The thing about being in the midst of these types of traumas is that you're always wishing you could just put your life in rewind and back up behind the stop sign before the crash that left you totaled. Or click the key that restores the system back to the time before the computer crashed. That frustration and anger comes from being unable to regain that which you've lost, or are losing.

It's the finality of that thing, that moment, that is so devastating. There's that lingering feeling, sometimes for years to follow, a desire to wake up from the nightmare.

Tim and I got our wake-up call today when the neurosurgeon walked us back to his office to take a look at the MRI results.

"I don't think I really want to see the scans, if that' s alright with you," I said.

"No," Dr. Chen said. "You really need to see this."

I don't like medical things. Bone x-rays give me the heebie-jeebies. I had no desire to look at a close-up of Tim's brain.

Dr. Chen pulled it up on the computer screen anyway. I stood about four feet away.

"This is shot of your brain from the front," he said. I glanced at it quickly and saw the holes of Tim's eyes and nose. Gross. I looked away.

"And this is a look from the top down."

He showed us an etch-a-sketch of gray matter. Both halves were there, intact. A marble-sized hole was on the right side.

"We compare sides," Chen said. "You can see that the cyst is here."

Then he pulled up a front view.

"This is a view from between the eyes. And this is the pitutary. You can see there's no mass there."

"No mass?" I asked.

"No," he said. "There's no tumor there. There's no tumor anywhere. There's just this cyst but there's no sign of malignancy at all."

"That's great!" I said. Tim was grinning ear-to-ear.

"Of course, we'll want to watch the cyst. Check for any changes over time. Have you ever traveled out of the country?"

Turns out that Chen thinks the cyst is the result of a parasite that Tim may have picked up on his travels to South America -- his most recent trip there was 4 years ago. But it may be the result of a parasite he got when his parents were missionaries.

But what about the seizures? What caused them?

"Not sure, yet," Chen said. "Lots of people have seizures for no known reason."

He recommended Tim stay on the anti-seizure meds for a while. And a follow-up MRI in 4 months, to be sure that the cyst isn't growing. 

But there is no brain  tumor. There never was a brain tumor.

I am both incredibly thankful, relieved and joyous. A reprieve. A grace. A mercy.

The chance to wake up from the nightmare.

Only to realize your whole life has changed anyway.

OHMGosh, did I call my children on Monday night to tell them their daddy had a brain tumor? Did I fight back tears when I heard them weeping? Did my heart skip beats from the stress of having to tell my husband's mother that her son was diagnosed with a brain tumor?

Did I get sick to my stomach to have to tell my boss in North Carolina that I wasn't coming back because, well, it was so much worse than we imagined. That Tim had a brain tumor, that he couldn't drive for six months at least, and that it would require surgery, maybe radiation.

Night after sleepless night, worrying about the car at the airport, the belongings at the loft. Did I really interrupt my life to take care of a tumor that, praise God, doesn't exist? What about Rebekah, bless her heart, spending all day packing up my loft and Jessie who loaded up a van and drove all that stuff all the way to Williamsburg, VA because well that's what a good neighbor does for another in need.

And the emails and phone calls and the prayers of hundreds... I can barely process it all.

I didn't mention it to Dr. Chen. We just thanked him. Told him it was great, great news, thank you so very, very much.

I haven't felt this relieved and this dismayed since my 14-year-old son stayed out past 2 a..m and I had to go in search of him. I found him safe among friends, but I feared him harmed. I wanted to hug him tightly and never let him out of the house again. But I also wanted to beat the everloving daylights out of him for disrepecting me and causing me needless worry.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Serrano and so you have a brain tumor" is about to learn the discipline of medical malpractice.

 

  

 

There's a line from a movie"...your life can change in an instant and then all time is measured by before and after; and you never even see it coming. I've had a few of those as have you; and now perhaps Dr. Serrano will also...

Great news! I'm glad it's not a brain tumor. So good all that agonizing was over a cyst and not a tumor. God bless you guys!

We understand the before and after very well and rejoice with you in this gift you have been given. Think of all the people who would trade everything they have to be in your shoes. R.