going somewhere else instead

Loopy had another MRI last night and the doctor called immediately to say that she needs surgery ASAP. Apparently she has a tumor in the soft tissue of her spinal canal--it's an intradural extramedullary tumor, if you want to look it up. :-)

He said there are no guarantees, but he sees one or two things like this every year and most of the time they are benign, and just removing them clears up the symptoms and then everything will be fine. So, the outlook is fairly positive.

When he first called he just said it was a tumor in the spine, and we were more scared because there are several kinds of tumors, and some of them are malignant and some are metastases from other tumors in the lung, breast, or brain. But it looks like it's not any of those. Most likely anyway.

She has a Tuesday appointment with a neurosurgeon, who incidentally attended the same undergraduate institution as I did, graduating in 1989, so for a year we were there at the same time. I find this comforting and I find it odd that I find it comforting. It's as if he's an old friend. Even though there were plenty of people there that I hated. :-P He got his MD from the same place and has a PhD from MIT, did a stint at USC and is the head of the brain tumor program at the UW. He also teaches neurosurgery; they say get a teacher, that's the best because they're up-to-date. So that's good.

So the Iran trip is off. Part of me never believed I was going, and most of me really wanted to stay here with Loopy and take care of her, especially as she's been getting worse and worse every day. :-(

Now, if only the part of me that wanted to stay and take care of her had taken out some kind of travel insurance, things would be even rosier. But at the moment I don't really care. Iran will always be there, but I only have one Loopy, as one friend said this morning. :-)

Now we're contemplating what to do tonight; I'm thinking I'll run down to our local bait/ammo/liquor/video store (yes, we live in a VERY small town; the other major retail establishment is the hardware store & taxidermist) and get some DVDs to cheer us up. :-)