200!

This is my 200th blip! Not such a momentous event really, considering that today is the anniversary of 9/11.

That event and today's anniversary made me think of another, much more personal event that made my life come crazing down around my ear, literally. Meet 'my lump' or better known as an Acoustic Neuroma / Vestibular Schwannoma / OhGreat / WTF etc. Some of my followers know from experience what this is. For the others let me explain: what you're looking at is a cross-section of my brain. Interesting. Two things were discovered from that MRI: 1) I have a brain, 2) it has a largish lump in the middle, the light blob, which is the brain tumour. It's growing directly from my hearing nerve, thus destroying it. It also pushes against a grey mass, part of the brain, and in particular to the left of it, the brain stem. Lovely. This BT is defined as benign because it does not metastasize. That's about all that's 'benign' about it. I'm deaf one the left (oh, it rhymes, sort of); my balance is shot; I have tinnitus / ringing in my ear on one side; swallowing problems; a numb face on one side like after a dentist appointment (I love my dentist now, piece of cake after this). And those are just the physical effects. I might mention the inability to concentrate for too long, cognitive issues, and a few other things I won't go into.

I may also add that is was treated with radiation in a space-age facility using a Cyberknife, Google is, it's a miniature linear accelerator mounted on a robotic arm that shoots concentrated beams of radiation into the AN. Right now, 'my lump' is dormant / dead / stable, and long may it stay that way!

So, pretty self-centered blip, sorry. BUT, as momentous events go, this one looms large on my horizon, and I wanted to take this opportunity to remind myself what this was all about. As for sharing here, well a challenge was put to me: take a blip without lines. :-) There ye go.