Friday, October 26, 2007

Tumor in the Speech Area

Each of our four children needed to be informed of my condition, a suspected second brain tumor. Three out of the four could come home Saturday.

Saturday was a gorgeous, warm February day and the whole family was sitting outside talking and sunning in the courtyard behind our house when Claire B. came over from next door. She and I chatted a little while, then she told me she had heard the news and that she was so very sorry.

Jack drove me up to Columbia the next day, Sunday, February 20, 1983, the day before my 55th birthday, to admit me to the Richland Memorial Hospital. I was to have the same neurosurgeon, Dr. Danny Paysinger, in whom I had grown to have great confidence.

Mary Ann R and Joan M drove up to Columbia Sunday afternoon to visit me and Carlos G, minister at St. Andrews, came also. According to Eleanor’s notes that she jotted down all during my stay in the hospital Sara S, Donna R and Nancy A called later. Nancy told Eleanor that she had noticed Ashlyn being put out with Jack. That they had fussed regarding her tennis. …What happened was that about a week before I found the tumor, Jack was out riding his bicycle while I played tennis with the girls. He decided to ride by the tennis courts and then stopped to watch us play. I was very conscious of his being there watching and then proceeded to miss four consecutive shots. When I got home he had plenty to say about my poor tennis playing… Nancy was questioning in hindsight, “why Jack hadn’t noticed at tennis that something was wrong!”

After having an arteriogram on Monday, it was determined that the tumor was on the “speech area” of my brain. I can imagine how this must have affected Eleanor, she being a Speech Pathologist in Summerville, SC herself. She would better understand and, maybe, know too much about the ramification of the tumor being on this area. I hadn’t thought to ask, so I didn’t know where the tumor was.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Something Abnormal


Months later Claire B, my interior decorator and next door neighbor, and I were standing, in what was to become the guest wing of our new house, discussing which wallpaper to use in the guest bedroom when I began to feel real dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. There was nowhere to sit down so I just leaned my back against an unfinished upright and sank to the floor to a squatting position. Soo the dizziness passed away. I called the doctor the next morning and told him about my dizzy spell so he called in a prescription for Anti-Vert from the pharmacy and this seemed to take care of the problem. But little did I realize how much lay ahead of me.

At another time, Jack noticed that I was having trouble understanding some things that I normally would have been able to understand easily. AS we look back over it now, he didn’t know about my dizzy spell and I didn’t know I was having trouble understanding, so neither of us suspected anything. We were so busy trying to finish up the new house.

Finally, we moved in July 4, 1982. We got the boxes unpacked, the books on the bookshelves and the pictures hung. We were having such a good time entertaining our friends in our new house… a church choir supper, a party for our tennis group, my church circle, our supper club, etc.

Eleanor came for Christmas, 1982 and she noticed that I was having a problem with my memory. I brushed it aside with, “I don’t think anything could be wrong with me; I feel too good… and it’s been nearly nine years since I had the brain tumor. And, too,” I argued, “we were told that it would be most unlikely for me to ever have another one.”

But, after about two months, I woke up three consecutive mornings with bad headaches that seemed to not want to go away. I started putting two and two together and realized that I was feeling more tired than usual and my tennis game was not up to par… and that dizzy spell! I knew, since we now had a CT scanner in our Orangeburg Hospital, I should go have a scan made.

My appointment was Friday, February 18, 1983. Jack and I had no sooner walked in the door from the hospital than our family physician called. We, Jack on one telephone and I on another, we were told that “something abnormal showed up on the scan! It was big! And in that same general area as the first brain tumor”. I felt numb… I could hardly take in what I was hearing. I was to be admitted to the Richland Memorial Hospital in Columbia by two o’clock Sunday afternoon. Jack was to pick up the CT Scans from our Orangeburg Hospital to take up to the Richland Memorial Hospital for consultation.

Four Years Later


October 27, 1980, Jack and I bought a lot on one of the Country Club golf course ponds, and I began drawing floor plans for a new house with some special features that would fit all our needs. When Larry B, after making numerous helpful suggestions, finished drawing the complete set of plans, we broke ground in June, 1981 on Jack’s 53rd birthday, and started building.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Julie’s Marriage

Dr. Paysinger dismissed me, September 6, 1975, as my last post-operative appointment for I was “doing exceedingly well” and had, when tested, no sensory or motor deficit. I was playing a lot of tennis, doing most of my house and yard work, and feeling great!

Julie and Tim S. were married May 29, 1976, right after Julie’s graduation from college, and I, at last, got to wear my “mother-of-the-bride gown with shoes dyed to match”!

The bridal luncheon had been given earlier that day by Jack’s mother, Julie’s grandmother, and as a thank-you for being in her wedding, Julie took this opportunity to give each of her bridesmaids a little gift. When a small package was handed to me also, I was taken aback and very surprised. This must be a mistake! I was not a bridesmaid! In my bewilderment, I opened the gift… four little gold beads on a gold chain… with this message inside:

This is to celebrate
The miracle of your recovery.
These 4 beads represent
The love from your 4
Children. We appreciate
All you’ve given.
Love,
Julie

Four little beads… my four precious children…
exactly two years since the brain tumor. I immediately loved the gift… and wear the little necklace all the time. It has become a part of me. I will treasure it always. I knew this was to be Julie’s “special time” with her wedding, but I was finding it to be a very “special time” for me, also. It was hard to hold back the tears.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Rare Tumor? WRONG!

Somewhere along the line Jack and I were told that the kind of tumor I had was very rare and were given the impression that I would never have another one. Our Orangeburg Hospital had no CT scanner at this time anyway, so we dismissed it from our minds.

Jesus – Lord Over My Convalescence

“I’m scared to death to get up here before the congregation like this, but I just couldn’t miss the opportunity to thank all y’all for your many kindnesses and to thank my Lord for His healing. I love Him so and want so much to please Him. I pray this will be to his glory.

“Many of you know about my past experience of having a brain tumor removed May 30, 1974. It all started back in the fall of 1973 when I began suffering, off and on, from what I thought to be depression…” and then I went on and told them about the nine shock treatments, the removal of the brain tumor and having to miss Eleanor’s wedding. I reminded them that “some of you, while I was in the hospital, brought food to our house on a regular basis and continued to do so even when I returned home. Others of you came by and helped Eleanor with her wedding plans. Some even put up shelves and covered them with white material in order to display the wedding gifts. What an outpouring of love and concern! I know God comes to people through other people, and I thank you so much for letting our Lord use you… to help take care of my family when we needed you so badly.

The Lord certainly is at work in
Your hearts and we praise him for the
Works of compassion He has performed
Through you.

“Your many visits, encouraging letters and cheerful cards, the beautiful flowers, your wonderful thoughtful gestures all meant so much to me. As Bennett B wrote in a later letter to Jack and me before he died with ALS, Lou Gehrig disease, ‘Blessed are those who find ways and words to comfort others.’

“2 Corinthians 1:3-4 in the Living Bible says, ‘What a wonderful God we have – He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does He do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them the same help and comfort God has given us.’

“I’m so thankful for caring people who are willing to take time out of busy schedules to do for others. Thank you so much. But most of all, I thank you for your prayers. When Gerry P, our church secretary, received word Wednesday that I was scheduled to have brain surgery the next morning, she passed the word around by telephone and many friends (about 100 I’m told), came here to the Sanctuary while the operation was going on to offer prayers on my behalf. When I heard this I was so touched! You cannot know how good and how loved that made me feel. I thank you for each and every prayer that was prayed for me, for I know prayer makes a difference. In fact, I often think, what if nobody had prayed for me…?

I feel that our Lord uses (not causes, but uses or allows) these difficult times of sickness or troubles to help us grow spiritually, for it is in times like these that we realize how helpless and inadequate we are without Him, and learn quickly how very much we need Him. As I lay up there in my hospital bed in Columbia, I felt wholly dependency on Him. I was completely in His hands. He held my future. Fear not, I, the Lord, am in control. I felt His nearness, and His love like I had never experienced it before. I felt a peace and a feel of being ‘taken care of’, a feeling of being ‘wrapped in His love’. It was so wonderful!

“I don’t know why it is that we sometimes have to almost lose something before we can really appreciate it. And I do, more than ever before, appreciate and am thankful for my life and for each day the Lord gives me to live in this beautiful world He has made for us. “I love to begin my day by looking out the window at the warm sunshine, or listening to a bird’s song and envisioning God out there and saying to Him:

Good morning, Lord,
This is Your day.
I am Your child,
Show me Your way.

Or sometimes say: This is the day that You, Lord, have made.
I will rejoice and be glad in it.

“I am trying real hard, for my family’s sake, to be a new and better Ashlyn rather than the old, depressed Ashlyn I was. Now Jack says he has a new wife! And then, I say ‘I have a new life’.

Could we bow in prayer please:

“I thank You, Lord, for this day. I thank You for these wonderful friends, who have let You work through them on my behalf. I thank You for my precious family… and for the privilege of coming to You in prayer. I utter this in Jesus’ name. Amen”.

I was so in love with my Lord!