On Friday Feb. 21. 2014 My husband and I woke up bright and early to get ready to head downtown (Toronto) to meet with the Neurosurgeon that I had been referred to the day before. We said goodbye to our four kids and to my mom who was watching them for us. Since we left the house around 8 am we beat majority of the morning traffic which there was unusally less of that day. Keenan ( my husband) half-jokingly said " I bet a lot of people took the day off work to watch the the Canada vs. USA hocking game". Canadians do love their hockey, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the case.
Getting to the Doctor's office a little early, hubby and I took a walk down the street to get ourselves a coffee at the 'On the Run' Tim Horton's. As we were in line with all the other zombies waiting to get their morning 'fix' I noticed that the lotto max was for $50 million. Wanting to buy a ticket, but not wanting to ask my husband for $10, I said, "oooo look, lotto max is for fifty-million dollars this week" and because he knows me oh-so-well he reached into his wallet pulling out Sir John A. Macdonald (for those of you non-canadians SJAM was the first Prime Minister of Canada and is also the face on our ten dollar bill). Keenan held our spot in the Timmy's line and I headed over to buy us what I was hoping to be the winning ticket - I'm sure the guy behind me who was also buying a ticket was hoping the same thing. I signed it right then and there and walked back to my husband who had only moved about a foot in the line. Not knowing exactly what my diagnosis was, but after doing some "googling"and having a good sense of what the mass could be, I gave my husband a witty smile and said "wouldn't this make for a great headline - "woman buys the winning lottery ticket the same day she finds out she has a tumor". I'm sure the other customers in line heard what I said, but I didn't care, even if it was just for a minute I wanted them to feel sorry for me, because in that moment I was scared and was feeling sorry for myself. With Keenan's large black coffee, my medium French Vanilla and two muffins in hand we headed back to the office building where we had about 20 minutes to kill before we were seen by the Neurosurgeon.
After registering with the receptionist Keenan and I sat down to wait. Waiting in a Dr.'s office is never fun, especially when you are waiting to here life altering news. As I sat there thinking about what was going on and seeing other patients in the waiting room with crutches, canes and bandaged wounds I had an overwhelming urge to cry, I told Keenan I needed to go the washroom and B-lined for it before anyone could see my eyes welling up with tears. Thankfully it was just a one toilet washroom so no one else could come in and see me crying. As I stood in front of the mirror staring at my reflection, tears slowly trickling down my face, I tried to tell myself that everything was going to be O.K and that everything happens for a reason. After grabbing some toilet paper to wiped my eyes - which looked extremely green with it's contrasting colour 'red' surrounding them, I took some deep breaths and headed back to the waiting room. I'm not sure if my husband noticed my red puffy eyes or not, but if he did, he knew not to say anything because I probably would have started to cry again. "Eileen Rogers-Coughlin" - I hate when my name gets called out in public, no matter what the situation is, I always get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach like I had just done something wrong and I was getting in trouble. The neurologist's assistant, a good looking hipster, young guy dressed in nice slacks a light plaid shirt with suspenders and thick black plastic rimmed glasses (he could totally pass for an actor from 'Glee') escorted us to an examining room where again we were asked to wait until the Doctor was ready to see us.
With a fast paced heart beat and slow deep breaths, I clutched onto my husband's hand who reassured me that everything was going to be okay and whatever 'this' was we were going to get through it together. The Neurologist stepped into the room closing the door behind him and greeted us with a smile and a hand shake. I was surprised as to how young this guy looked, he looked not too much older than my husband - see what I did there ? - I said " not too much older than my HUSBAND", my husband is four years older than I am, so this doctor probably had a good 7 years on me ;). The doctor himself even made reference to the fact that he looks so young and jokingly said that he's not only a neurosurgeon but that he does plastic surgery as well- ha ha ha. This guys was relaxed and as calm as a cucumber, dressed in a pair of jeans and a hoodie that looked like it had been through the dryer one too many times. He had a very relaxed and healing vibe to him, to be honest, just his presence gave me a sense of calm, I felt like we were hanging out with one of our friends and not a doctor. After asking me a few questions and hearing my story about how my son sent me to the ER, and explaining any minimal symptoms that I had over the past years, he asked me to get up onto the examining table. He tried to recreate a similar (but without the pain) reaction that I had when my son jolted my neck. He asked me to stick out my hands palm side down. He started to do The Hoffman's reflex test on me, which is a test that involves tapping the nail or flicking the terminal phalanx of the middle ring finger. A positive response is seen when the thumb flexes. A positive Hoffman's reflex indicates an upper motor neuron leasion or pyramidal sign ( I totally just "googled" that). Not knowing what he was doing exactly and after he tried to preform the test on me at least a dozen times, my body only had one minor reaction to it - not so good that I reacted to it, but good that it only happened once. He asked me to sit back down beside my husband before he broke the news to us about what was going on in my body. On his Ipad he pulled up an MRI of what a Spinal cord is supposed to look like ...
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Though I wouldn't allow myself to show it on my face, other than my eyes widening a bit, shear panic radiated through my body - Thinking to myself "OMG, this is not good, this is not good at all".
The doctor was explaining to us what everything was, and that this tumor could be either an astrosytoma or an ependymoma. He was amazed that I had very little symptoms considering how much space it was taking up in my spinal cord. From that point on, my husband was documenting everything the doctor was saying and I was just trying to wrap my head around what was actually going on and wondering if this was for real, or if perhaps they got the scans mixed up and that it wasn't really my scan ( even though my name was in the top left corner). I felt like I was in a dream, was this really happening to me? What does it all mean, is it going to kill me, I can't die - I have so much to live for, I have four children, two of them still practically babies, why was this happening to me, - so many thoughts were going on in my mind all in the while that the doctor was trying to explain everything to us. As he pointed out the tumor and the two cysts he kept on saying you are a "serious case", this is a very "special case" - special!? - there is nothing special about this. The Doctor went on to explain that this has probably been in my spinal cord very slowly growing for years. He told us that it is most likely benign as a majority of SCT are. He explained to us that there could be a few options for my case. Take on the 'wait and watch' approach, try to go in and drain the cysts, or remove some of my spinal column to allow for more space for the Tumor to grow. The only option there that I felt comfortable with was the "wait and watch" approach.
Because this Neurosurgeon particularly specializes in spinal cord surgeries mainly due to sports injuries, he admitted to us that he was not able to take on my case as he wouldn't know what the best prognosis for me would be. However, he knew a Neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital ( who he actually trained under ) that would be able to take me on. He continued to praise this neurosurgeon like he was a God. " He is the Top of the Top" he kept saying, "one of the best neurosurgeons there is!" Apparently he even treated Sidney Crosby's concussion when Sid was down for the count a few years ago - Coincidentally enough, as I was learning that I would have the same doctor as Sidney Crosby, in that very moment perhaps "Sid-the-kid" was lacing up his skates about to get on the ice to play in the Semi-Final Olympic hockey game in Sochi.
While we were in the examining room the Dr. paused for a minute and said " I'm going to do something for you guys right now". He picked up the phone and got a hold of the Specialist that would take me on as a patient. My case was presented over speaker and the Dr. on the other end responded with " Oh ... Oh Wow, Ummm, I can see her on Monday at 11:00am in-between surgeries", and just like that another favour was done on my behalf. Instead of having a lunch break or having a rest between surgeries, this Dr. agreed to see me. Though his response made me a little more than nervous I was glad that he would be able to see me, and not to mention so soon. Later we would find out that it is normally a 7month-year wait to see this guy, and people from all around the globe come to see him.
My husband and I left the office with a good grasp of what my diagnosis was. I didn't say much on the car ride home, but could only think 'why me', what did I do to deserve this, was I being punished? I remembered praying to my Papa (grandfather) who passed away 5 years ago, to please watch over me and make sure that I will be okay. Just the other day I remembered a dream that I had about my Papa soon after he died - I was in an olympic size pool doing laps but could no longer kick my legs, my Papa swooped down from heaven, grabbed hold of me and pushed me through the water across the finish line to safety - was this more than just a dream, was it some sort of prediction of my future? I don't know? But what I do know is that my Papa, along with other loved ones who have passed away are all watching over me, and will help me to cross the finish line at the end of this journey...
Oh and just for the record, I didn't win the lottery ;)
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