Living with Brain Cancer

Hi, my name is DADA JIMENEZ, 35 years old and was diagnosed with brain tumor called -EPENDYMOMA. I had my surgery last July 31, 2007 at St.Lukes Medical Hospital in Manila, Philippines. I had resection and debulking of the tumor which was classified as GRADE II - BENIGN.

As a child I remember having headaches everytime I travel., I remember that along with my headache, I would also feel nausiated and vomit if the headaches were strong. All the while I thought I was just experiencing “motion sickness” but eventually I found out I was wrong… basically, the headaches will come and go just as experiencing day and night. This has been going for quite sometime that I got used to the feeling of experiencing headaches almost everyday. I was able to go on with my life, finished school, had relationships and eventually got married in 2000. In short, I lived a perfectl life.

Now, came the year where I started having severe headaches — this was in 2006. I first experienced a severe headache in October of the same year where after having coffee with my friends I suddenly felt numb and vomitted in the parking lot as I try to get in my car. I brought myself straight to the emergency room of the nearest hospital in town. All the while I thought I was experiencing signs of hypertention. The doctors and nurses at the ER thought I was drunk and said I was just experiencing “migrane” gave me pain relievers then eventually sent me home.

It took 2 months before I had the same experience which occured in Dec of the same year — this time the headaches were frequent and mostly followed by vomitting. I took the advice of my husband and went to see a specialist — and they are as follows : EENT - no problem with eyesight, INTERNIST — no problem with my heart and blood pressure, NEUROLOGIST - he said “migrane” don’t worry its not a tumor or anything like you will die the next day. Then I went to see a different INTERNIST — I was confined for 3 days and was only diagnosed with ALLERGIES… My headaches stopped for a week then when I started having the headaches it was MUCH WORST than the time it started. This time I can no longer perform my work properly, I was always absent because I was always dizzy, nauseated and vomitting, I can no longer join my friends on night outs, I could not play badminton anymore.

The days became months until I was totally not working and was just at home sleeping because I was so tired from vomitting and my headaches wont go away. I had this ordeal for 8 months until I went to see another EENT who was trying to cure me for vertigo. Obviously, she was udner the suspicion that my sickness was not just vertigo but something else, something bigger and crazier… So, she gave me pills to relieve me of the pain I was having and eventually ordered for my CAT SCAN — and then she said ” I will have to refer you to a neuro surgon and somehow I felt that there was something wrong with me…..

And so I had my CAT SCAN and there — like a nuclear bomb I knew instantly by just looking at the scans that there is definitely something wrong with my brain and I had a feeling that I have brain cancer…. I am not a doctor or a nurse or even a radiologist who can read the scans but fromt he looks of it I know that there is something wrong with my brain. I saw irregular shapes near my nape/spinal cord…

Satruday morning, woke up early got my scans and went to the neurosurgon with my MOM and my yaya to have them interpreted. 2 hours pasted when the doctor came in and went to see me, read my CAT SCANS and there like the Hiroshima Bomb the doctor said ” you have a brain tumor and you need to be operated immediately”… the world suddenly stopped infront of me… I felt numb, I felt like I was falling in a very dark pit…. I cannot even hear and understand the other words the doctor was saying…. For me time just stopped….When I finally got back to my senses and the surgon was giving me sheets of paper for admitting I asked him, “Doctor I said, what are the chances of my survival if I have the operation???” he replied, “well, you only have 2 — either you die or you be bedridden for the rest of your life” —

to be continued…..