Driving Again-a Year after Brain Surgery

Now that the protective plate for my brain had been put in, and the incision healed, Jack took me to Superior Motors and helped me buy my '84 red Buick which I loved and have driven for many years since.

I wouldn't have to feel trapped anymore. I could get out of the house! I could go! But it had been so long since I had driven. So Jack called Gene B, a student driver instructor, to check my driving out before driving by myself. I drove slowly and with extreme caution; driving at first felt so unfamiliar. Gene passed me in spite of the fact I had to use my left foot on the pedals and drive with my limp right hand in my lap.

Treating the Infection at Home

It was a nasty complication.....infection had set in and would have to be treated intravenously. After three days in the hospital Jack was given a choice. I could remain in the hospital to have the infection treated or Jack could bring me home and treat the infection himself under the supervision of the Hospital Pharmaceutical Inc. Health Services which is a private home health service. They would supply the training, the medicine bags, the tubing, the needles and everything that would be needed. Jack elected to bring me a home. He would have to drive me back to Columbia every week to pick up another supply of medicine and to have a new Heparin lock inserted in my left arm which would allow him - to inject the bags of antibiotic medicine.

His instructions were:

1. Get bag out of refrigerator and warm it up

2. Replace old bag with new bag

3. Get rid of old medicine in tube before you let new medicine in.

4.Let new medicine down in tube- get rid of air bubbles in tube

5. Change tube each day new medicine in bubbles in tube

6. Use saline solution to clean out rubber end of IV

7. Put needle in IV.

8. Put heparin solution in IV.

9. Put saline solution in IV

Use 4 needles a day.

He makes a note to himself: Every time I put needle in rubber end of in, I wipe it with alcohol

This procedure every six hours, 2 PM, 8 PM, 2 AM, 8 AM, would take about 20 minutes and after eight weeks finally knocked the infection out.

We were both so glad to get back to sleeping through the night.

Complications from the Skull Replacement Plate

About a month later, because I was unable to see the top of my head in the mirror, I asked my daughter Sally, who is a nurse (on one of her many visits home to be of help to me) to please look at the incision and see why it continued to itch. She took a long look at my scalp....... and then told me she could see the plate.

She scrutinized the incision further and saw that it was oozing.

It hadn't healed. Evidently, some stitches had popped loose making it possible for Sally to see the underlying plate. So, back to the hospital again to restitch my scalp. But due to the scarred tissue left from the removal of the first brain tumors the scarred tissue left from the removal of the second brain tumor and scarred tissue from the plate just put in, it was terribly hard to pull the two sides of the incision back together. The surgeons had not been able to catch but one of the layers of skin.... which leaves a hole in my scalp.

Skull Replacement Plate=Slightly Less Paralysis

Dr. Paysinger seemed bewildered as to why I was showing signs of improvement in my right arm after the plate was put in. Instead of it just hanging limply by my side, I could now lift it slightly. I told him I was sure I knew why... Because, before the plate was put in, my scalp lay flat on my brain due to the large amount of diseased skull bone that had to be sawed out (making me look like a cone head) and was, evidently, putting a little pressure on my brain. But after the plate was put in, the plate lifted my scalp off my brain and the pressure was relieved.

The Plate that Protects my Brain

Even though the edges of the skull bone had been waxed during the removal of the tumor, the bone still felt sharp under my scalp. If I tried to sleep on my left side, where most of the skull had been sawed out, it hurt . If I tried to sleep on my right side, my paralyzed right arm would be cramped and send pre-seizure sensations. So since it was so hard to get comfortable, I had to take a sleeping pill and then sleep in the one position , on my back, for the twelve months until the neurosurgeons saw fit to go back in and put a plate in as a protection for my brain .

It was February, 1984, one year after the removal of the second brain tumor and about time for my birthday again. I would be 56. My head was being shaved for the third time and a plate would be surgically inserted. At last I would have protection for my brain. Because of the incision being slow to heal, I ended up having to remain in the hospital for nine days.......

Finally, Jack could take me home from the hospital to recover and to let the incision finish healing.

Disability Struggles Eased by Loving Friends!

...but friends were all so encouraging and meant so much to me.

By now I was speaking in short phrases and was slowly beginning to feel more comfortable having one-to-one conversations with friends who came to visit. It has been such a long time ago and I have forgotten so much.... but I must mention a few:

Sara S would come over to my house with her music books and play piano so she and I could enjoy trying to sing together.

One of these times she asked me what she could do to be of help to me. I hated to impose my reading on her, but I needed the practice and she had offered the help. It was a lovely day so we went outside to the terrace with the book and Sara listened to me laboriously read aloud. The pace was agonizingly slow. How slow? By the time I would get to the end of the sentence I would have forgotten what the beginning was. Sara listened intently though, needing to help me only a few times.

Charlotte F brought some religious, audio tapes for the two of us to listen to since she and I had been in a very meaningful prayer group with two other women for ten years before my first brain tumor. We soon gave up listening to the tape because I couldn't comprehend what was being said, so we moved on to something else. She had brought some duets so we could try to play the piano together. I was to play with my left hand... but I could never remember that a note had been made a sharp, or made a flat. I would play it as a natural every time; I could not remember. Time and time again I would play the note as a natural. You can imagine the sound. Poor Charlotte! It was certainly proof of friendship.

And Nancy A who was so active in and responsible for our being able to contact Dr. Billy Whetsell, Jr. at the time of my set back when we were so distraught.

Frances B, friend and a beautician, voluntarily came to me when I was still weak and not yet leaving the house, to trim my hair as it started growing back. After the trim we would go to the sun porch where we could sit down together so she could hold my hand to clip my fingernails. These visits meant so much to me, but she would accept no pay for her work, her time. I later started cutting my own hair, with my left hand.

Doris V was so generous to let us use her pool for both my exercising and swimming. Jack would take me and we would swim; Jack, normally and I, with my dangling right arm held beneath my body, would overhand with my left hand and scissor kick with my feet. I felt reasonably secure swimming in this manner. Then winter came and Anna W was so kind us use her indoor pool.

Emotions Resulting from My Brain Tumor

I had no confidence in myself now....
no self-esteem or sense of self-worth.
I didn't seem to “fit in” anywhere, anymore. I was slow; normal, busy people were fast and I was not able to keep up.

Self-esteem is a self-reinforcing characteristic. When we have confidence in our ability to think and act effectively, we can persevere when faced with life's challenges.

Talk by normal, busy people seemed frivolous and unimportant to me now. I was fighting to get my normalcy back while others were conversing about what to serve at a bridal luncheon or what color fingernail polish was that? I was struggling to be normal again and didn't know from day to day whether I would ever be able to speak right or able to use my right arm and hand again.

I was so insecure I hated for Jack to leave me and I felt like he left me so often to go play tennis... He would play at night and most every Sunday afternoon whether he had planned something for us to do together or not. If anybody called, he would leave me, so disappointed, and head out the door with tennis racket in hand. He couldn't understand why I couldn't be more flexible as he would say. The solution, in my disappointed mind, was to never plan anything to do ahead of time.

When he played tennis at night I was frightened. Suppose somebody were to come to the door! Because of the set back I felt so helpless. If only one of the children lived at home, I'm sure I wouldn't be so lonesome. But they all lived away. It was so quiet..............at night............................by myself.

I was totally dependent on Jack and was afraid I might lose him, to either another woman or to his tennis or to whatever he might desire more than coming home to me. I knew I couldn't compete with anybody or anything or any situation; I had no fight left in me. I was pitiful... like a wounded little puppy dog. He might very well find something more exciting than to come home to me.

I felt a hurt go through my heart. Many a night I would cry myself to sleep.
It is hard for a busy person to comprehend how one feels who has nothing to do. I had nothing to do because I could do nothing....nothing with which to keep myself busy...nothing to be interested in...nothing to make my life feel worthwhile....nothing to give a sense of accomplishment or meaning.

I was so bored... until Julie brought me the stand for counted cross-stitching. Then I would sit by the hour and try to count and stitch until I had made twenty little Christmas tree ornaments to give to my friends.

For a normal person the brain is the seat of consciousness, thought, memory, reason, judgments AND emotion. But there I was, incapable of thinking and was overloaded with emotion……..