So, as promised, here is a Magnetic Resonance Image of my brain taken last Friday, October 13. The view is from below as it were, and the perspective is such that the hemispheres are reversed – that’s the right hemisphere on the left, and you can probably see a bright oval something there, wherein lies a tale.

Some months ago I began to notice that my left arm was behaving oddly. I was making more typing mistakes than usual, and I was having a hard time in the gym working the weight machines with my left. So I saw the doctor; he suspected a pinched nerve or orthopedic issue and sent me off to an orthopedist. Orthopedist suspected tendonitis, and sent me to a physical therapist. Physical therapist said she thought I had something weird going on, and recommended a neurologist, so I made an appointment.

Before I could keep that appointment, however, a very odd thing happened. Sitting in my office at Adobe, in San Jose, I had just finished typing a document and was reaching for the phone to call a colleague when my left arm suddenly convulsed into a painful contraction that froze it, every muscle tightly clenched and curled up against my chest. Wild contractions began to flow up and down the arm.

Completely nonplussed, and absolutely at a loss to figure out what was going on, I slid to my knees and crawled to the corridor and said ‘Help.’ Three colleagues appeared, 2 headed for the phone and one came and tried to calm me down. By now I was hyperventilating and completely freaked out. The contractions begin to reside, San Jose Paramedics arrived, and some 6 hours later, in the E.R. at O’Connor Hospital, I was told that I had just had a seizure, and a CT scan was showing a mass in my brain. Sixteen days, 3 ERs, 4 hospitals, MRI centers et al. later, I now know that I probably have a tumor called a glioma, and will soon undergo a procedure at UCSF known as a right frontal craniotomy using stealth navigation and motor mapping. I had thought the blog was a little dull lately, so here ya go… more TK…

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