Trying to move on

I have had a couple days now to digest everything that that the doctors said last Thursday. It boils down to:

• I have a slow growing brain tumor.
• The tumor cannot be removed surgically.
• They can try to slow down the growth with radio surgery or chemotherapy.

So the damage sustained to my brain to date cannot be reversed. The symptoms I have now will probably not get better. That is the bad news.

The good news is that the damage sustained so far and my symptoms are not drastically affecting my life. I can still have intelligent conversations with people, I can still laugh at my own jokes, I can still solve problems.

That last one was a big one for me. This was was biggest concern after I found out about this. I make my living solving problems. Most of my hobbies involve solving problems. So in the past couple of days I set out to see if I could still do it. First one of my ten computers crashed. I was able to figure out it was the motherboard, and ordered a new (actually used - I'm a cheapskate) one. Once I got it I found that there was not user manual available for it and had to kinda guess on how to hook up a couple of things, but I did get it to power up. Then Windows 7 would not start properly and I had to solve that too. I got it all working this morning. I also have been looking into learning a new (to me) programming language, Java. I wanted to write a network music server, and started with some free libraries I found on the internet. I wrote a little test application, and wouldn't you know it, it crashed in the 'free' library. Great - a totally new (to me) programming language, code I did not write, and I need to figure out what was wrong. This was the perfect test. I worked on this for a couple days, a couple of hours per day, and was eventually able to figure out what was wrong. This made my day, my week.

So I am starting a quest to get back to my normal life. I stopped taking the narcotic pain killers about a week ago, and just have been taking OTC Tylenol and Ibuprofen.  I did not want that affecting my abilities in the problem solving exercises I just discussed, and the doctor did mention that they would not allow me to drive while on them. I did ask the doctor about returning to driving, and they said I failed Dr. Aiken's ad-hoc 'Field of Vision' test, and that I should get an official one done by an Ophthalmologist. I have an appointment for Monday to get this done. I'm also going to ask the doctor on Monday about returning to work. They said I should stay home 4-6 weeks after surgery (its only been 2 weeks) , but I can work from home, so perhaps they will allow this.

So that's the plan, try to get back into my normal life. If the doctors can make me better, that would be great. I am going to move forward with what I have today and hope for the best.