My entire life, I struggled with my health. I saw many doctors throughout the years and would think that I had found the answer to my questions, only to have symptoms return. Nevertheless, I pushed on. I graduated top of my high school class and went on to study biology with a full scholarship.

My problems became very intense during college. By the beginning of my junior year, my body began shutting down. I was plagued by intense pain, fainted, and would experience loss of vision, particularly when looking up, and much more. I had been seeing a rheumatologist but after thoroughly trying, he couldn't help me and feared that it was not within his training.

Soon, I had an MRI that showed a cystic mass in the pineal region.

The local neurologist I had been seeing didn't seem to know what she was doing. With the newfound knowledge of the mass, I begun to look for neurosurgeons that could help me. The week of finals, I scheduled my consultation with Dr. S.

I barely made it through my finals, often taking tests while in severe pain or with vision loss from the swelling of my optic nerve. I tried to go to work after finishing my finals but was often too dizzy to feel safe. Soon even showering while alone in my apartment brought fears of falling or fainting in the shower.

My appointment wasn't until the middle of January, so I packed up my animals and went to stay with my parents about an hour away. 

After Christmas, my symptoms continued to get worse - and fast. I could barely stay awake anymore. Often, I would sleep 20 hours a day, and was fatigued the time I was awake. My dog, JD, barked at people who tried to wake me up and would sniff my head and cry. I barely had an appetite. My head had the worst pain that I'd ever had and my eyes felt as though they were being pushed from my skull.

Finally, my consultation was there. However, for the type of mass I had, there wasn't much literature on how to treat it and what it could actually do. Because of my symptoms, the surgeon agreed he could do it but left the final decision to me. 

I cried the entire ride home. My friends and family were split between those who were highly opposed to the surgery and those who were in favor. I knew my life couldn't go on the way it had. Leaving it would be a risk, but taking it out carried risks too. Ultimately, I decided to take the risk that carried a chance to get better. Surgery was scheduled for January 29, 2016. 

My parents and I traveled a couple of days before surgery for preoperative testing.

The night before, I was in a state of constant nervousness and was barely able to eat. We arrived at the hospital before dawn. After changing into a gown and compression stockings, I turned on my room's tv just in order to have some distraction. It wasn't long before I was called to go back for surgery. In my anxious state, I was looking forward to going back to sleep. I told my parents goodbye and that I loved both of them; then went down a hallway and into the operating room. Very quickly after getting in the OR, they started putting me under. In my drugged state, I decided that everyone needed to be encouraged and thus, I confessed my love for all of them. And then I was under. 

I awoke feeling better than I ever had. The first thing I did was look up; something that I hadn't seen able to do as my symptoms got worse. I felt as though I had reached nirvana. After that, I only remember getting sleepy and having odd dreams of people talking to me but not seeing them or reacting at all.

Everything was very hazy and odd. I heard my mother tell about this person who went through massive trauma and thought to myself, "I'm glad that's not me". I heard various people and both good and bad things. The dreams were very confusing as they were hazy. 

I woke up in a hospital bed with my mom in a chair across the room. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I felt as though I was tied to the bed, but there were no restraints. I couldn't move no matter how hard I tried. My mom saw that I had woken up and I managed to mouth questions for her. The person that I had heard about was me. I wasn't dreaming but had been in a coma for two weeks. 

My brain had been under so much pressure that when they operated, I lost ~4L of blood and my brain tried to herniate through the hole drilled in my skull for surgery. I hadn't reacted in the way that they would expect from a patient with a herniation but after surgery I had begun having respiratory issues. I stopped breathing twice; once was due to mucus plugs. Dr. S then had to do an emergency decompression surgery and put everything back in place. He put me in a medically induced coma to prevent further damage. In surgery, he discovered spinal abnormalities that were not visible from scans. I had a flared vertebrae that resulted in a narrow space that didn't allow for much swelling. I'd bled profusely and was given liters of blood.

Because I didn't automatically fall into a coma and display the expected symptoms, my case was unique to medical literature. Dr. S had contacted other neurosurgeons, even international ones, and none had heard of anything like it. The only thing to do was wait and see what would happen and how much I would improve and recover.

This is a blog of that journey.