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 55^th 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.