Brenda's Brainstorm & Trevor, a T Man Production 2009 - 2022

Hello my fellow readers, it's Trevor or aka T Man once again, with our monthly tale. This time we are going to explore interruptions. This is something that Brenda experiences more than she would like. It can be during a conversation with someone, when another person decides to jump in and hijack it. This in all sincerity, makes Brenda angry. In the first place, she was having a nice conversation and probably forming her train of thought, which suddenly is gone, because of this intrusion. Yes, that is what it is, an intrusion.  Brenda has dealt with life experienced interruptions. It might be that you've never heard of these, but they are real and can be difficult to navigate at times. Remember back in the day when you would be watching your TV and all at once, an announcement would come on; "We are experiencing technical difficulties, PLEASE STAND BY!" It was usually during a storm or some other interruption. There was also this big photo that would appear right in t...

Hello my fellow readers and those of you who may have just found us, it's Trevor aka T Man with our monthly tale. Brenda has been feeling lost lately. A month from today, will be her 13th Craniversary or the Anniversary of her craniotomy. It's a big deal. Some in the real world keep telling her, she's lucky. Brenda does not believe in luck and you are also downplaying what she went through. Sure it wasn't a 13 or 14+ hour procedure, but she still had her head drilled open. It was under 2 hours and the neurosurgeon was able to get to her tumor, as it was easy to evict along with the tail. I love Brenda's sense of humor. The Eviction of Mini has gone many miles in sharing her brain tumor story. Brenda had what is referred to as a meningioma brain tumor. Let's get something straight right from the get go. It was a brain tumor!  I want to get into the meat of this tale. I love meat! BOL 90% of these types of brain tumors are considered to be benign, a word that Bren...

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 ...

Hello again! It's Trevor with our June tale. This time folks, we are going to delve into something deep and I'm not talking about digging for bones. BOL  We are going to share about Brenda's acquired brain injury, which was a result of her having a craniotomy performed on her right frontal lobe.  She was instantly inducted into the frontal lobers club. Belonging to this club was scary for Brenda at first. She didn't understand why she would start sobbing or become angry at the drop of a hat. She thought something was seriously wrong. The removal of this brain tumor was supposed to solve the problem, not create even bigger ones. That's not how life works, as we know it.  Frontal lobe syndrome was explained to Brenda by a professional this way. It can cause you to become angry quicker or easily brought to tears. It's caused by trauma to the brain. It is considered a brain injury. As was mentioned above, an acquired one. The frontal lobe has also been referred to a...

Greetings my fellow readers! Trevor here with our new tale intertwining both Arthritis and Brain Tumor Awareness Month. The reason being, Brenda has lived with RA for 30 years and is almost a 13 year brain tumor survivor. Her craniversary or the anniversary of her craniotomy falls on September 8th.  We are going to be focusing on the word fortitude. Webster defines fortitude as "strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage."  Brenda has certainly exhibited this in many aspects of her life. None more so than arising to the challenge of living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for 30 years now and continuing on her path as a brain tumor survivor. One cannot be separated from the other and this will be demonstrated with this tale.  When Brenda was first diagnosed with RA she felt her life was over in a sense. She was working full-time, single and 31 years old. Brenda was sole breadwinner even though her first rheumatologist s...

Hello and welcome to our April celebratory blog post. Of course it's Trevor here, bringing you all the juicy and pawmazing facts.  This past Tuesday, Brenda celebrated two significant events in her life. One being, working with CreakyJoints, (don't you just love that name?) BOL 9 years ago. It was the 1st time working with this great organization and it wouldn't be the last. At the time, we were not aware of that pawmazing fact, but things started transpiring the following year, all centered around Brenda taking a biologic. We are not going to get into that for this particular post. This is going to be all centered around her milestone that she also celebrated on April 20th. Here we go! BOL Brenda had her first injection of the biologic, Enbrel (etanercept) on April 20, 2001. Now you see where we are going with this tale. As our readers know, Brenda has been living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for almost 30 years. After almost 10 years, Brenda was offered a gift to start ...

Hello fellow readers and my people. BOL It's Trevor here with our March tale. To explain our title in depth, you have to understand first, that this is Brain Injury Awareness Month. We are going to delve through Brenda's journey not only of being a brain tumor survivor, but the remnants that were left behind.  Brenda has experienced 2 concussions or traumatic brain injuries involving incidents in her kitchen. We have shared about these before and will not be going into detail. We only share this as background for this tale. Brenda developed an acquired brain injury as a result of having had a craniotomy performed on September 8, 2008. She is almost at the twelve and a half year mark, which will be next Monday, March 8th. Her nonmalignant meningioma was located in the right frontal lobe. It was the size of a golf ball. Her mother named it "Mini" See where Brenda gets her sense of humor from? Dry, but don't you love it? BOL Brenda has what is called frontal lobe syn...