Neither Here Nor There

  I have a benign brain tumor which is called an acoustic neuroma, or vestibular schwannoma if you want to be fancy. It's a rare tumor.   One person in 100,000 will be diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma in any given year.   Picture the biggest college football stadium in the US.   See all those people?   Just will be the unlucky one diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma. It was 2010 when I was diagnosed and I was thirty-three years old.  I had been so sick - incredibly fatigued, lightheaded with painful headaches and pressure in my head - that I was happy to have found a reason for my suffering.  The only problem is that while we found something that definitely needed treatment, the tumor was not making me sick.  Then neurosurgeons told me that my symptoms were not caused by the acoustic neuroma.  They said the only symptoms usually caused by an acoustic neuroma are loss of hearing and dizziness.  Wanting to believe that we had discover...

Five foot three, I stand my ground. I don't scream; don't make a sound. It pushes me; it pulls me down. Were it water I'd surely drown. It shadows me with constant threat of deeds of undone, of goals unmet. It meets me at first morning light Despite the rest of yesternight. Some days it tries to make me think I will not drown, I will not sink. I make some plans and say a prayer It crushes me; it does not care. What could be so bad you ask? What holds me down, takes me to task? What fights me, has me under siege? You know its name, it's called fatigue.