Last week was clearly too calm and uneventful, because I awoke this morning to find an email from my dad and a text message from my daycare provider. I read the text message first, and therein discovered that she had taken her 17-year-old son to the emergency room because he seemed to have the stomach flu for a few days, but instead of getting better, it was getting worse. She and I are like the Texty Sisters - we text each other all the time and have long text conversations and we bond and as a a result she seems more likely to say "don't worry about it" if I'm late to pick up Devon rather than charging me two bucks a minute like she's supposed to. I just like having someone to send text messages to, other than my husband.
So while we're having one of our cell phone-based confabs, I read the email from my dad. In it, he has forwarded an email from my brother, who has written to tell my parents that yesterday at 6 a.m, he awoke to find himself on the floor of his bathroom; the tubing that runs to the toilet was broken and spraying water; he had a nasty bump on his head, a cut on his foot, and had bitten his tongue. When he was able to gather himself and talk to his wife, she noticed that his face looked "odd" and they proceeded to the emergency room. Two CT scans and an MRI later, it appears that my brother has two brain tumors.
Both the doctors at the hospital and the neurosurgeon he contacted today said that there is a possibility that what they were seeing on the scans was bleeding from the blow to his head that happened when he blacked out. But it begs the question: why did he black out - and quite possibly have a seizure - in the first place? There will apparently be a gathering of several neuros this Thursday, who will all confer to try to come to a diagnosis. A biopsy is probably imminent. Scans to see if there are tumors anywhere else. I can't speculate beyond that.
If you believe that there is any power in prayer or positive thinking, I'd be much obliged if you spent a little bit of it on my big brother. He's a really good guy, funny as hell, too. And I'm not ready to lose him.
