19 years old. I was still living at home and going to community college as opposed to a university because I didn't want to leave my boyfriend. I had good job at a high-end gift shop and had just started playing pool on the side. Yes, pool. Billiards. Pockets. Neely & I could talk trash better than anyone and most of the time, we could back it up!
NOW........Try to go back in your mind to when you were 19 years old.
(Its a looooong way for some!)
Imagine how you would feel if, upon waking up one morning, everything to your right was doubled. Left was good but to the right there was two of everything. Yeah, exactly. I did what any stupid teenager would do. I ignored it and headed down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with Chad. DRIVING on the interstate, alone, with double vision. (Not one of my finer moments) When I got back into town, my vision was double not only to the right but had moved to the center and left. It was time to tell my mom and see a doc. I went to see an eye doctor who told me there was "possibly" a tumor there and I needed to go see someone else. I ended up having an MRI done. Here's a fun part.....
Ya know back in the day when people had house phones? Well, the neurosurgeon over my MRI called one afternoon. My mom and I picked up the phone at the same time. I listened to see if it was for me and I heard that it was the doctor's office. I stayed on the line. All I remember after that is hearing "Im sorry but your daughter has a lesion on her brain. We need to see her." I don't know how I didn't pass out but I do remember thinking that I was going to die and I was scared to death. The visit to the neurosurgeon post MRI didn't help any. He couldn't tell me many specifics and wasn't sure if it was operable or not. I was turned over to another doctor with a follow up MRI. This test showed that what I had was a blood-vessel type tumor but it was IN my brain stem. It had ruptured and the blood from the tumor surrounded my optic nerve, causing the double vision. To be sure, I was handed off to another doctor, at Shands in Gainesville. That doc told me I had the "10 foot pole" syndrome, meaning my condition was so delicate that no one would touch me with a 10 foot pole. Yay me. I was told however that those tumors are usually inactive and once ruptured, it probably wouldn't cause any more problems. My vision corrected itself within 2-3 months and I was back to the party world.
By this time, Chad and I had broken up and I was hanging out with a friend from school that was home on leave from the Marines. We hit it off fairly well and I ended up going to Hawaii to spend 3 weeks with him during Thanksgiving. My grandmother died while I was away.....
When I came back, it was partying from the time I got off work, through the wee hours of the morning (sometimes not sleeping) until I had to be at work the next day. I kept a bottle of Absolut in my car. One night at Pockets, I was a little TOO tipsy and I could barely function. I saw this girl that I knew from other friends, went up to her and asked her to take care of me. My friendship with Victoria was born. More parties ensued and we ended up getting an apartment together just so we could come and go as we pleased! (I won't even go into the golfers, Slicky.) More parties. More alcohol. It was just more, more, more all the time! This does NOT need to show a bad impression of Victoria. I was perfectly capable of making my own bad decisions. :)
And then I met David. David Danny Miller. My parents didn't care for him and neither did Victoria. I shouldnt have either but what did I do? I went and married the boy. Married! At 22. He was in the Coast Guard so we moved to Mobile where he was stationed. I won't say that we didn't love each other and didn't have good times. We did but we were toxic to each other. The relationship escalated to physical confrontations yet I stayed. (And I always wondered why my mother never left!!!)
SO, I'm 22, living in Mobile and working at Red Lobster. I woke up one morning to get ready for work and when I stepped out of bed, I fell down. My whole left side was paralyzed. My head was KILLING me. Where was David? Well lets just say he wasn't available to take me to a payphone, since we didn't have a phone in our apartment. I drove myself, with full double vision again, left side semi-paralyzed and a blinding headache. I called my mom who called my neuro and was told to get back home immediately and go straight to the ER. It wasn't easy, but I got there. My tumor had ruptured, again. This time the plan wasn't to leave it alone, it was to find someone brave enough to remove it. Problem? Pre-existing condition. So my mom did what any mom would do in that situation. She researched and searched and begged for SOMEONE to help me so I could have my surgery. Three weeks I was on total bedrest and my husband had just left me because "I should marry my mother since I was letting her do everything for me." Yeah, ok. Anyway, since I worked at the gift shop, a lady that also worked there worked for our congressman. He was able to get me emergency medicaid/medicare (whatever it is) to pay for the surgery as long as someone would pay for the hospital. RED LOBSTER stepped up and paid for the hospital so I was set.....ready to go get my noggin fixed.
But of course, nothing is that easy, right???
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