A Tale of Blue & Grey...

Hello my fellow readers and friends! It's Trevor aka T Man with our May tale. By our title, you might think that we are going to talk about The Civil War nevertheless, we are going to share about battles. Brenda deals with 2 challenges and it happens to be the awareness month for both, so this will be broken up in 2 parts. I think this is rather genius myself. BOL What do I know, I'm a dog. BOL 

Here we go! BOL Brenda lives with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and also was diagnosed by her current rheumatologist with OA, the most common type of arthritis. That kind involves her ankles, which makes it difficult to walk at times. You know how Brenda enjoys her walks. She enjoys seeing my kind and they always have a tail wag for her. BOL Howard the Border Collie is usually out for his walk in the morning. I kind of got off the track here, so we will continue. 

This month marks 31 years that Brenda has been living with RA. She no longer says suffers. It has been a battle and for the first 10 years, it was truly a war inside her body. This is where the blue comes in. The awareness color for arthritis is blue. GO BLUE! The colors for RA are purple and blue. Brenda did not realize that there were awareness colors until she found out on social media. 

Brenda fights every day and she wants you to know, that even if you need to take a day off to rest, you are fighting. That's what is called listening to your body. Contrary to what you might think, this is not an old person's disease. You can be diagnosed at any age, even babies. There are at least 100 kinds, so it can be difficult to diagnose. 

Moving is paramount for Brenda as it helps to keep her from getting so stiff. She tries to walk to and from work 5 times a week, which adds up to over a mile a day. When she couldn't walk this winter and she got rides from her coworkers, they all commented that she has quite a ways to walk. 

Brenda is using this month to spread awareness and HOPE for this disease. There have been so many classes of drugs that have come down the pike. There were no biologics the class that Brenda injects every week, when she was diagnosed. It was a difficult struggle for many years and even though her life is not perfect, it has become manageable to live with RA. It's funny though, it took another battle to make her see that she could live with RA.  This is where part 2 of our tale comes in. 

Brenda was diagnosed with a right frontal lobe meningioma on August 26, 2008. Nothing was definitive at this point, but she was told it was most likely benign a word Brenda has grown to despise. She would prefer you adopt the terminology of either noncancerous or nonmalignant.  That word benign gives an incorrect connotation, making it seem like it is harmless. Quite the contrary, they can be deadly. We need to share that there are at least 130 types of brain tumors. Meningiomas being the most primary but sadly, the least acknowledged, because of the connotation of that word we shared up above. 

Brenda had a chance to participate in her 2nd Head to the Hill with the National Brain Tumor Society. She discovered this wonderful organization a couple of years after becoming a brain tumor survivor. She had in previous years made phone calls to her representatives offices or sent the emails with a personal message included. The past 2 years Brenda has been able to participate virtually from the comfort of her own living space. She has become friends with 2 wonderful advocates. They ended up working together once again this year. 

Brenda had a chance this year to explain about the type of brain tumor she had, a right frontal lobe nonmalignant meninigoma. She even shared a photo of her MRI with the staff members of her senator and congressman. They only ended up having 2 meetings, but they were meaningful. 

Brenda went into full advocacy mode when she explained about what can happen to those who have been diagnosed with a meningioma. She explained that you can lose your sight, hearing, marriages ending up in divorce and even end up losing your job. She could have went on, but she only had about 2 minutes to make that connection. Doesn't sound so harmless now, does it? Brenda also shared about her frontal lobe syndrome and how she became creative and started writing. She even had a photo of me alongside the photo of her brain tumor to help illustrate our blog. 

One of the staff members remembered that Brenda shared a poem last year. That was the beauty of these meetings, they had already connected with the staff members last year. Brenda was also wearing her golf ball necklace as that was the size of her brain tumor. She spreads awareness wherever possible and I might add with class. BOL 

Speaking of class we are going to share something really cool at the end of this blog. First I want to say that the awareness color for brain tumors/brain cancers is gray or gray. Either one is acceptable. Brenda thinks in terms of grey matter. The awareness colors for meningioma are grey and purple. So now you know how Brenda tied this all together to spread awareness and HOPE! 

Now for something totally cool. One of Brenda's Meningioma Poppas, yes men get this type of brain tumor too, sent her something that his niece had made. When you see it, you will understand what Brenda had in mind for this tale. She got the inspiration today. 

Thank you Poppa Gary, for sending this beautiful scarf. She loves it and that was so thoughtful of you. I know you have been wanting to see it. She has worn it to work and received so many wonderful comments on it. 

That has been the blessing of this journey, connecting with some wonderful fellow brain tumor survivors, friends and care-partners. 

This has been another T Man Production. 

~T Man barking off~ 

                                                                    Blue & Grey Scarf