I need to talk.
My life is going to change radically on next Tuesday morning. Last Tuesday at midnight I had a masive seizure which only except for the Grace Of God would have killed me.
This seizure happened at work and in front of my partner and another paramedic. My O2 sats dropped to 40 and my EKG bounced between 140 and 40. I was completely unresponsive to anything. Had this seizure happened at home or 10 minutes later when my partner and the other medic would have been asleep, I would have died from it.
As it was, they were able to get me entubated and placed on a ventilator which stabilized my O2 sats in mere seconds. They called for a helicopter for transport me to Shands UF Stroke Trauma Center but the weather did not allow it to fly.
They transferred me to Shands Lake City and I was immediately run through a Ct scanner. The fastest ambulance in the fleet was brought to that ER and taken out of service to be held for me. The CT scan indicated a brain bleed in the L Temporal Lobe.
I was unaware of any part of what was going on that night as I was completely unresponsive. Luckily, everyone from the medics to the hospital staff and the Trauma Center staff all knew me on a first name basis. I was considered "Family" by everyone involved.
At that time a 28 minute transport of the 48 miles to Shands UF Trauma center was done and I was immediately placed in a MRI and it was found that it was not a stroke brain bleed but a golf ball sized brain tumor. According to the Neurosurgeon, The mistake is typical and the seizure is usually the first indication of the Tumor. The tumor is called a Glialoma and it develops only in the brain and is not there as a result of a cancer somewhere else spreading there.
Since the finding of the tumor, a lot of things have been happening. The good news is I am fully physically and mentally able to function for the next few days until the surgery as long as I take anti seizure meds. YES, it can be removed. The tumor is located in the L Temporal lobe between and beneith the two speech centers. Unfortunately, it is located in the middle of a large memory section. This means there is, most probably going to be a huge change in who I am and what I know after the removal of the Tumor. I convinced the Neuro surgeon to allow me to leave the hospital and use today to get my life in order.
I will be at my attorney's office this morning getting POA for the wife. Everything else is pretty well covered. The expense is covered 100% by the VA and they are able to bill my employers provided BCBS policy which has a huge deductible and has huge copays and is very expensive. My premium payment and copays exceed $5K per year for just me to be covered. My VA coverage is free with Zero Deductible and Zero Copays.
As it stands, nobody knows how much of a knowledge and personality change is going to happen as a result of this surgery.
I am asking that everyone who will, please pray for me and start looking for me again sometime around the end of next week.
I love all of you and will never regret a minute of time I have spent here.
