Little Did I Know....

I still remember the conversation I had with my mom my Senior Yr of Highschool about playing college ball. I remember the day I spoke to my first ever college coach on the phone. It was in that moment where I knew I was moving forward into accomplishing a goal I had set out for myself as an early teenager. On that particular day into my early teenage days I was with my softball team watching Team USA play against Oklahoma Baptist University in preparation to go play in the Olympics. It was then meeting Liza, Dot and Michell...I knew I wanted to play college ball, then go on, play professionally and then YES play for my country in the Olympic games!

Little did I know....

that I would finish out my high school career, get an athletic scholarship to play college ball only to have everything change from there.

See my plan was to PLAY the rest of my life. I had it all mapped out, down to the day job I would have to support my playing ball as well as what it was going to take to compete at that level. I was going to become a teacher so I could have Summers off and Holidays off to travel and play softball and yes play on Team USA.

21 years later This time of year is a fresh, constant reminder of who is truly in control of "my life." It is also a reminder that my last game I played my sophomore year of college was going to me my last colligate game ever to be played and I had no clue.

Prior to having a constant headache for 3 painful months, one night I started not feeling good on my hosting shift and in that moment I had to run to the restroom and quickly vomit, I barley made it. Questioning why I was suddenly sick, was it something I had ate, oh gosh did I catch a virus!?! Either way from that moment on I couldn't stop vomiting. I remember coming home early due to not feeling good to an empty home with my roommates gone grocery shopping and doing everything I could to just go to bed. No sooner did I lay down, I jumped out of bed to be sick yet again. I kept an eye on my alarm clock (nope I didn't have a cell phone) and within 10 minutes I had been sick 7 times and by this time I couldn't even stand. I was crawling and finally found myself on the phone with my mom crying and telling her I couldn't stop vomiting. It was in that moment my mom shifted from mom mode and went into her super hero power, MEDICAL MOM!

My mom had told me to get to the ER ASAP. No sooner did she say that, my roommates walked in the door. My roommates came home to find me in the hallway on the floor awake but I had no strength to move. I remember them both picking me up and helping me get in the car. I don't remember the ride let alone checking in. I remember puking on the nurse as she took my blood pressure. I then remember having to be wheeled out of the ER do to the amount of pain meds they gave me, I couldn't even walk.

From there it was lights out, literally for 16 hours. It was still the weekend and I had woke up feeling better. Nausea was gone, headache was at a low hum so I figured I would try to make up my hours I had to cut out on the day before. After all I had been functioning with a headache for 3 months. No let up unless I was sleeping and over the counter pain meds were a joke. So much I just didn't take them anymore when I realized there was no point. So I got approval to come in as long as I felt good enough. I proceeded to head to the bathroom to brush my hair...

Little did I know...

that in that moment of doing something I had done a million times I wouldn't be able to see out of my right peripheral. I dropped my brush in utter fear of what had just happened. I picked it back up as if I was re-setting something and it was just a glitch. Looked in the mirror with game like confidence closed, my eyes, brought the brush to the right side of my head, started brushing again and then opened my eyes. I had lost my peripheral vision in my right eye. I quickly called my mom who has been in Radiology since I was 3 years old and was and still is one of the BEST RADIOLOGY MULTI-MODALITY Professionals not to mention currently Head of her Radiology Department. I told her my symptom and she knew something greater neurologically was going on in the left side of my brain for it to be causing malfunctions on the right side. Again here came my MEDICAL MOM to the rescue! Trusting not just her Motherly instinct but also her Medical instinct, she blew up a Neurology Center with messages to call her first thing in thing in the morning, also letting them know that she was a CT and MRI tech and had a suspicion 3 months ago something was terribly wrong.

My moms biggest fear in all of that is she had suspected brain cancer that had metastasized. My whole domineer had changed. I was always in a bad mood, all I wanted to do was sleep and because of my constant pain eating was like the last thing I wanted to do. She said my whole personality had changed and that unfortunately is something that happens to people when brain cancer starts to spread quickly, so much it can cause a midline shift to where one side of the brain is swollen and then causes the other side of the brain to malfunction.

That following Tuesday was one of the longest trips of my life to the Neuro Center. Constantly having to pull over to dry heave, yup the nausea was back as well as the headache. I remember checking in with my mom along side of me the whole way until the spinal tap. I remember the room being cold and I remember being scared of what was going on. My body was turning against itself. The body that I worked and mastered mechanics to pitch proper, the body that I fed in order to preform, the body that had been with me day 1 was at war with itself. I was shaking in fear, as the nurse gently assisted me by holding my forearms to lay on my side to the Doctor could preform a spinal tap to check and see what pressure level my spinal fluid was at. (side note, its not supposed to me over 24).

IT HURT SOOOO BAD, my mom heard me scream clear out in the waiting room. It was the hardest thing I had to do, to sit still and cry with a needle in my spine. Then as the nurse started to speak into me and let me know I was going to be okay and she was right there...something happened. The pain in my head that I had lived with for 3 months straight was gone. She assisted me sitting back up after the Doctor was done and I looked up at her and said, "Its gone." She quickly replied back, "What's gone?" I said, "the pain...it's gone." In shock of how quickly the pain had been removed the Doctor suspected that their as a Pseudocyst sitting on the left side of my brainstem. So quickly after that procedure I was in an MRI machine.

The first test he ran, there was nothing to be seen. Then he decided to have them perform and MRV, they injecting "ink" into my blood stream. There....it....was. A blood clot that was already 98% occluded in the left sagital sinus of my venous system in my brain. (Are you doin