Five Millimeters by Five Millimeters... No Centimeters

“Five millimeters by five millimeters, that’s not too big” I said. “No, that’s centimeters” replied the neurosurgeon. I was a about to retort that surely neurosurgeons should talk in smaller units than centimeters… but then thought twice about criticising the guy who was going to be rummaging around in my brain in a few days time.

I’d been having some odd little symptoms down my left side, like catching my left ski while turning in fresh powder, so instead of an extra ski lesson, I got an MRI scan. A big humming machine and glowing computer monitors. To cut a long story short, we were sort of expecting maybe a very early stage degenerative diagnoses like motor neuron disease or MS. So I was focused on practicing my best Stephen Hawking impersonation.

Instead I got a call at work the next morning to walk directly to the front door of the hospital emergency department and the neuro team would be there to chat about options for getting me skiing better. Turns out I have a meningioma, a slow growing non-cancerous tumor. It's been growing nicely for a long time (many years to a decade), but is now not leaving a lot of room for my small but perfectly formed brain.

So after a very exciting past 36 hours I can now confirm that I’m up for real live brain surgery in a week's time, with six to eight weeks recovery after that. Apologies to all the cancellations I’m going to have to make to my busy social calendar.

All four children have agreed they will be very quiet and understanding, put away all their toys so I don’t trip over them, and only talk just one at a time for the next eight weeks… so that will be a big help.

You know as much as us now… updates to come.

Although maybe not actually live streaming cutting a 50mm hole (I still can’t bring myself to talk in cm) in my skull …?

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