So I got my first surgery about half a year ago for my epidermoid brain tumor. I had two and now I have one small one. After the surgery I lost the functioning of my left ear entirely. I had to learn how to walk, eat, talk, and drink again (I also lost some of my ability to taste things).

The left side of my face didn’t move for a month and I had to use eye drops because I couldn’t close my eye. Moving, light, and sound all made me indescribably sick for weeks and I still struggle with it sometimes.

I also learned through this that pain killers make me so sick that I can’t even keep them down so I basically recovered just using Tylenol for pain (as you’d guess, it wasn’t much help). I’m almost grateful that I lost all feeling in that side of my head.

The worst part was the pain. I had bruises covering my entire forearm, on my foot, above my elbows, and my ribs on my right side were bruised. My entire body hurt so much all I could do was scream and cry from the pain for the first four days.

Because of the type of brain tumor I have, they told me I wouldn’t need another surgery for 20-30 years. There’s a chance I’ll change my mind by then, but I’m honestly considering just thinking that as my expiration date because I don’t know if I can emotionally survive that again. Would it be selfish to just not do it? I think 20 ish years is plenty of time for me. I’m already 24 so that’s 44-54 years of life. Maybe even longer. It’s longer than a lot of people so why not just be happy with it?