Tale of a Square Peg...

Hello Trevor here, with our July tale right off the bat. Brenda has been wanting my paws to hit the keyboard to share this poignant tale. Brenda feels like a square peg at times, not feeling the community spirit that is preached. Sadly, that has been in the brain tumor community too. We are not sharing this to make anyone feel bad, but to perhaps help someone out there, who may have the same mindset. 

Brenda has been a brain tumor survivor for almost 13 years and yes, she still struggles even though her right frontal lobe nonmalignant meningioma brain tumor was removed entirely. She was left with remnants of big feelings, as we touched on in last month's blog post. Brenda also deals with head pain and oddly enough, some numbness also. Nerves are a strange animal, not as strange as good old Trevor here. Sorry, I got off the track a bit. BOL Back to our tale. 

Brenda also deals with vertigo at times and her PCP was kind enough to fill her prescription without her even having to ask him. He is kind that way. Brenda had a nice talk with him. He asked her if she was thinking of retiring in the future. A lot depends on her health and also she feels that she is still valuable and he agreed with that statement. That made Brenda feel good. Brenda is not in the norm when it comes to still holding down a full-time job after a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Statistics show that within 10 years after diagnosis, disability usually occurs. Brenda defied those statistics. It's rare and that is where the square peg mentality comes in. 

Fitting in is overrated, but society makes such a noise about it. In my language, that would be barking up a storm. BOL 

Brenda was told by her neurosurgeon to come back if she had any problems. He didn't feel the need for yearly scans, like so many of her brain tumor friends go through. She has contacted him several times and the head pain was something that could not be explained. Brenda thinks it's all related to having had a craniotomy, which involved having her head drilled open. I would think that might cause some trauma. 

So when she enters a chat room and the other participants are talking about their recent MRI or waiting for results, Brenda cannot relate because she got her results that same evening. She also had what was considered a benign brain tumor, but we prefer to use the words nonmalignant or noncancerous. Benign does not get the respect, as it makes it appear to be harmless. Nothing should be in your head in the first place. 

Brenda made a point of stressing in the book that she coauthored; Real Life Diaries: Living with a Brain Injury about the use of that nasty word benign. Please don't refer to her brain tumor that way. Give it the respect it deserves. Brenda went through all the things involved. She had a right frontal lobe craniotomy performed on September 8, 2008. Her meningioma was the size of a golf ball. It was thought to have been there at least 20 years, as they grow slowly. 

Brenda deals with things getting on her nerves, such as high pitched noises, even whistling and that awful train that blows its horn so early in the morning. The cars that wiz by, especially some of those mufflers, that need to be taken care of. We are getting specific here. It's not you have your brain tumor removed and go on your merry way. Life has never been the same for Brenda since that day.

Case in point; when the physical therapists came in the room and wanted Brenda to do some range of motion, which she handled fine. It was when they wanted her to do something such as bending her toes toward them or toward her, she had to think about how to do it. Even blowing that ball to make it rise, so her lungs would stay clear. Brenda was told that she was doing it wrong. That frustrated her. Even now after almost 13 years, she still has to be allowed to think things through, before acting on them.

Brenda prefers to go shopping alone, as she can plan her route and go at her own pace. She feels rushed when she is with someone else and is fearful of forgetting something that she may need. She loves the grocery delivery service. I think she will be using this permanently. 

Brenda says it's scary to admit some of this because of what others may think. Who cares? She is a brain tumor survivor and that is a big deal. 

Brenda was so happy to be able to participate in several writing projects. She loved being editor of an online publication which she did for 3 years. She branched out and started contributing to several books and even ended up coauthoring not 1, but 2 books in the Real Life Diaries Series. 

This square peg business is probably what it feels to be different for Brenda. She was the youngest of 5 girls, who all had their thing. Brenda was a sickly child, almost not passing the 4th grade, because she missed so many days of school. By some miracle, she kept up with her homework and was able to advance to 5th grade.

Brenda has been on the same biologic for 20 years now. Again, not the norm and she discussed that with her PCP also. He thinks she is doing well living with RA. 

Brenda decided a long time ago, that she would march to the beat of her own drum. If that makes her a square peg, so be it. I say celebrate who you are and work with what you've got. Brenda has a lot to offer as you will see in our illustration at the end of this tale. Brenda designed this years ago, before Elton John's book ME came out. 

We hope you have enjoyed another T Man Production. 

Until next month, let the square peg in you shine brightly! 

~T Man~

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