Once upon a time...

Once upon a time in January 2011, I turned 30.  It was a lovely day.  I was in Seoul, South Korea, and the festivities included a visit to a Korean bathhouse, homemade gnocchi dinner made by some kickass chefs, and some high-class noraebang (karaoke).

My Korea hostess Mindy and I dominating "We Built This City"

It was a fun day and I tried to push the "once I turn 30 I'll fall apart" voice out of my head.  It mostly worked.

After returning to Seattle, I settled into 30.  But not for long.  I started to fall apart.

At the end of January, I had some weird things happen with my left arm.  It went very tingly and achey (like when a limb that's asleep wakes up) for a day and a half, without stopping.  I went to my doctor, who referred me to a neurologist (Dr. K), who ran a lot of tests.  Three brain MRIs, 2 EEGs (including a "sleep deprived EEG" that required me to stay up all night), a heart EKG, 12 vials of blood work, and an epilepsy neurologist (Dr. Mi) later, Drs. K and Mi decided my arm symptoms are migraine related.  I've had a handful of tingly and achey spells with my arm since then, but nothing huge.

This is how gorgeous sleep deprived EEGs look, after staying up all night

However, and totally unrelated to my arm, the neurologists noticed a spot on my brain MRIs.  They referred me to neurosurgeon #1 (Dr. H) at the UW University Hospital, where I've also met with neurosurgeon #2 (Dr. S) and a neuro-oncologist (Dr. Mr) and their nurses.  Here's where I make the long story short:

I have a brain tumor.  That the neurosurgeons and neuro-oncologist think should be removed with surgery.  As of today, I haven't scheduled anything, but I will likely start pre-surgery appointments with the neurosurgeons and friends at the University Hospital soon.  Surgery could come in May.

The purpose of this blog is to give me one place to update that my family and friends can see, in order to keep tabs on my progress.  I know this blog is public, but I'm not advertising my situation on Facebook or anything, so please use discretion if you're sharing this information with other people.

Thank you to everyone that's supported me and talked with me.  I'll add more details here as I go along.