My Diagnosis - And The Hits Just Keep On Coming...

02.06.2013  - And the Hits Just Keep on Coming

So I left you off with a little snippet of what my Mom has been through, and a teaser of some drama. So here it goes. It was the week of November 14th-18th, the biggest Karting race in North America, maybe even the Americas in general...SKUSA SuperNationals hosted at The Rio, here in Las Vegas. My Mom had been visiting for a week prior and would be leaving shortly afterwards; the rest of my side of the family was coming in just for the race as my brother would be competing. Some of you may understand, being that most of you are close racing friends, others may pickup on it due to other sports or hobbies that your family had been engulfed in, just how life just changes gears when something like this is going on. I took vacation time out of work and even packed a bag so I could stay at the hotel, even though I lived 15 minutes away from the track; I had racing on the brain and nothing else. Mom stayed at my house, with her newest favorite member of the family, Mason; what grandma in their right mind would want to stay away from such a wonderful child. She would drive down with my wife or her sister, my Aunt Mary, and hang out at the track almost daily; she still showed no signs of slowing.

Everything was hunky-dory, as she would say, until Sunday, or "Super Sunday!" as it was known at the track. My wife, who was sleeping upstairs in our bedroom, had received a call from my Mom downstairs in the guest room calling for help as she couldn't feel the right side of her body and couldn't get out of bed. Mom ended up at Valley Hospital and was being tested for strokes and brain tumors. All of this was happening without my or my younger brother knowing; she didn't want to clutter our concentration for the big race, like I said in my last post, she was always thinking of others. After the race was over, Dad, who knew all along, seemed rushed to get everything packed up and going; he wanted to get to the hospital and we didn't understand the rush. When the question arose as to why we HAD to go, he dropped the bomb on us; he didn't have too many details, besides her being there, so it actually didn't devastate us...yet. After arriving at the hospital and seeing Mom, it hurt; you never want to see anyone close to you in the hospital, especially your Mom...especially MY Mom. They were calling it a "mini-seizure" and that there was a tumor in her brain. The doctors here weren't very hopeful with her prognosis and were going to continue tests; my Mom just wanted to go home to City of Hope. During this entire episode, my Mom was still trying to make sure everybody was comfortable and apologizing for creating such a hassle; it was confusing to the nurses and doctors as to why she acted this way, but it was normal for us. To cut a long story short, she ended up being released, finally, and we were able to transport her back down to So-Cal. After being put on another treatment that was supposed to have a 10% chance of working, she was back to gardening, cleaning house, cooking, and even working for my Dad's electrical business; life went back to "normal" for her, she is a fighter.


Now lets scroll forward a month, to my debacle that I’ve dragged everybody into. I believe were back to the 18th of December, and not a creature was stirring; well actually a lot of creatures were, mostly nurses poking and prodding at me throughout the night; even the in-house insurance representative come by in the middle of this night to get my co-pay-yes, I know. You're probably asking what the point of my two stories about my Mom was, well, it will come more and more apparent as my story goes on; however, it begins to set it in today. This is the morning that I start to understand that I have a real issue going on; this is the morning that I meet Dr. Singh. He seemed like a very well mannered, smart and caring individual; I really liked him and it sucks in the future, because I accidentally got him through a paperwork mix-up. Although he had a solid character, and seemed to be very astute, he was also confused at the cause, and the severity of my condition. He couldn't figure out how a 27 year old, that appeared to be healthy on the outside, non-drug user, non-alcohol drinker could be burning through a liter of "bi-carb" every five hours and not show signs of any sort of recovery. He even re-asked me about my "street drug" usage, twice. He mentioned how my numbers were improved, but only marginally, and how I should be way ahead of the curve by now; I did a lot of nodding, considering the drugs I was on. Due to my sickness, well probably more-so my kidney issues, I was nauseous, severely achy, had cramps, the room was constantly spinning, my blood pressure (BP) was through the roof and my temperature was feverish. The upside is that I had Morphine, Percocet, or Prescription Strength Tylenol to help with the pain, and nausea meds for my stomach-I was set. Prior to leaving, Dr. Singh wanted to make sure I was informed as to where the testing might lead. None of the testing was invasive until he mentioned the Biopsy; that's when I took a lesson from my Mom and sucked it up and began to take this adventure real serious.  Although I was very out of it due to the aforementioned drugs, I was on the ball about keeping a big majority of my friends and family updated through text and Face book; I'm sure this was my way of distracting myself considering as I only had 2-1/2 channels to watch. Moments later, my breakfast shows up-French toast and eggs with some fruit on the side. Meals show up throughout the day, even if you request not to be fed. To my surprise, and I am sure everybody else's surprise that's reading this, the meal was actually good; I'd pay for it at a restaurant. Ok, let’s not get too crazy now. Even though I was looking forward to my hospital stay, at least three times a day, I had asked Christa to bring me something edible from the magical, mystical, outside world; In & Out was my request but that didn't happen until months later. Boy was it a good thing she brought me something because out of all the different choices of meals I could have throughout the day, french toast was the only one that the hospital couldn’t botch. 

It wouldn't be until around 7 pm that I would hear anything more from the doctors and this is when I met my General Physician. When she came in, she listened to my lungs and heart and squeezed my ankles, like every body else, and then gave me nearly the same spiel about my numbers not improving like they should be. I had gotten so used to hearing that my numbers were improving, just not like they should be; that the conversation almost literally played itself out before the doctor actually said the words; I was on hospital time now and there was nothing I could do about it.

All this time I had spent texting and FBing my ordeal to family and friends that wanted to hear updates; occasionally I received a phone call or text from friends that had heard about my ordeal and were concerned, I was really beginning to feel the love. However, now that I’m blogging about it you can read about it whenever you’d like, well really whenever I get around to finishing it up. This concludes today’s broadcast schedule, nevertheless there are other reads on the site and you can always check out the upcoming events page to see how you can help.