Finally

finally, things have come full circle. this is my finale, my final post on this blog - doesn't it have an air of finality about it? (hee hee) ok, enough with the crappy word jokes. it is a new year - a time of renewal, a time of change and 'resolutions'. i don't believe in new year's resolutions, i make resolutions all the time - most of which i don't stick to. but there has been a resolution to 'the saga of sue's brain'. i can now truly write THE END of this story.

my mom and i got up at 5 am on tuesday, december 2. we arrived at the uct private academic hospital at 5:45 am and i was lying in a hospital bed, dressed in a hideous gown that flapped open at the back, was too big for me and seemed to be made out of industrial strength canvas by 6 am. professor taylor (my south african neurosurgeon) would be performing the angiography at 7 am. at 8:30 am dr le fevre (prof taylor's partner) came to see and talk to me about the angiography. he would be performing the procedure and wanted to know where my avm had been. NOT a good start. i was tired, hungry and extremely nervous. i knew what was in store for me and i was trying to think of any way out of it that i could. i know that i am ok, i don't really need to have an angiography to check - really, it's not necessary. i'll just be on my way then, thanks!

then i was being wheeled into the theatre, an anaesthetic patch on my right groin area. there were the familiar banks of screens, the huge white x-ray machine, the table i would lie on. the nurse, dr le fevre and the radiologist where very nice people and they were chatting to each other and to me. i joined in the conversation in an attempt to hide my spine tingling fear. it actually did help a bit. after the anaesthetic injection it was time to feed the catheter into my femoral artery and up into my carotid artery in my neck. the entry point was numb, but as soon as the catheter had moved in a few centimetres i felt an excruciating, sharp pain in my gut. i started sweating, my blood pressure dropped, my heart rate dropped and i felt like i was going to vomit. AH! STOP! STOP! it was scar tissue from the first two angiographies that had been broken by the catheter. the pain was so deep that it actually made my whole body go into shock. i lay there trying to breath while the nurse made me smell surgical alcohol to help with the nausea. "don't worry, we can take as long as we like." WHAT?! that's the last thing i wanted. i wanted this over and done with as quickly as possible. things were already going to take longer because no one could remember where my avm had been. right or left? front or back? back right i think, but i wasn't sure. so the catheter would have to be fed in and out of different arteries in different sides of my head. the revolting, burning, lightening flash dye would be injected into my cerebral blood flow no less than four times!

after about 5 minutes i started feeling better and the rest of the procedure was pretty routine. dr le fevre searched and searched. there was NOTHING! not even an absence of something, but just nothing. everything was completely normal, as if i had never had an avm before. as if the gamma knife surgery, the seizures, the nausea, the fighting, the crying, the pain, the terror, the medication, the hospitals - NONE of it had happened. i was smiling and crying quietly to myself as i looked at the monitors. that is my brain and it is perfect. relief? formality? bullshit! this was the single, greatest victory of my life. it was all finally and officially OVER. think of every emotional adjective that you can and then mix them up inside your stomach and you are still nowhere near how i felt that morning. tuesday, december 2 2008 - i will love you forever.

and now? life is back to normal. i continue to organise things for taiwan. 11 february is getting closer and closer. b is starting to organise himself for taiwan too. he will be arriving in early april. we will be apart for two months. how awful! i'm going to miss him! a new chapter in my life has started so it is time to close this one. i am wishing myself luck and happiness in my future endeavours. i don't feel i have changed that much in the last two years. TWO YEARS! but i am definitely, FINALLY, moving again. onwards and upwards! :-)