Living In a Brainstorm the book now available!!

Opening a new window in my browser, I cautiously typed in the address for Amazon, careful to choose each letter correctly; no spelling mistakes to slow me down. The logo appeared first and I read the sign under it, cajoling me to Try Prime as the rest of the page rendered. Finally the cursor blinked in the search box and I typed in my name, quickly this time, my caution replaced by impatient excitement. E-r-i-c-a E-g- the auto-complete filled in the last two letters and I thrilled that the electronic behemoth knew my name. Two seconds might have been an eternity as the search list populated, and there, right there at the top, was my book: Living In a Brainstorm. Available in paperback and Kindle. My book, my story, the six months that changed my life.

I decided to split the book into three parts: Part I Decisions, follows my decision to have surgery and all of the testing - both physical and emotional - that went into it. Part II Surgery is comprised by the eight days I spent in the hospital having two surgeries to hopefully cure my epilepsy. It's told partly by me but also in part through the emails and messages that went back and forth between my parents and my family and friends as they kept everyone updated and drew strength from each others' love. The last section, Part III Recovery, includes my first excursion out of the house, figuring out how to go up and down stairs again, getting staples taken out of my head and learning how to depend on other people let them in.

I want to thank everyone for all of their love and support throughout this amazing, terrifying, thrilling, painful, wonderful journey. I couldn't have done it without each and every one of you and I will be eternally grateful.

Love,

Erica

CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4323804
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Living-Brainstorm-Erica-Marie-Moos/dp/098953801X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374451089&sr=8-1&keywords=living+in+a+brainstorm

Changed

It's amazing how time flies. The dichotomy of a vivid memory: so crisp and so clear it could be yesterday, yet so far away that you hardly recognize the you that appears through the mist of the mind. I think less and less about my surgery these days and I'm grateful I wrote it all down when I realize its ability to leave me, the sands of time running through my fingers into a pile on the ground from which it came. So much has changed from those days, yet somehow I feel the same. Changed. No longer who I used to be, I'm complete. Whole. Erica 2.0.

I made a friend last night who's only beginning her journey. I recognized the fear, anticipation, excitment, anxiety, elation and terror that played across her face in concert, all at once. She's going to have my surgery, our surgery. Anyone who's followed this blog has gone through this surgery with me; I was never alone. Whether it was prayers, good vibes, healing energy or something else, all that you sent me forever altered my life in such an amazing way. Now I pray for her, I send her good mojo and healing energy. I had such an amazing experience and I can't wait for her to have the same, for her to find her new life.

The Longest Day

I was watching a show the other day about the training of special forces for various branches of the military. One episode featured a final exam called The Longest Day. It began with paddling a rubber raft through crashing waves, carrying it through the trees, completing a mission and walking the miles back through tear gas without masks. Somehow that sounds worse to me than brain surgery, but maybe it's because I know I can make it through it.

This day last year was my Longest Day. It was the scariest, most painful day of my life and I know I'll never forget it as long as I live. Right about now, I was finishing up my "stim test", where each electrode on my brain was reverse stimulated in turn to see what would happen. The doctors would press a button and my hand would jerk, or my eyes would move or my tongue would stick to the roof of my mouth and I couldn't breathe. Each time I heard one call a set of numbers to the other, I would wait for the shock and pray to God that nothing would happen. They were looking for my motor strip and I wanted so badly for it not to be under my seizure origin point, what they had come to call "the birthmark". I sat in my hospital bed, clutching the small, stuffed dog that my parents had gotten me in the Mayo Clinic gift shop. I was so scared. I focused on the sign my sister had made me that hung in my hospital room: We Love Our Erica. I traced the patterns with my eyes, drank in the colors and tried to stay calm.

In an hour and a half, my surgeon would come in and tell me that the birthmark was not on my motor strip, but right up against it. I was a candidate. I exhaled with my whole body, my whole spirit. I was a candidate. He told me that I could have the surgery, but there was a chance I would lose a good amount of sensation in my hand - I would have a hard time knowing how much pressure was needed to hold a fork, being able to recognize the shape of my wallet in my purse by touch. There was a chance I would lose some speech, some short term memory, though it wasn't very likely. "Do you still want to do it?" I paused for only a moment, because what stood firmly in my mind was that nothing had gone wrong yet, so there was no way it would start now. I lifted my right hand, covered in white tape to hold the IV in place, to the plastic table over my lap and signed the consent form.

Not until about 4pm was I finally brought down to the operating room. I remember a cleaning woman in the elevator as I was rolled in by a nurse. I said, "Hi, how are you?" as cheerily as I could. She looked startled but then smiled. I tried to be brave in the pre-op room among dozens of other patients in blue and white polkadotted smocks, lying in rough, white sheets on a plastic bed. It was easier the first time, when I didn't know what would happen, when I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Somehow, this time it was terrifying. A couple nice doctors, nurses and techs stopped by to explain a few last details, but I didn't care about the information, I just wanted their smiles and calming voices. A few layed hands on my shoulder or foot, and just a simple touch like that brought a sliver of peace.

The OR was brighter, more sterile, more ominous and more lonely than I'd remembered. Cindy wasn't there this time; she'd placed electrodes on my scalp for my monitoring the day after Thanksgiving and the grid on my brain during my first surgery, but since they were removing it, a much less delicate process, she was somewhere else. I didn't know anyone there. It was like the first day of kindergarten: terrifying and, as yet, the biggest day of my life. One man in blue scrubs came closer and smiled through his mask; he said Cindy had told him to take good care of me. I relaxed a little as he held my left hand and someone else took my right while a clear mask was lowered over my face.

I try to forget what happened when I woke up in post-op recovery. I try to block out the pain that was so terrible I screamed; the way I writhed on the bed, the bright light that stared me down when the doctors made me open my eyes, their hushed voices when I sobbed that my pain was a twelve and begged them to help me. That scene is burned into me. It felt like an eternity as the hysterical crying I realized was my own melted to a pleading whimper. This hadn't happened after my first surgery. Couldn't anyone help me? What went wrong?

Last night it came to me like it sometimes does. A wave of remembered trauma, pain, relief and gratitude smashed over me, its full force against my mind. Wet tears slid down my face and as my rock held me in his arms, they turned to sobs that wracked my body and tore sounds from my throat despite my efforts to stifle them. I could see the wet collecting on the collar of John's blue shirt, turning it dark and shiny. I began to calm down at the insistence of my nose that it needed a tissue. I went through three before I could breathe steadily again. I clutched John's back and laid my head on his chest. "It's okay, baby, it's gonna be okay. You've been through a lot." I have.

Thank you to everyone; all of you who have been here for me, with me. Thank you, God, for the blessings you've given me. Thank you, John, for listening, understanding and supporting me every day. Thank you, mom and dad, for holding my hands; sitting quietly when every little noise hurt; making up stories when I was scared; spoon-feeding me; forcing me to sit up, stand and walk despite my dirty looks and petulance; fixing oatmeal and fruit every morning; re-teaching me how to knit so I could regain the function of my hand; making me take naps even when I didn't want to; taking me on slow walks around the block in freezing cold January weather; but most of all, teaching me how to live the kind of life that makes me happy and fulfilled.

John asked me what I want to do tonight to commemorate my anniversary. I haven't decided yet whether I want to go out and celebrate or stay in and remember. Either way, I'll remain, as always, eternally grateful.

Comparing Chairs

The chairs in the radiology waiting room at Rose Medical Center in Denver are brown. Stripes alternate: dark brown curly designs that harken back to a more Victorian era and thin lines stringing together light brown circles - round baubles hanging like decorations on the Christmas trees taken down only a couple weeks ago.

The waiting room is half-filled with other patients - an older couple murmuring quietly in the corner, a Hispanic woman with three toddlers that play with a new baby as she speaks to the receptionist, a woman a couple years older than me reading a magazine, her tan purse on her lap. The brown chairs snake their way along the walls behind them all, dipping in the middle to create a make-shift division in between. I think of Mayo, with its mauve floral prints that will forever be etched in my mind.

At my one-year follow up with my neurologist at Mayo, we talked about the headaches I still get - a couple a week, most responsive to Advil, but about one a month that leaves me incapacitated, teathered to my couch or bed, trying for hours to sleep off the pain, even when it wakes me between dreams of headaches. He looked at me with concern, though his concerned face reminds me of a disappointed face that makes me think that I've done something wrong. Twenty six years of being a people-pleaser, I suppose. He told me that's not normal; I shouldn't be having them still. A few months ago, I made a similar complaint and was ordered an MRI. Apparently, it had shown a build up of fluid in my brain hole, but the doctors figured it would drain itself. Maybe it hasn't. He ordered a CT scan to see what's going on.

"Hi, my name is Erica Egge. I'm calling to schedule a CT," pause, "E-G-G-E".

"Hi, my name is Erica Egge. I'm calling to check on an order for a CT scan," pause, "Yes, I have my patient number," I read it off again, almost by memory. "Has the order been sent to Rose Medical in Denver yet? Does it have a note to call my insurance?" No, of course not. I give the number for MedSolutions and my insurance member ID. "It has to be noted on the order for the hospital to call them," I request, trying to hide the exasperation from my voice."

"Hi, I'm Erica Egge. I called yesterday. Has the order for my CT scan come in yet? No?"

It progressed thusly day after day. It took over a week for pre-authorization, but finally this morning I left my little third floor apartment for the hospital.

"Erica?" a middle-aged woman in scrubs called from a door to my right.

"I'm Erica," I stood upand walked to her, putting the purple cell phone that doubles as my safty-blanket back into my purse. She may have said her name as she led me down a linolium-floored hallway, but I don't remember it.

"Is it a subdermal hemotoma we're scanning today?"

I don't know what that means. "I had brain surgery about a year ago." Her eyes widened in the surprise I've come to recognize, even expect. "I'm doing fine, still seizure-free, but having headaches."

She opened the blond-stained wooden door to a testing room and walked in behind me. A slab of plastic covered in a white sheet with a small pillow for my head formed a make-shift bed sticking out of a large, white doughnut. I took out my earrings and held them in my hand as the bed began to move, jerking to a stop when the doughnut was positioned over my head. It was much quieter than an MRI, which somehow made it feel more ominous. A red light flashed through my closed eyelids. I began to pray. God, please watch over me. Please let me be okay. Please, I begged. The bed jerked back and forth as the machine emitted shots of radiation over my face to the brain behind it.

The ten minutes felt short and long at the same time when I heard a small motor propel my bed back out into the world, freeing me from my racing mind.

"That wasn't bad at all," I said to the tech, cheery with my brave face. Now it's just a matter of waiting. What happens if they find more fluid in my head? It depends. My favorite answer.

One Year Follow Up

The blue glue had formed dry clumps that stuck to my scalp and clung to the bases of each hair springing forth from it. I must say, though, that getting it out this time was much easier than when I had long hair. I turned the pink bottle of Garnier Fructis conditioner upside down and watched a long, creamy snake emerge and coil onto my palm. I ran my hands through my hair, feeling rough spots where the EEG leads had been that morning. The tech who put them on suggested putting conditioner in dry hair and letting it sit for a bit before combing out the glue and rinsing. I turned the black dial on the wall of my parents' bathroom and shut the sliding glass doors of the shower as it filled with steam. I figured fifteen minutes would be enough time: five minutes to fill with white fog and ten to saturate my dry skin and coughing lungs. The steam swallowed me as I stepped into the tan tile enclosure, sliding the warped and frosted glass behind me. I stood with my back to the spigot, letting the hot air warm my body. I had to inhale slowly through my nose to avoid water-induced coughing that felt like choking. I let my muscles relax and melt for a bit; it had been a long day.

My alarm went off at five thirty, Maroon 5 cutting through the early morning silence in the Rochester Garden Hilton. My mom stirred next to me as if she'd already been awake a few moments; John tried to sleep through it but I could see him twitch from his bed a few feet away. We brushed our teeth and washed our faces and my mom and I put on a little make up though it didn't do much to hide the bags under our eyes. In fifteen minutes, we were dressed, packed and out the door. The air was cold outside, a stark contrast from the desert climate of our room. Fortunately the car wasn't far away and it felt like no more than a minute had passed when we pulled into the best parking spot I'd had yet at the Mayo Clinic.

Standing in the steam, I picked up the pink comb on the ledge next to me and began running it through my hair; first one direction, then the next. I pushed the teeth along the scalp just above my hair line; I combed left, picking up glue and wiping it onto my leg, then combed right, finding a little more, and last forward, leaving wet hair hanging straight over my forehead like bangs with a slight curl at the edge where it met my eyes.

When we arrived at the door, the Gonda building was locked. "The doors don't open til six thirty," said a guard. A handful of other early arrivals sat on chairs or leaned against the glass wall separating the heated inter-doorway space from the white marble atrium.

"What time is it, mom?" I asked.

"Six ten," she replied. "Let's go get some breakfast." Caribou Coffee stood with warm welcoming arms across the street and down the block. I had oatmeal, John had a breakfast sandwich and mom had a coffee. I grabbed a paper napkin printed with the Caribou logo and a short holiday-themed Mad Lib. We ate our food and conversed in a series of requested adjectives and nouns, which I entered onto the napkin using the pen I lifted from our hotel room. The result was a mildly amusing story of buying bacon presents for your scissors and decorating a Christmas chair.

Our spirits lightened noticeably with food in our stomachs and we headed back to the hospital, checking in and being directed to the elevators to the desk on the eight floor of the Mayo building.

I'm quite convinced that the elevator in the Mayo building is the slowest in the continental U.S. It rose oh so incredibly slowly and steadily until the climbing light illuminated a black, printed "8", eliciting a ding and a slight lurch as the doors slid open. We stepped out into an unlit elevator bank, slightly concerned as we turned the corner to find an empty room facing an empty check in desk with half of its lights still out. We took a seat in three adjacent chairs upholstered in a familiar mauve floral pattern and waited.

The blue glue came out almost easily with each scrape of the comb. I ran my fingers through my hair every couple minutes to find the next shadow of an electrode. My hands and arms had become covered with hair and little rubbery balls of glue. The steam had stopped its flow and I reached for the silver handle on the wall, pulling it upward to start a stream of hot water from the bath faucet. I rinsed my hands and the comb in the falling stream and watched the discarded clumps travel down the drain before carefully placing the white, rubber plug.

One Year Follow-Up Update 2

EEG showed no seizure activity!! Dr. So wants me to get a CT because of the headaches I'm still getting. Apparently my MRI in March showed some fluid in my brain hole, which was normal, but having surgery headaches at this point is not normal, so he's wondering if the fluid has grown. The results will dictate in part when I can start to resume risky activity like riding a bike or skiing. He'll call me with the results next week and tell me if I can start to decrease my Vimpat! If so, it'll be a long, slow process that will take a couple months. Caffeine and alcohol (minus vodka red bulls) can resume normal activity after I'm off the Vimpat.
All in all, pretty great news! Now just waiting for my insurance to approve the CT and hopefully I can get it done today - preferably early so I have time to get back to St. Paul and wash my hair before dinner out at 7!

Mayo Follow-Up Update

Mom, John and I drove down to Rochester yesterday evening, had sandwiches (me and J) and salad (mom) at Canadian Honker and stayed in a 2 queen bed room at the Hilton Garden - J in one bed, me and mom in the other. I was hoping to snuggle w my mom but no luck.
Woke up at 5:30 to a wake up call and two cell phone alarms. Got to Mayo at 6:15 but it wasn't open yet, so we went to Caribou for bfast. Eventually got in and went to 8th floor of the Gonda bldg to get my itinerary. They gave me a red pager and I thought they were going to call me up, but 7:25 came and I figured out that they didn't know I was there for my EEG. I went up and told them and fortunately the EEG station was at the other end of the hallway, so I wasn't late.
EEG lasted about 3 hrs and included a nap, reading out loud, looking at pictures, looking at strobe lights (yuck) and hyperventilating for 3 min (double yuck). After EEG, got blood drawn and had western breakfast bagel at Bruegger's for lunch. Hit up the billing dept to deal w the $9,440 that mom paid out of pocket in March when I was still fighting w COBRA. Turns out we might not get it back because it was used to pay for two MRIs that didn't receive precertification. We're gonna fight it but there's a chance we won't win. :(
Right now we're waiting to see Dr. So. He'll give us the results of the EEG and I'll ask about the headaches I still get.
Will give an update on our way home!
Xoxo
E

No Longer Scared

<p>Wet hair drapes down the back of my neck, a curtain of dark brown descending from its mat on the flat spot of my head, just above the place where skull joins spinal cord. When it's wet like this, my scar shows clearly: a natural curved part in my hair, a red line carved into the white of my scalp. It's been eleven months and two days since it was stapled back together for the last time. I stood and stared at it in the hotel bathroom mirror, still foggy from my shower. A girl looked back at me, a white towel wrapped around her body, the end tucked in under her left armpit to hold it in place. She had mascara under her eyes, black smudges clinging to her face after minimal success with a bar of soap named after a Mexican grain. Her jaw was set in a poker face, her eyes unreadable, she was neither empty nor full. She looked back at me as if to say, "we've done our best. The rest is out of our hands."

Climbing into bed with a pen and my trusty green notebook, I cannot help but thinking of the last time I stayed here: frightened and determined, awaiting surgery. It was cold that night, January twentieth, but tonight, just shy of a year later, the air is warm; warm for a Minnesota December, at least. The Courtyard Marriott in Rochester is across the street from St. Marys Hospital, where I spent the longest, hardest and most formative eight days of my life. I watched it as we passed by, remembering the early morning when we scurried as fast as we could to the other side, no idea what we were in for. I'm not scared tonight like I was the night before that morning. The alarm I set for five thirty tomorrow morning will bring only the pain of bleary eyes and a pin prick to the inside of my right elbow.

I look at my wrists, the backs of my hands, to see the difference a year has made to their scars - what were once dark red scabs are now nothing more than silver circles ringed by brown. The place where a vice held my head looks today like a slight horizontal line, barely distinguishable from a wrinkle. No, it is not courage or bravery I need tomorrow, it's luck and a willingness to give myself over to whomever is in charge of these decisions. I've been seizure-free since I was rolled out of the operating room on the afternoon of January twenty fourth, two thousand and ten. It was a day I never thought would happen; a year I never dreamed possible. So tomorrow morning I return to the first scene: the check-in desk in the Gonda Building of The Mayo Clinic.

The doctors told me that if I made it a year seizure-free, I would have a ten percent chance of ever having another seizure. So far I haven't had a single one. Tomorrow, an EEG will determine whether or not there's still seizure activity in my brain; if there's not, I'll be able to get off another medication, leaving me with just one. If there is... But here's the thing: the past year has changed me; I'm a different woman from the one who first walked into that white marble atrium. Today, I'm happy, I'm in love, I'm free. Today, I'm no longer a girl and I'm no longer scared. I pray to God that I leave Mayo with good news, but even if I don't, I'll leave as a butterfly broke free of her cocoon to be part of the world.

Guest Post

Mayo Clinic has a blog where patients can tell their "Mayo story". You can check mine out here! You can share your own as video or text. Let me know if you do!

Guest Post

Check out a guest post I wrote for UKEpilepsy about surgery: http://www.ukepilepsy.com/epilepsy-stories/best-decisions-of-my-life/

Six Month Anniversary

The deep throbbing just behind my left temple beats a syncopated rhythm into my head. I chase two Advil gel caps with grapefruit juice and hope that it goes away soon. The headaches are fewer and farther between these days, but every once in a while they come out, reminding me that six months isn’t as long as it used to be.

I spent the morning job hunting: getting back to emails, contacting anyone who might know someone, applying online, scheduling an interview. Cooking, cleaning and writing fill out my to do list for the rest of the day. As I take a pen to my green notebook and fill it with, “email so and so”, “unpack suitcase from Minnesota” and “print out shipping label for Kindle return” and cross off, “exchange printer ink and get printer paper” and “put in maintenance request for air conditioner”, I can’t help thinking how different my day is from the same one exactly six months ago. At five thirty am on January 20th, I ran through the early morning dark, bundled against the negative twenty degree weather in a black puffy coat and boots, to the hospital across the street from my hotel, mom and dad in tow. We scurried along the perimeter of the building, trying to shield ourselves from the wind, and picking up pace when we rounded the corner and saw the light from the entrance. My nose started to run as soon as we stepped inside and I jumped the admissions line to get a Kleenex from the desk. The weather in Denver today mimics the difference between that day and this: ninety degrees and mostly sunny. When I step into the air conditioned inside, I notice the sweat on my body and crave a shower rather than a Kleenex.

As I look at the clock on the bottom right corner of the tool bar on my computer, I wonder what was happening at 10:26am that day. I was in surgery by then. My head had been shaved and placed in a vice. I put aloe on the oval-shaped scar on my forehead from that same vice this morning. I put aloe on the scars on my left hand and wrist from the IVs that pumped the anesthesia into my body. The surgeons cut through my scalp, pulling it back and removing a quarter of my skull with a saw. At 5,280 feet above sea level, the atmosphere in Denver is thin, so I’ll put spf 50 on my semi-circle scar before I go out, even though my hair has grown to almost three inches and mostly covers it.

Over the next few hours, 180 electrodes would be placed on the surface of my brain. The email my mom sent to our family between rosaries conveyed the updates given her by the nurses. The email she sent me this morning included an invoice from a follow up appointment I had in June that’s still being processed by my insurance. She said she’s at the office catching up on work from last week when she and dad were at the cabin with me, my sisters, my nieces and nephews, brother-in-law, and boyfriend. She says the weather there is still really hot and muggy.

My parents got to see me around 3pm. I was still coming out of anesthesia and don’t remember it, but they were there. Today at 3pm I have a phone interview scheduled. Somehow, more exciting than that is that I slept on my left last night! In the hospital, I couldn’t even turn my head to the left; I made everyone who visited me sit to the right of my bed so I could see them without putting any additional pressure on my fragile, skull-less brain. For the better part of twenty five years, I’ve slept on my left, but for the past six months, I’ve had to sleep on my right to spare my tender head. Waking up on my left side at 7:30 this morning felt amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I guess, in summary, I have a ways left to go, but in the last six months I’ve been given a new life. My body is lighter, sweeter, and I’m happier than I can ever remember being. I feel loved, blessed and so grateful.

Kind of Exciting

The Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota just released their July issue, and there's an article on my blog! Pretty cool, huh? In case you want to check it out, click here and it's on pages eight and nine!

Emails

I’m working on the surgery section of my book today. I just put a disk sent by my mom into my computer and opened up the files: 129 emails sent by my parents while I was in the hospital. I want to include them partly because I was so unaware while lying in my bed, and partly because this was a big, impactful and hard experience for my parents, too. The only problem is that I have to read them.

I’ve become really good at breaking down when I go back to the hospital in my mind. Now reading through the lines and seeing the pain and fear behind the words pulls the tears up into my eyes.

But no, it’s not just the pain and fear, it’s also the love and hope. The pain and fear remind me of mine and compound it by adding the guilt I feel as a reflex for causing that in other people. All of that suffering makes me want to hug myself so I can hold that girl, the one who lived that blessed and graceful nightmare, and tell her it’s all going to be okay. But then the love. I read an email from my little sister to the rest of my family in response to an update my mom sent out after the second surgery:

“Erica and our whole family come from the most amazing support group. I get tears every time I see all these prompt responses, prayers, good wishes, blog hits, and love. I am in awe and so grateful for all of you- but most of all my sister who is the absolute epitome of kindness and positivity.

Thank you all for showing me and each other how much one person can be loved and supported by family and friends.

With gratitude and love,

Greta”

There was so much love surrounding me, so many people telling me I was courageous and inspiring and all of these things that I never would have thought to call myself. Where was it coming from? How could all of these people care so much? Who the hell was I to be on the receiving end of so much? I didn’t get it. I still don’t. But Lord, do I appreciate it.

Fuit Flies

I saw my first fruit fly today. Every summer they invade my shoebox apartment, taking the kitchen by storm no matter how many dishes I do and how inaccessible my fruit is. June and July see my friends coming over for dinner and swatting them away from their faces as they sit at my table. I hate fruit flies with every fiber of my being. I'm thinking about getting a pet bat to keep them in check. Or do bats only eat mosquitoes? I'm not sure. Either way, this year I'm determined to keep them out. I'm not quite sure how yet, but I'm working on it. At least there was only one today, so I have a head start on the little monsters. I'll be damned if I can't have flowers in my apartment for fear of providing fodder. This summer, my apartment will be immaculate and will be declared a no-fly zone (get it? No fly? Like no fruit flies and no flying?).

This morning I finally paid a properly-calculated check to Mayo Clinic. Sadly, it was almost $2,000. I kept looking at the Amount Due box on the bill, checking to make sure I'd read it right, checking that the decimal point was really where I thought it was. It was. I lifted my pen to my checkbook, filling out every non-monetary or signatory line I could before slowly writing out the total amount, letter by painful letter. I hovered over the signature line, took a deep breath and looked away as I scrawled my illegible signature. I sealed and stamped the enclosed envelope and wrote the return address in the corner, adjusting my four-line address for the three lines given.

Like the fly: one down, many more to go.

Gushy Brains!

I finally got the pictures of my brain from the two surgeries! Two show the grid of electrodes placed on the surface of my brain, one is my brain with the dura on it, and two show my brain without the the chunk they took out. Pretty cool stuff!! Enjoy!!

Lip Zits

I have a zit on my face. A really blatant one, right on my upper lip, taunting me. Lip zits are by far the most painful to pop. I mean exceedingly painful, but I was determined. Leaning forward to see it better, I placed one fingernail on each side and pressed through the pain until a chunk of white puss shot out and landed on the mirror. I kept going, wanting to make sure there was nothing left in the raised hole I'd created, and pretty sure there was, but I was unable to get it.

When I got out of the shower, the zit's ground zero hole was still all red and surrounded by pink. It needed to be hidden. I tried to put heavy-duty concealer on it, layer foundation over that and then top it off with some setting powder, but when I stepped back from the mirror, it just laughed at me. The red was covered - for the time, at least - but the bump of it stuck out so far that it caught light from the lamp across the room and cast its own shadow over my Chapsticked lips. I had been defeated.

In the past week I've broken out on my face, my chest and my back. It's gross. What's bothering me is that back zits have a nickname: bacne (pron: back-nee, like acne), but chest zits are totally left out. No nickname for the little red bumps that preclude me from wearing most of my shirts as I have an affinity for scoop necks.

Wednesday I was supposed to go back to Mayo and see my neurologist, who would tell me the results of the tests I'd had the two days before. Wednesday I was supposed to find out if there's still seizure activity in my brain or not. Wednesday, seven inches of snow covered a layer of ice that spanned the width and length of every street and highway in town. And out of town, for that matter. We had planned to leave the house at ten, giving us plenty of time to get to the one-o-clock appointment since it's only an hour and a half drive to Rochester, but the snow was still falling, thick, white flakes dancing quickly through the air. The tv said that the storm was moving South, toward Rochester. The driving conditions were growing more dangerous by the minute; it would be crazy to attempt a trip to Mayo.

I called the neurology office to see if I could reschedule my appointment for Monday, when I was planning to come down to see the surgeon. Would that be okay? Did he have any openings? I was so disappointed. I wanted so badly to see the results of those tests, to know if the surgeries worked, to know what was happening in my body. I had mentally prepared myself for whatever answer I would get; or at least prepared myself not to fall to the ground crying with either grief or gratitude. But no, that would be another day. I had all of this energy and emotion stored up and ready to go but nowhere to use it. The adrenaline evaporated, leaving me sapped, disappointed and angry. I so rarely get angry; I hate that feeling. I was angry at the snow, at the ice, at the world for keeping me scared and anxious.

The office called back at about eleven with a new time for my appointment, which they were able to get on Monday. The negative emotions inside of me were exhausting, but I mustered up a genuine thank you for all of her help.

I spent a lot of the day sleeping, reading and watching Hulu on my computer, and by dinner I was okay. I'd accepted that I was going to have a few more days of uncertainty. I knew I would be scared and impatient, but I learned how to deal with that in the months before the surgeries and I could do it again. So now I wait.

Since middle school, I've learned that stress has a funny (not ha ha funny) way of bringing friends with it, most of whom cause their own stresses. Specifically, I'm referring to zits. Lots of 'em. I hoped that they would go away once I heard definitively if there was any seizure activity still in my brain, but now I have three more days for my body to express how it feels about being in limbo by turning me into Pizza Face.

Wait, there's another undergrounder surfacing on my lip...