After surgery

Since surgery, I have been feeling dizzy, a little squishy on top, and light headed. Not bad tho, since I was just through brain surgery :) It is crazy how much I just went through :) They made it seem like sum big ordeal but it wasn't really any big deal. Everyone made such a big deal out of nothing. It was crazy. Brain surgery wasn't all that bad! I have been remembering almost everything :) I am lucky I hear tho, alot of my brain buddies havent been so lucky with that. I am very lucky to be alive and I know from here on out, I will enjoy my life and do everything in my power to enjoy it with every thing I have :)

Surgery August 20th

Hello All :) Thought I would finally update my page :) I have been doing very well! My thought processes have been very thorough!! :) I am doing well, just taking my meds like I am supposed to. I am on Dexamethasone, Oxycodine and Docquolace. The first one is a steroid, then a pain reliever and then a stool softener (i could have prolly left the last one out lol)
its ok though. Same thing! :) LOL I will prolly repeat myself throughout this blog! :P Surgery was scheduled for 7am Monday morning. However, when I got there at 5:30am they told me I would have to wait a while to get into surgery. Since I had to have an MRI first. I was so mad, but nothing I could do about it. LOL. They then told me that I wasn't even supposed to be there until 7am. I was upset, but nothing I could really do about it then and there. Oh well. I was admitted to my room about 6:30am, then my mom and Dad came about 7:00am. I got dressed (or undressed) for that matter and was ready by 6:45am. they came in about 7:15am and wheeled me off for my MRI. I was so nervous. I said my goodbyes, didn't know if I would see them before surgery. (dad, mom and Naynay were there) I got through my MRI just fine and was able to go see them before surgery :) I was so happy I got to see them again before surgery! :) i had smiles on my face :) I did have those one things on my head, they were to direct the surgeon for surgery. The placers things or whatever. it was an emotional time for me, knowing I was heading into surgery either in a couple minutes to a couple hours. I was very emotional for my mom, dad and NayNay. I knew it was emotional for them to see me go through that. I woke up about 6:00pm and heard them talking. I know they said something like let her be or something but I was avid for them to get my attention. I waved and said uh huh...They said awww, she looks so good :) Everything went good, I was alive in my own body and I was so happy that I was alive. It was a great feeling :) I loved being alive, I knew I got through the worst part of my journey, now was to recover :) that was the easiest of it all :)

My fundraising site to help with bills, medical expenses

http://www.giveforward.com/ashleysbrainsurgery

Please stop by and show your support :) Thank you. .

:) Surgery Scheduled!

So, the last blog post was kind of long. To update you in the fastest way possible, here goes lol. I found a Facebook group called "Colloid Cyst Survivors" I thought well, if anyone would know what happens, they would be it! I have fell in love with so many people from there. Most of them have had surgery, some awaiting surgery and some are on there for their loved ones. In the last two months, it has been crazy busy in my life. I had my MRI done and they found to be my Colloid Cyst was 14mm x 10mm x 12mm which sounds small, but in that area in the brain is actually very large. The radiologist referred me to Gundersen in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I had started getting really bad headaches about a week after the attack, started to get dizzy easily, even saw "stars" one time. This concerned me. I went to my appointment to Jerry Davis in La Crosse. He came into the room and basically described me what it is, and that I would need to go to either Mayo Clinic in Rochester or a hospital in Madison (I don't remember which one) to have brain surgery to have it removed. I thought to myself, wow brain surgery. I was already kind of expecting this answer because I had already done research on this blob in my brain. It is located in the third ventricle (usually always is) and it is slowly growing. It will only cause more problems the larger it gets and I really don't want to risk that. So, a couple of weeks go by and I finally get an appointment at Mayo Clinic, July 31st and August 1st. I was so nervous, I couldn't sleep the nights before. I went to the neurologist and the guy was pretty cocky, I didn't like him from the moment he stepped into the room. He asks, "What is your main question for being here today?" I just didn't like him so maybe that is why I didn't like the way he asked me that. LOL. I said well, do I have to have surgery? (I know now to never ask a question like that lol) and he said no, you will be fine with CT scans every year to make sure it doesn't grow larger. Typically he said, I wouldn't have to have surgery. I was so confused at this point because one doc says yes, as soon as you can, the next says nah, prolly never. Hmm. At this point I had befriended Brian Harms from MD (also had a colloid cyst but had his go to the emergency stage) and I was in tears as I left that office. Good old Brian wrote up a recommendation letter for me to bring with to the neurosurgery appt the next day. (Yes, they still kept my appointment the next day)
The next day came and I was so very nervous to meet the neurosurgeon. Funny cuz he asked the very same question as the guy the day before, so I was like oh great. I said my greatest concern is the size at this point to be able to be watched and scanned every year. He wasn't concerned about the size of my cyst. He gave me the benefits of waiting and watching, and the benefits and risks of the surgery itself. He said eventually though I would have to have the surgery and it might be a longer recovery because we waited too long. So, I opted for surgery. :)
These last two weeks realizing I am going forward with brain surgery is both exciting and scary. I have faith that everything will go good and I will be back to my old self (or my New self) in no time.
I am having a transcallosal craniotomy August 20th at Mayo. I am looking forward to not worrying about this tumor inside me anymore, and relieving some of my symptoms that I am having.
I did go to Rochester today and got my tooth pulled (no fun!), had to do a memory test for the surgeon to kind of have something to compare before and after surgery and finally a pre surgery class. I go back on Monday Aug 13 to see Dr. A for Pre-op! I will update more after that. :) Everything is going good :)

June 1st, 2012 (assault)

This is the weekend that changed my life forever. I had gotten back with my ex-boyfriend for the umpteenth time and this time it was different (or so he made it seem like it was). I had fallen for him hard this time, I actually thought it was going to work. He was drinking (surprise, surprise) and I was okay with that for some reason or another, maybe because he made it seem like he wasn't drinking as much, i don't know. Well, back up two weeks before this and he had gotten so drunk one night and scared the living shit out of me. He had gotten angry at me for some reason or another, which wasn't new. We started arguing and he slapped me. Hard. I was so confused and angry at myself that I would let this guy walk all over me once again. I guess I didn't know what to do at that point. Here, is the guy that has used and abused me so many times before doing it again. That night he swore up and down that he would never do it again. Just like they always do. Well, I just said fine, forgave him and we got through it. He always made a big deal about forgiving each other, well I was MUCH more forgiving then he was. Back to June 1st, it was an okay night, we had a few (Four Loco's BAD IDEA) downstairs with the neighbor and he wanted more. He made me go and buy him two more for the house and I knew I had a bad feeling at that moment in time, I knew something was going to happen. We came inside, Jacob too and turned on the music. I had told him at this point that I think he should stop drinking, of course he got so angry with me that I had asked him to do that. He started yelling and screaming at me that I would even think he was drinking too much. Our fight escalated of course and when I knew it was going to get physical, I told Jacob to get his ass downstairs by the neighbor, that mom will be out in a minute. He hesitated but ran downstairs anyhow. I was sick of it at this point. Sick of the verbal abuse, sick of the physical abuse, sick of being scared in my own house. I knew it was time to break up and for good. I guess I always went off of my feelings at the beginning of the relationships and never back to how he treated me. I told him I needed to vent about something. We begin to talk of our one month (to the day) relationship and I tell him something has to change. Whether he had to leave and go to his moms house again or if we needed to break up. He immediately screams at me for having doubts and asks me if I truly want to break up. I said Scott, I am so sick of being treated like this in my house, around my son, I shouldnt have to live like this. I could see the fire burning in his eyes and I knew it wasn't going to be pretty. I was sitting on my inflatable couch and he was crouching in front of me. He went biserk. Something triggered him to blow up. He threw me down so my belly was on the couch, back facing him and he started to punch me repeatedly, I asked him what the F*&^ he was doing and he said shut the F up bitch. I was so confused and scared at this point. He wraps his hand around my neck and starts to choke me from behind. I escape for just a moment and sat against the wall thinking he would cool off if i backed away. No, he got worse. He thrw me on the floor on my back and put his hands around my neck. He then stood up and stepped on my neck. He told me he would kill me and no one would know. :( I escaped and I ran out of the house into the neighbors house and I called police. He left immediately after he knew I had called the cops. The cops had come and took pictures, a full report. (I don't want to detail it too much, cuz this is a pending case against him) but he is getting charged and at that time that is all I cared about. The lady police officer asked me if I wanted an ambulance but I declined. Later on that night I decided to go into the ER and get checked out, my head, neck, everything was such a blur.
 As I arrived at the hospital, they immediately knew it was a domestic by the look of me, I was a mess. I had marks everywhere and I was shaking. I told the hospital nurses that I was just abused, been through it before, I just have to cover my grounds because he will be charged. They brought me to a room, put me on a board (cuz of my neck) and told me that I would need a CT. I was shocked that they actually took this seriously this time, usually they would have sent me home for tylenol and been done with it. By the time I had gotten back to the room after the CT was done, it was 1am. I had to work at 7am (I was more worried about work LOL) They left me on that dam board for over 1 hour so I was stiff by the time they finally let me off of it. The doctor on call came in and woke me (I had fallen asleep) and said I have some good news and some bad news. He said good news is that your neck shows no visable signs of injury. Bad news is that when we did your CT scan, we found something in your brain that we believe to be of colloid cyst nature. He said that it was fine and that I don't need to worry, just to get a MRI and follow up with my doctor. Right, not worry!? Right.