After the shock of the ad, I have to wait….

The day after my MRI, my attending physician receives me and comforts me in his own way ... "It is not lucky to have a brain tumor but in your bad luck you are lucky to have the least worse of all”.

Ok that will not kill me yes but Benin does not mean trivial.

I come out of the medical office with a letter to make an appointment with a neurosurgeon.

Meet in two months, I have to wait with all these questions that assail me.

It's benign, but not trivial, safe ... it's not a synovial cyst! Where is this squatter? On the roof of the ethmoid, that is to say more at the base of the skull than on top ... It is not the easiest place to operate! Operate? Precisely it is one of the possibilities that I had not yet imagined. But the reaction of my son when I announced the presence of this squatter to him: "Ah yes ... to remove it we will shave your hair and open your skull ... it's hot anyway!" Ah well I did not yet have this vision of me, but that is done!

I stress, I am worried, I'm afraid, but I contain myself as I can; I dare not show my suffering to my husband or to my children ... If they crack, I would be unable to comfort them and I feel that it would end me. I am surrounded by my loved ones, my parents, my sister, my friend. And yet I feel a deep solitude ... I am alone, extremely alone with this squatter in my head there in the middle behind the eyes.

During this wait, life simply resumes its course, for those around them anyway. But not for me ... after a few days of stopping I returned to work; My headaches are always there with dizziness, sometimes nausea. I have difficulty concentrating in my work or at home.

I have a headache every day ... I can't stand light, the light of the auto headlights or the neon lights of supermarkets, the light from my office: I often wear sunglasses. I can't stand noise either: I put earplugs to do my shopping.

My head is only pain ...

The appointment arrives. I am received by an intern who explains to me that my squatter is not far from the optical ways. If it is growing, it will be necessary to treat it before it deprives me of sight. As for my headache, my dizziness and my paresthesia, it seems that they are not linked to my squatter: I have to see a neurologist for that. So I leave with my squatter and my headache as well as an order for the control MRI this summer.

The wait…. Always the wait ... I have to be patient, I understand the need to give time to measure the evolution of my squatter, but what anxiety! And always this deep solitude ... My loved ones are there, my girlfriend starts my news, my family is present, but in the end I am still alone with this pathology. I realize that meningioma, yes, it is a chronic pathology: I will have to do with it, operated or not. Other questions, other fears occupy my mind, other than those linked to my health, but more linked to my future: this is the consequences of the presence of this squatter: can I still get a loan? Will I still have the right to drive? Can I still work?

The pain, my headaches do not leave me but that is another problem, I will do with another for three months the time to see a neurologist who will offer me a treatment that works. For more than 6 months that I have pain to the point of wanting to put a ball in the head (no more pain, more squatter ...), finally a doctor who really takes into account my headache. 

6 months after the announcement arrives on the day of the control MRI. My squatter gets his ease, and gets bigger.

After waiting, it is like a relief to know where to go ... "if it is growing, it will be necessary to treat it".

The 2 months that will flow before the 2nd appointment with the neurosurgeon will be another waiting time. It is very likely that I can see myself proposing an operation or a radiochurgery maybe?

In any case, I feel like I have a sword of damocles on the head, ready to take my sight: if the squatter crushes the optic nerve? If the surgeon cuts the optic nerve? If I make a stroke or a hemorrhage during the intervention? If anesthesia is going wrong? I hear this squatter in it sneering, pointing to the sword of Damocles on my life. Between moments of fear and anxiety, there are intense moments. Intense in emotion, in sensation. It is as if I discovered things, the beauty of nature, mountain landscapes, sunsets ... as if I wanted to fill my memory with all these beautiful things, in case…. Paradoxically solitude always accompanies me, but it is more my ally than my enemy. I need to find myself alone to savor, savor the beauty of life. But it's not just the sense of my view that is threatened. My smell is not at the cleat ... But at that time I thought it could be the consequences of the covid ... The doctors were talking about meningioma of the roof of the ethmoid, no olfactory meningioma.

Corinne