I wish I could say that year 2 was uneventful & healing. Unfortunately, I just don't have that kind of luck.
I started feeling weird around August 2014: blurry vision, balance issues, neuropathy in my hands and feet. I just thought it was remaining symptoms from chemo, which ended just before the new year.
Then, I got Bell's Palsy, where half of my face was paralyzed. My aunt immediately ordered a brain scan for later that day, thinking that we would just "rule out" brain tumors, and she gave me a Rx for steroids to treat the Bell's Palsy.
The next day, she called me with the results, that we were hoping to rule out. I got an appointment with the radiation oncologist within a week. I had 15 rounds of whole brain radiation, which sucked like you could not possibly imagine.
I didn't really write a lot about the experience, mostly because I was stressed out, exhausted, and didn't really know how to put into words all the things I was feeling. I started the radiation treatments on 10/23, 2 days before my birthday. I finished just before Thanksgiving. I never want to have radiation again. It took me months to recover, I worked the whole time. I didn't have leave to take time off to rest, so I just pushed through the whole thing. I spent most of my time at home sleeping. I didn't do any of the fun holiday things I wanted to do, like bake cookies, crochet ornaments, make crafty things to give as gifts to my friends & family.
So here I am, starting Year 3, hoping for the best. Hoping to bank some actual vacation time so that I can take an actual vacation without worrying about taking unpaid leave. Hoping, in the meantime, that I can find some relaxing "long" weekends to go visit friends and family who are out of state.
Hoping that all my scans and tests come back at least status quo.
