Sunday, May 23, 2010

Second Glance

Hello again. This post falls under the "History" category.

As you may know Dana has been suffering from Peripheral Neuropathy in her legs and feet for almost 10 yrs. It's the sort of thing that many diabetes patients get but she was never diagnosed with that until a few years ago when she was taking medicine that spikes your blood sugar. Muscles twitch and tense for no apparent reason. Nerves in the feet go from icy cold to intense heat to nail-driving pain at random moments without warning or explanation. She tries a new "specialist" every few years but it's been no hope.

Last year she went to see a Neurologist in Geneva, Dr S, who boasted "the buck stops here, I will get to the bottom of this" proceeded to order an MRI to look for MS, which she's been tested for previously, and an excruciating nerve conduction study. He then essentially tossed all the data in the basement. He sort of said what the problem was but had no plan on how to fix it. Never bothered to call back for a follow-up even after multiple attempts on our part to try. The company that performed the MRI faxed us a copy of the report, which basically said nothing significant. No MS, again. I guess the buck continued without stopping...

A few days later we got another fax from the MRI company. Evidently the radiologist looked at the scans again and reported a small mass that could be a meningioma. I remember reading this over the phone to Dana and she told me to Google it, find out what it is and call her back.

"So....I have a brain tumor???" Certainly not what we were expecting. Thus begins the emotional devastation. Terror. Anxiety. Fear. Death? Why? This is so unfair. These are the time when we have to look hard to see God is at work in our lives. Our pastor James MacDonald was working through a series about trials as he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer around the same time we got our news. It's hard to see us "coming forth as gold" at presently but when we do God gets the glory.

We still wonder...why did the radiologist take a second look? We may never know. Perhaps she was driving home and saw an owl in the road...
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