Tag: brain cancer

  • Chapter 19: Purpose

    Just a fair warning, this post is a bit chaotic and a bit of me brainstorming in real time as I sit in my kitchen writing this post on February 7th, 2023. When I originally set out to write our story and experiences with brain cancer I wasn’t entirely sure what it would look like…

  • Chapter 18: Cognitive dysfunction

    The effects of Dustin’s seizures, surgery, and swelling had a significant impact on Dustin’s cognitive abilities. Thankfully, they improved over time but it was really scary the first few months after surgery. The rest of Dustin’s hospitalization was relatively uneventful. He was on continuous EEG monitoring for seizures after surgery. From what we could tell,…

  • Chapter 16: Awake Brain Surgery

    Dustin’s surgery was officially scheduled. His surgery would be the first case on Friday, August 3rd, 2018. The week leading up to Friday was a lot of “hurry up and wait” – hurry up and do the fMRI, wait, hurry up and do the neuropsych testing, wait, keep monitoring for seizures, wait. The neurosurgeon, Matt,…

  • Chapter 14: The Epileptologist

    Now that you know the basic anatomy, function, and components of the brain, let’s talk about electricity. The brain is a complex network that communicates by sending electrical impulses. Sometimes these electrical impulses get blocked or stuck in a loop. Regardless of what you’re doing, your brain is always on and sending and receiving these…

  • Chapter 13: The Anatomy of the Brain

    The brain is a beautiful and complex enigma of the central nervous system (CNS). The central nervous system is comprised of the brain and spinal cord. The brain is big processing center and the the spinal cord relays information between our brain and the nerves in the other areas of our bodies. The skull and…

  • Chapter 11: The Neurosurgeon

    People in healthcare are often interesting humans. Like any number of professions, healthcare often has lots of stereotypes associated with specific roles. Surgeons are often stereotyped as arrogant and crass. Oncologists are often stereotyped as kind and overly optimistic. Psychiatrists are often stereotyped as quirky but good listeners. Nurses are either stereotyped as angles or…

  • Chapter 9: Breaking the bad news

    It was Friday, July 27, 2018 and we were preparing ourselves for our weekend trip to Bloomington, Indiana to visit family and friends. This wasn’t our ordinary trip where we had loose plans to see people but would be generally fun and easy going. This the trip to our hometown to tell Dustin’s mom that…

  • Chapter 5: Every day is exactly the same

    One of the things that initially attracted us to each other was our love for music. Not just any music, but Nine Inch Nails. We both had a profound love for industrial synth rock. Loud, weird, electronic rock has so many complex layers that resonates with so many parts of your soul. Some of our…

  • Chapter 1: Where do I even start?

    Figuring out where to start your story isn’t easy or obvious. I’m not exactly sure where to start – there is so much to tell and share. Perhaps it’s best to start with why? Why write about my life, sharing the intimate and vulnerable details? Wow, that’s a great question. I guess I want to…

  • Preface

    Today is October 27th, 2022 14:15 central time. I’m 40 years old, a widow, and I’m currently unemployed. My husband, Dustin, died 226 days ago. Well, 227 days once the clock strikes 16:05. At 38 years and 6 days old, Dustin died on March 15th, 2022 from a WHO Grade 4 IDH Mutant Astrocytoma aka…