You May Not Finish this Blog post.....part 1

The last few weeks of my life have been needless to say, a little crazy. Exactly 2 weeks ago today I had been having headaches for about a week and they continued to grow stronger, to the point I was vomiting and hardly able to walk. After leaving work to try and rest, and recuperate, I found myself in the ER at Banner Estrella Hospital. And before I knew it I was having a CAT scan and MRI done of my head. After being put in a room, a doctor came in and spoke to Violet and I, telling us that they found an abscess on my brain and they needed to transfer me to Banner Good Samaritan Hospital where they have Neurological Doctors on hand. Next thing I know Vi and I are in an ambulance headed to the other hospital and immediately put into ICU. It was there in ICU that my life would be changed forever. The doctor on call was waiting to address the situation, and to speak with Violet and I. “Mr. Conner, you need to know that there in an abscess in your brain, and it appears to be a fungal infection which is very serious.” “How serious are we talking?” “This is life threatening Mr. Conner, very serious.” “Well what are my odds, how serious?” “We are not going to talk about those right now, because they are not good.”

Now I’m not sure if you have ever had those words thrown your way, but this was all new to me. I was in shock. I was scared. That night I could hardly sleep, I’d wake up and hear my wife crying as she sat in the chair next to my bed and prayed all night long, and all I could think about was my amazing wife of 7 ½ years of being married, and how I always saw us living to be an old couple together, and also about our 8 weeks old daughter, I imagined how many first’s I’d potentially be missing, first steps, first words, day of school, even down to walking her down the isles someday. Now it may sound like I’d given up, but I hadn’t, I was just reflecting on what was thrown my way by the doctors. Pretty heavy stuff to run your mind over in such a short amount of time.

The next day my neurologist came in and told me that he was planning on talking to me about what kind of procedure we would be doing for my brain surgery, but instead after seeing my sinuses where so impacted he wanted to bring in a Ear Nose and Throat Doctor, and also an Infectious Disease Doctor, and see if we can fix the situation before making it worse. The next day I found myself going into surgery. For over 2 hours they cleaned out my sinuses and did confirm that the infection had eroded my bone and gone into my brain. However, they where optimistic that the abscess may drain and with the help of all the antibiotics would be gone. The next day in ICU is a complete blur, I don’t remember much, but that evening the doctor’s moved me out of ICU and into a normal room! One step closer to going home! This to me was a good sign, I can’t be as bad, I must be getting better right?!!