hokay, so...

The appointment yesterday was...interesting. The doctors answered a lot of my questions, but also gave me a ton more (they're very hesitant to answer questions, those doctors).

We entered the hospital, and my started beating really fast followed pretty close by near-hyperventilation. Not to sound like a hypochondriac. Everything was fine, but I was just a little sensitive about being there. Once things started rolling, things were okay, though. I had my CT scan, which only took a couple of minutes, then my dad and I headed over to the actual clinic (which is, conveniently, on the other side of the world). I thought we'd be in the waiting room for a while, since they scheduled my CT and actual appointment an hour apart, but we got in pretty quickly.

Anyway, the nitty gritty:

1) Neurological functions all look good. I'm having some very, very slight delay on my left side, but I'm also right-handed, so that might just be the way I am.

2) During the surgery, the doctors removed part of the bone in the back of my skull in order to gain access to my brain. When they replaced it, they left the bone as sort of a trap door so that if there was swelling, my brain wouldn't be squished. Looking at the CT, though, the bone isn't really where it's supposed to be. It's not completely off, but it's off-ish.

3) There's some fluid accumulating at the back of my head because, apparently, my brain doesn't know where to put it now that the tumor's gone. The first doctor seemed troubled by this in addition to my morning headaches (thought those were normal...guess not), but when "the boss" came in, he wasn't as concerned. I think that, if this continues, a shunt would be the solution, although that's just speculation. They did say, however, that because everything else is looking so good, it wasn't a huge deal right now.

4) My scar is still infected, so they put me on another course of antibiotics. They do, indeed, think that the inside stitches (or at least the one) are coming out. I really don't know what the solution to that problem is, but they're having me come back in three weeks to check it out.

Dr. Lam gave me a lot of other information. I can't play contact sports, for instance (well, shoot!), and I'm free to travel, health-wise. And while he told me that he doesn't believe my type of tumor to be genetic, he did say that he could grow back sometime over the course of my life, in which case we'd "have to do this all over again." Let's just hope that doesn't happen. They'll be monitoring me at least once a year for the rest of my life, which is actually pretty reassuring.

All in all, it went okay. It was pretty much how I thought it would be, and it was fun to see the doctors who I'd gotten so attached to while I was there. For now, I'm just going to continue taking this one day at a time.