Cause we weren't busy enough already....

Some of you know by now that Adam has been having some health problems. Several weeks ago he started complaining about bad pain in his ear and a headache so he went to the doctor, they diagnosed an ear infection and prescribed antibiotics. A couple days later the pain was so bad that he couldn't sleep and then his tongue started going numb. He went to the ER one night after a call-in and they told him that they weren't sure but that they thought it was the onset of Bell's Palsy. (Which I, for the record, thought was crap because Bell's Palsy is really rapid onset and causes facial paralysis, and he didn't have any problems except his tongue.) They prescribed the stuff for Bell's Palsy but told him not to fill them, just follow up with his regular doctor. So, off we went the next day to see his regular MD. He looked at Adam and had him do all these motor control tests, which he passed, and said that he didn't think it was Bell's Palsy but that the ear infection could be pushing on his nerve so he told him to take a steroid for 5 days to reduce the swelling and see how it went. Adam did feel better for the few days he was on the steroid but as soon as he stopped taking it, the headache came back while the tongue numbness never went away. The following Monday I woke up at 5 a.m. because the bed was shaking and looked over to see Adam having a seizure. It lasted for a minute or so and then immediately after, he woke up and asked me why I looked so upset. When I told him he'd just had a seizure, he informed me that I was full of crap and that it was just a bad dream. He left to work on the house later that morning and when I got to his mom's house, I went to talk to his sister Jodie, who is a nurse, about what I had seen that morning. She confirmed my suspicion that it was a seizure and then we all pretty much proceeded to freak out from there. Jodie's husband Mike and a man from church came out to give Adam a priesthood blessing. In it, Adam was told that he was given this trial to help him remember that he didn't have to do it all on his own, that he needed to remember to rely on his friends and family and also on Heavenly Father, that he also needed to trust the medical professionals, and in the end was promised that through his faith he would be made whole. (Adam says it's the first blessing he's ever had where he felt like the Lord was chewing him out.) We left afterward and went to see his regular MD, who sent us immediately to the ER where we sat for 6 hours. We were lucky enough to go during an afternoon when there were two serious head-on collisions so we were relatively low priority. He finally had a CT scan, which the doctor said was clear of brain tumors or bleeding on the brain and that we could go but that Adam needed to follow up with a neurologist because they still couldn't explain why he'd had the seizure. He went the neurologist two days later and and an EEG and MRI were ordered, one the next week and one the week after that. (FYI, sitting in the MRI waiting room for 45 minutes with 3 kids is enough to drive anyone mad.) A week ago, which was the afternoon after the MRI, the neurologist called Adam with his results. He has a benign brain tumor. It is small and not life threatening but that it needs to come out before it does any more damage but we probably have about 30 days. Also, that the neurosurgeons here won't do the surgery so we need to go to Portland or Seattle. When Adam came to tell me, I was painting cabinets in the garage and I could see that he was upset (totally unlike him for those that don't know him). When he told me, we both cried. I had a million questions that he couldn't answer so he called the neurologist back and they scheduled us an appointment for Monday, August 29th to answer any questions. (Adam's nurse sisters are not impressed that the doctor just called us with that news and left it at that. Didn't tell us location, what kind of tumor or anything.) Then I told him that we needed to go tell his mother. After that we basically knew that our life had to move into fast forward because we needed to finish the house and close on the loan before he had surgery. It has been a miracle. Last Tuesday the drywall crew was texturing. Today it has been primed and painted. 3/4 of the flooring is in. All cabinets are in. Probably 2/3 of the trim is done. All the windows are cased. 90% of the doors are hung. Some light fixtures are in. The trench for the water line is dug. Septic will be finished today or tomorrow. The fireplace has been tiled. It is astonishing to see the sacrifices people are making for us. All of Adam's family that is local has basically lived out there working. My parents, sister and brother and their spouses and kids were here all weekend. Our friends have spent countless hours. People have brought in meals, helped clean my little rental house, and done all my laundry. Some friends of my sister came all the way from Billings for the weekend when they heard the news, even though they had only met me once. They knew there was a need so they came. The biggest miracle of it is that the husband does floors for a living and they showed up exactly when we needed someone to help install a bunch of flooring. We feel so blessed. We had our Q & A with the neurologist yesterday. While he couldn't answer a lot of our questions, because they were about the surgery, he did let us know that it is a trigeminal schwannoma, meaning that it's a tumor of the covering on the nerve that controls Adam's tongue. The nerve has been damaged so he may always have the problems with his tongue. It is also very uncommon so that's why they are sending us to Portland. There is a surgeon there that specializes in tumors in this area of the brain and he does about 400 of them a year. We have to be in Portland next week for our inital consult and then we will schedule the surgery. I feel like he's going to be in very good hands. And we are lucky that is minimally invasive as far as brain surgery goes and that the recovery time is not long. Thanks to everyone who is doing so much for us and I will try to keep you posted!