Meningioma: the care manager gets lessons on dealing with her own critical illness

I’m beginning this blog on the six-month anniversary of the removal of my meningioma brain tumor. As a Geriatric Care Manager in training, I see this blog as a place for commentary and sharing information about Gerontology. It is not my intention to have it be a saga about my one wild and precious life. But for now that is where I’ll begin. It is my hope that by grappling with my own medical condition, rather than swiftly sweeping it under the rug, I will have become better qualified to help others come to terms with their own illnesses.

When I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I did not think to ask God for any special favors. I did not feel I’d done anything exceptional in my life to deserve special treatment and felt that my years of practicing Buddhism might have pushed me out of the arena of God's good graces. So there it begins. Who do we call upon when the illness that strikes is our own?

As a spiritual person I know that each of us has to reach into our deepest selves to answer this question. As a future care manger, I know that connecting people with their spiritual beliefs and community can be a tremendous source of comfort and support. I intend to address the role of spirituality in illness in more depth in the future. For the moment I will leave you on your own to ponder the issue of spirituality as it pertains to you and discuss some practical matters.

In answer to "who do we call upon", I’d like to say that most of us look to our friends and family. The definition of "family" that I like is part of the core concept of patient and family-centered care. “The word 'family' refers to two or more persons who are related in any way—biologically, legally, or emotionally. Patients and families define their families.” (Blaylock, 2001) From my own experience and those I work with, I know that having the presence and support of family makes a huge difference in the experience and outcome of surgery. Like many of you, I live in a city, far from the members of my natal family. For me, my family includes my husband, my mother-in-law, a few dear friends, and my cat, Wanfu, who doesn’t like to see me suffer.

At this point, I would like to tell you that my professional training taught me exactly what to do if I ever became ill. But I soon discovered that my training did not make me exempt from feeling shocked, afraid, and sad. I was as lost as anyone who had just received a medical diagnosis and faced extensive surgery and an uncertain future. In my case, I learned what to do by seeing my friend, Cynthia, prepare herself for surgery only a few weeks before mine. Like me, she discovered a tumor on a weekend with little or no advanced warning in terms of symptoms. It was sudden, and required some fairly rapid decisions to be made.

(Next: thank you but no thank you)