The Move and Surgery

By the time they had gotten me downstairs at the Baptist Hospital I was in a state of exhaustion. Jack suggested to Julie (our 20 year old daughter) that she and I ride in the back seat of the car so I could put my head in her lap while he drove to the Richland Memorial Hospital. She and I got in, and I lay my head in her lap. Julie told me later it was all she could do to hold back the tears. She said she was sure if she were to break down it would frighten and upset me, so she tried desperately to stay calm and reassuring in spite of fearing the worst. So many thoughts went racing through her mind: Would the tumor already have caused permanent damage? Mama was showing signs of dementia! What about the nine shock treatments? Would the tumor be malignant? Would Mama even make it through the operation?

When we arrived at the Richland Memorial Hospital and they finally got me settled in my room and in the bed, a sweet hall nurse could see that Julie was upset and about to cry, so she motioned for Julie to come help her get a pillow from the linen closet. She then tried to calm Julie’s fears by convincing her that she was sure her mother would be all right.

That night I asked Jack what I was doing in this other hospital. He told me that I had a brain tumor that would have to be removed in the morning and that we were just going to trust the Lord and the neurosurgeons.

The next morning, Thursday May 30, my head was shaved and I was taken in for surgery. The tumor was in the best possible location for removal and was known as a meningioma, which is a tumor growing from the dura or lining of the brain. Mine was the size of a tangerine and wasn’t malignant! After the removal of the tumor a cranioplastic plate which substitutes for the diseased portion of my skullbone, was wired in place with a #28 stainless steel wire before my scalp flap was returned to its normal position. Then a sterile dressing was applied. With the tumor out of my head I was on my way to making a quick and complete recovery.

Brain Scan and Neurosurgical Evaluation

Brain Scan

Monday morning May 27, 1974 at the Baptist Hospital, I was given a CT (computerized tomography) Brain Scan to determine whether I did, indeed, have a tumor. The scan showed I did… a large frontal lobe tumor on the left side of my head. The shock treatments had been so unnecessary! So unneeded!

Neurosurgical Evaluation and Recommendations

Tuesday, May 28, a neurosurgical evaluation and recommendation were made. Dr. Danny Paysinger, a neurosurgeon, would perform the operation. When he examined me later he found: “The patient is very demented. She has a very short attention span with no memory or recall of the moment. She cannot handle figures and the examination is extremely difficult because of the patient’s inability to carry out instructions even of a simple nature”.

Then Wednesday, May 29, I was given an Arteriogram to determine more about the tumor. The location proved to be favorable; the tumor would be accessible.

Jack, in Orangeburg, was called immediately and his permission obtained for brain surgery. He was told I would be operated on the next morning and that he should come up to Columbia that afternoon and move me from the Baptist Hospital to the Richland Memorial Hospital where an operating room would be available at that time. So Jack and our middle daughter, Julie, drove up to Columbia that afternoon to move me and my things from one hospital to the other.

Second Appointment

Second Appointment

I can’t remember very much about the April 17 session but I’m sure I would have talked with Dr. Huggins about the fact that after Daddy died in 1980 a Mrs. Turner had been hired by my brother to live with Mother as a companion and take care of her, and that Mother had begun showing signs of senility, and that Mrs. Turner was going to quit because Mother was so “out of touch” with reality. It seemed that Mother would go to the back door and call my daddy who had been dead for some time, “Milton… ah… Milton”, thinking he was in the backyard tending his rose bushes. Then, later, she got where she didn’t trust anybody so she hid the silver goblets under her bed and her checkbook between the mattress and the springs. One time, when dressing, she put her slip on over her dress. When she reached the point that she was no longer able to control her bladder and required constant care, it became necessary to put her in a nursing home. She, then, would tell us that “they” were digging a hole at the end of the nursing home building and wanted to put her in it. And that “they” had poison in the paint on the ceiling which would fall, as she lay on her back in her bed, into her eyes and make them itch.

I would have explained to Dr. Huggins that Mother had hay fever every spring and that was the reason for her eyes itching. When we would tell Mother that there was no hole being dug at the end of the building and no poison in the paint on the ceiling, she would insist that we didn’t know what we were talking about. Before Mother died in ’72 she was transferred to Craft-Farrow in Columbia and Eleanor, being at Columbia College, would visit and check on her nearly every day. I can remember, at that time, hoping that I would never have to end up like mother did.