Erin Spencer

Welcome to my CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting. 

I was diagnosed with a Meningioma, which is a benign, slow growing tumor in the meninges which surround the brain. It was discovered because of a suspicion for problems with my pituitary glad. I had a MRI of my head to evaluate that and found the meningioma at that time as well. I also have a much smaller,  also likely benign, tumor on my pituitary glad. The pituitary tumor is unrelated and can be treated with medication. The priority right now is the meningioma. It is large enough that it is pushing on my brain and will eventually cause problems such as speech issues or seizures. The only symptoms I have had related to this are some dizziness, otherwise I wouldn't have known it was there! There is no known cause of meningiomas. I have consulted with Dr. Cetas at OHSU. He is a neurosurgeon that will be doing surgery to remove my tumor on Jan. 24th 2018. I will be having an angiogram procedure to embolize blood vessels going to the tumor to help reduce bleeding during the surgery. This procedure will take place on Jan. 23rd 2018 at OHSU and I will admit to the hospital on this day to be ready for my surgery the next day. Surgery should take approximately 4 hours, but this can be variable. I do not yet know what time my surgery is planned for and likely won't know until the day before. We will post an update when we find out! Immediately after surgery I will go to ICU for post operative care, monitoring and treatment. I will likely be there for at least 24 hours and how long depends on how I am doing. I may have some speech issues after surgery but this is normally very temporary. When I am stable enough and pain and nausea are manageable, I will be transferred to a Neuro Floor room for the remainder of my hospital stay. We are hoping all will go smoothly and I will only be in the hospital for 3-5 days! 

My husband, Trevor and my Mom, Susan, will work to keep updates posted so you can all follow how things are going! Thank you so much for all your support!