Nothing Important

So I started back at school to sort of prove to myself and to others that I could do it. Well, it's not been nearly as easy as I thought it would be and I was getting pretty discouraged because my grades have BARELY been passing. Before (brain surgery) I made all "A"s pretty easily. Not this time. Anyway, last night we were handed back our most recent tests in my Anatomy & Physiology 2 class and I made my first "A" of the semester!!!!!!!!!! Just the encouragement that I needed. I can and will finish college because I refuse my dream of graduating to be stolen by this stupid brain tumor.

That being said, the last couple of weeks have been hard. I haven't felt well at all and it all began with a stomach virus that meant that I couldn't keep any of my "brain" meds in, which meant that I ended up with a headache so bad that I was seeing double. But today I feel like living again. Not great, but a whole lot better.

I have days where I just want to give up and say, "What's the use?" But then I get so angry at the things that have been "stolen" because of the tumor/surgery that something in me wants to fight. I want to show myself and this world that even though I might have suffered greatly - I can still achieve some of my dreams. Why not, right?

Ugh...

The headaches have been back big-time. I'm not doing well in school and find that on tests it's the stupid stuff that I have a hard time with. Head hurt last night so didn't sleep well and up early. 10 full months this Friday. I have seen a remarkable improvement, but there are "signs" that I'm not out of the woods yet. *big sigh*

Yesterday was another reminder...

Yesterday I had my annual eye examination. I have not been since the brain surgery, so I had to go through the whole spill with the optometrist. I hate even talking about it because people are always shocked and then make all kinds of comments on how great I must be feeling and how great I look. I know that no one means harm, but I cringe because little do they know... I was already in a bad mood, so I didn't hold much back yesterday. I basically said, "No, I don't feel great. I have headaches every single day of my life, some days are so bad that I can barely get out of bed. My memory is full of holes and I can get easily confused. I had to quit working, so now we are broke and struggling. Nope, I definately don't feel any better." And my comments were just met by wide eyed stares because my poor audiance was at a loss for words.

So anyway, my vision has changed some, so the first words out of my eye doctors mouth were, "Let's just look and make sure no eye tumors are detected." Of course that just leds me to freak completely out. Eye tumors???? WHAT?!?!?!? I don't want an eye tumor! I don't want any tumor!!!

I went through a battery of tests, and thankfully no tumor was spotted. However, from now on every visit will include these tests just to "make sure". And of course our insurance renewal period was last year at the same time that we were going through this whole brain tumor/surgery thing, so my husband failed to renew our vision insurance. Lovely. That means that I'll get to be blurry for a couple months until his 2009 insurance kicks in. Fun stuff, huh?

So we get in the car and my husband could not understand why I was upset. Maybe it was stupid, but the fear that caught my breath hearing that the eye doctor wanted to make sure that I didn't have any eye tumors was enough to make me boil with rage. "Normal" people don't have to worry with such things and I don't want to either... And I just get grumpy whenever people talk about how wonderful it is that I'm still alive and doing oh so well. I guess I get grumpy because I do wish their words were true. I wish every day I felt great. I wish that I didn't take 50 medications and tote around a pill box. I wish that hearing my kids talk excitedly and loudly didn't cause my head to split open. *sigh*

I'm being silly, I know, but I just want so badly for this whole tumor/surgery thing to be OVER.