buy both of these loans from them I’ll jump on it in a heart beat!

I miss my bike. It’s been a great therapy group for me even if I can’t ride right now. Just going out and sitting on it helped, polishing it helped and just sitting next to it helped but now I miss just going down to the garage to visit it! Yeah Cancer the freaking gift that just keeps on giving even when you don’t want the damn gift!

Like what’s next on my agenda. Yep something else has “popped” up! If I can remember correctly back in about 1998 I went to a doctor about a little “bump” that had appears in my nose. The doc cut a bit off and when the biopsy came back said it wasn’t benign and not to worry about it. Well I didn’t and it just sat in there and didn’t do anything until all the radiation and chemo was over then it started to grow like a freaking weed! Well when they had me out on the table in Feb they cut a piece off and sent it in for a biopsy also. It came back as a type of HPV. (Human Papillomavirus) I freaked when I looked it up but they only show it as a sexually transmitted disease. OK why is it my freaking nose? My doctor can’t figure that out either as there is no sign of any “warts” on my body! But May 13th I get to go and have more sleepy juice and another knife put in me! They need to do this as this growth exploded and grew like wild fire and has almost closed off my right nostril and we need to stop it so it doesn’t get into my sinuses or throat. Another reason is it needs to be removed is it can turn into cancer. OH CRAP! There’s that “C” word again! I’m telling you I’m turning into a freaking science experiment! Here I am broke and I’m going in for more surgery! I need to get back to writing on my story and try to sell it so I can get some money in here but the funny thing is, if I do sell it and it sells a million copies and I get a whole dollar a copy I’ll loose 1/2 of it to all the banks, credit cards, hospitals and others I had to file bankruptcy on! They’ll put a hold on it till they get theirs! I love leeches! But I do have to say Chase Bank has been the best to work with! I guess because they are Springfields largest employer next to Kraft! Lets hope I can get the brain cells to working and I can get this story written as I’m pouring out tears writing the wrong things in here!