Do They Know it's Christmas?

In regards to my adventure on Christmas for those of you that heard of it but not actually what happened...

I knew it was unwise to try and finish my shopping on Christmas Eve, but I really wanted to exchange one of the books I bought for another one. That's reasonable, right? Well apparently not. The crowds weren't bad, the lines not too long and Borders still had what I wanted in stock. Unfortunately my body didn't receive the memo that it was Christmas Eve and it's not allowed to misbehave. While shopping for books I started seeing some stars all over the store which was strange because I didn't recall seeing any stars the last time I was there. The bright stars turned to dizziness, dizziness turned to headache, headache to migraine, and by the time I arrived back home... it was time to turn around and head to the ER.

I know it might seem strange that a migraine is cause for a trip to the ER, but because the of tumor growth/thickening in my brain, there is the risk of complications in my brain and of course headaches and nausea are two of the symptoms. By the time we reached the ER my speech was slurred, left hand numb and I was spaced out. It was definitely scary at the time, but after a long few hours I was admitted and moved up to another floor to spend the night. The CT scans showed no new change in the brain (thank the Lord) and after a good night sleep (aided by some nice drugs) I woke up feeling better. After a morning / afternoon of more testing I was home around 5pm Christmas day! The End.

Later this evening, my parents and I will be heading to Pittsburgh to meet with a Doctor about a clinical trial of some medication that is being developed to treat Ependymomas in a similar fashion to a Chemo drug. We are hopeful that this new method might be effective on my tumors, otherwise we wouldn't be driving down there. I'll probably put a new post up when we get back with an update.

  Thank you for your support, it means a lot!
                      - Patrick