Fun little facts I have learned since being diagnosed with brain cancer!

The little squeeze ball they send you into the MRI machine with is NOT a stress ball. I repeat, it is NOT a stress ball. It is an emergency call button. Someone really should have told me that before I was in the machine.

Post-brain surgery painkillers are legit. Apparently I insulted a male nurse’s “professionalism” when I told him I didn’t want him to see my butt when I had to get up to use the restroom while wearing one of those backward gowns.

Brain surgeons take patient identity VERY seriously. After being given pre-surgery drugs, which made me very loopy – I allegedly asked my surgeon how confident he was on a scale of 1-10 that it was my brain he was supposed to be operating on. For some strange reason, my surgery was delayed by about 30 minutes…

When your doctors give you a specific timeline on when to take your meds and when NOT to eat, LISTEN TO THEM. I’d been taking temodar for a while and was feeling totally normal on it. The rule was, take anti-nausea meds an hour before temodar, then wait 2 hours after temodar to eat anything. One time I was a little ambitious and figured I could eat brunch an hour after temodar. NOPE. Had to leave the breakfast table early and hubs had to pull over on the way home so I could barf on the side of the road. Guess my doc wasn’t kidding.

Nurses are basically doctors, but way nicer. This isn’t necessary awkward, but I mean it. The nursing team during the week I was in the ICU kept me calm and kept me sane. Post brain surgery, when all I needed was silence, it was my nurse who asked the very loud Italian woman I was sharing a room with to kindly tell her 30 guests that visiting hours were over. When I was still on morphine post-surgery and begged my nurse to keep my catheter in because it was “SO AMAZING NOT HAVING TO GO TO THE BATHROOM EVERY TWENTY MINUTES TO PEE”, she simply laughed and reminded me of the conversation the next day (gee, thanks). So, be nice to your nurses!