You have a mass...in your brain

Do you ever have moments in your life that seem surreal?  Like "this isn't really happening right now, is it?" And even when you play the scene back over and over again in your head, it still doesn't make sense.  That's the point I was at shortly after midnight on Monday, August 26, 2013.

As part of those tests they had to give me before they could say I was having "migraines", I had to have a CT scan.  They told me it would only take a few minutes and Mercedes got to go back with the tech and watch the action.  One of the ER volunteers, a nice guy who was getting in volunteer hours before applying to med school (I believe) wheeled me down the hall to the CT Scan.  Apparently, it had been a crazy night in the ER because they had ran out of rooms to put people in and there were beds set up along the halls as we went.

I don't remember how long we had to wait for the results, maybe 30 minutes.  But I do remember that the resident came in sat down on the stool in the room, looked me in the eye and said point-blank "I'm sorry to have to tell you this but you have a mass in your brain."

I think my jaw dropped, I probably looked like a gulping fish.  I looked at Mercedes and we share a "what in the world" look before I turned to the resident and asked "is this some kind of a joke?"  I truly thought it could have been a joke.  Like I said, the nurses and EMT's all had great senses of humor, I would have expected one of them to say "you have a mass in your brain...no, really you're just having migraines."  But I don't think the resident had much experience delivering the kind of news he was giving me.  And really how does one go about preparing yourself to deliver that kind of news?

So even though I was in shock and felt like the whole thing was surreal, they quickly prepped me to go get and MRI so they could look at the soft tissue and understand a little better what they were dealing with.