It all Started on Saturday the 16th of April. I wasn’t home. But between 3:00-3:30 Shawn had a major seizure in our tiny bathroom. Joe came home at 3:30 and just poked his head in our bedroom to see if he was there. He wasn’t so he thought he was probably out in the garage. He wasn’t. He was curled up on Mack’s bed. He woke up around 7:10 and sent me a text. I left the Horse Expo and came home immediately, dropped of Mack and picked him up and we went to St. John’s hospital. We have no clue about the seizure, just that he did bite his tongue and it really wore him out.
We arrived at the ER at about 8:15 pm. Triaged and immediately moved to room 5. The doctor came in and since we had little knowledge of what happened, it was tough. Initially he was just going to run labs and get a full heart workup, and was tossing between doing a CT scan or not. But then the doctor looked at me, and I said, this is not normal. He wasn’t remembering important information, he believes he bit his tongue, for some reason, no one looked. We then agreed that the CT scans radiation is an ok risk to take to make sure everything is ok.
Shawn returned from the CT and heart ultrasound. Heart is great, but there is a very suspicious area on the CT and he was sent down for an MRI (with and without contrast). Before Shawn returned to room 5, his doctor came in and told me that it wasn’t good news and he has a brain tumor. He wanted to prepare me before we talked to Shawn. The doc stepped out and literally followed Shawn into the room as he returned from MRI. It was now Day 2: 4/17/22. Easter Sunday. The doctor and his nurse came in to let Shawn know that he has a larger brain tumor. The location is just above his right eyebrow. The doctor looked at Shawn and I and said he was so sorry for this diagnosis and that it really went in a different direction than he anticipated. They immediately started an infusion of Keppra and when that was done, I took him home on major restrictions… no driving, no cooking, stay away from stairs or have someone with you. On our way home we had a prescription in hand for Keppra and talked about how neither of us literally had nothing for Easter for the kids. When we got home at 3:30am we talked to the kids immediately, answered what questions and concerns that we could. They took it really hard. He then went into the bathroom to look at his tongue. OMG! It is black and blue and insanely swollen. He said, I guess I did bite my tongue. Then we went to rest.
Day 3: 4/18/22
I must have fallen asleep! I woke up to Shawn telling me he took his med and Joe and Allison doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen. We kept Mack home from school and Joe took it off too. This was another rest day and patiently waiting for Dr. Chen, the neurosurgeon to call. We tried to call them, but they said he will get ahold of us either today or tomorrow. No call came. We ordered in and then at 10 he took his Keppra and we talked and talked until we both fell asleep.
Good news!! No change in the spot they were watching, which could be delayed injury showing up from the radiation I had quite a while ago. Next scan in 3 months.
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