Wednesday 18 January 2012

Back from hospital.

So I just got back from hospital where I had to undergoing further testing via MRI radiogram. I don't have any photos of the recent results as they are disk archived these days, but let's just say that this.....

 
From 2008. See that white stuff ? That's not supposed to be there. Well and now for all intents and purposes it isn't. It is pretty much inactive.

In fact the neurologist has described my treatment as "consistent with a successful treatment of an AVM."

This started 3 years ago when I underwent gamma knife radiation in south Korea. The prospective outcomes were bleak to say the least. The treatment was experimental and had shown poor odds of reducing the flow into an Avm of this size. I was effectively living with a time bomb in my head.

I still to some extent am but it's been pretty much diffused more than I could have ever hoped for. So remarkable and fortunate are my results my MD, a very analytical and rational person said "there's more than medicine at work here". I will be going to see a neurologist in Cape Town to inquire as to whether I will require any further treatment and if so what form it will take. It's quite likely that I won't require any and if I do it will be very moderate with a very high chance of total success.

I don't know why i am sharing this on this blog but i suppose with all the death wishes over the years I've had and all of the nasty comments when I was diagnosed on here, I want to shove it "in your face" so to speak. I also just sort of want to scream from the roof tops that I'm alive and have a very good chance of a future. Something I didn't dare let myself dream about a week ago.

2 days ago after I got the results and read and re-read it around 50 times and it slowly began to sink in that is now a good chance I will have a full life all the pain, fear, fatalism and existential suffering of the past 3 years just bubbled up and out in tears. I'll never get back these 3 years of dread, despair etc but it has made me a much stronger person. And it's given me a good insight into what the absence of hope can do to the human psyche. I suppose I'll leave that observation as the flimsy link to the general topic matter of this blog.   

Peace and love
Rooster

8 comments:

Boertjie said...

Hi Rooster. I've read some of those nasty comments you talk about. Just want to say to the people who made them : WHATEVER your differences with Rooster are, that was a low thing to do. Sies man!

Anyway, even though there is a lot I disagree about with you, I'm glad for you your treatment is going well. I have a tiny bit of understanding what you must have experienced. I have/had a eye disease. When it was at its worst I bobbed bewteen blindness and 5% eyesight. Six eye-operations and +- 4 years later I can function normally.

Strongs!

The Rooster said...

Cheers mate. Glad to hear about your success story. Yes, there are people of very poor taste on the extremes. If only I had a rand for every time I've been wished dead or mocked for "falling ill" on this site I'd be a very rich man.

Katzenjammer said...

Thank god that's behind you. A couple of weeks ago you thought you were enduring your last Christmas on this planet, and now this breakthrough. What a great way to start the new year!And no Christmas for the next 341 days!

The Rooster said...

Thanks Datsh. It's not 100% behind me but the monkey on the back certainly is more a vervet than a gorilla.

Katzenjammer said...

And by the sounds of it you will get rid of the vervet. That's the best news by far I've heard this year.

Anonymous said...

As much as I bang my head against a wall over you and people like you and as much as I disagree with your opinions, good to hear your health is in good order. Life's short enough as it is without any life threatening drama.

The Rooster said...

Cheers anon.

Please expand what you mean by "people like me" though. What about libetarianism bugs you so much ?

The Rooster said...

But thanks for the good wishes anyway.