"Christie, I'm Sick."
That's how it started. It was Friday, April 10th at around 10:30pm. We had just returned home from an outing with friends during which Bryan seemed uncharacteristically affected by what, for most men, would be a reasonable amount of alcohol. A few beers with the guys turned into falling, stumbling and incoherent mumbling. We got home and while lying on the couch, the moment turned serious. Three words were all it took for Bryan to get my full attention: "Christie, I'm sick."
My immediate reaction: Sick, like you have a cold? Sick, like you need some Nyquil to sleep? Or sick, like in most worse case scenarios, you have the flu and need a Z-pack?
Turned out it was none of the above. It was "sick" as in something was really wrong with Bryan, and it had been going on since DECEMBER (don't even get me started). First, he explained, there was the slight tingling of the right side of his lips and tongue. It came and went on its own, not strong enough to be a true cause for concern. A month passed and his tongue and lips were getting more tingly, turning numb even, and it was spreading to the right side of his face. Beyond that, Bryan would go to the gym and after a relatively normal workout, feel beyond fatigued and dizzy. Dizzy enough that he had to hold onto a wall to walk. He chalked it up to dehydration and the heat from extended periods in the sauna. Then came the weakness on the left side of his body. His grip on a glass of water or a beer bottle became difficult to maintain (not once he got hold of it, but when he was reaching to actually get a grip on it), and typing, especially in the morning, became more and more clumsy. He overcompensated when we went out with friends by not drinking as much and holding me tight when we walked down streets or even down our driveway, so I wouldn't notice his lack of balance.
It was at this point in April, when symptoms weren't going away, that Bryan decided he needed to look up his symptoms and come up with a self-diagnosis. Here's where WebMD.com enters the picture. Sidebar: if you're ever TRULY sick, like life-threatening sick, the internet is your ENEMY. Do not believe medical opinions that are on the internet (this blog notwithstanding). Get an expert medical opinion.
From Bryan's research, there were four possible diagnoses for his mystery condition:
1. Multiple Sclerosis
2. ALS (Lou Gherig's disease)
3. Minor stroke
4. Tumor
We laughed at the 4th option. After all, Bryan is a strapping 30-year-old man with a strong mind, body and soul. What 30-year-old gets a tumor, especially when cancer doesn't necessarily run in either of our families? It just had to be something minor, right? After all, we were getting married in just over two months and starting our new life together. We're more happy than either of us have been in our lives. Our biggest decision and/or worry was whom to sit with whom at the wedding. This does not happen to people like us. Whatever that means. I've since learned that cancer does not discriminate. It is an equal opportunity disease.
At this point, I called my close family friend, a leading surgeon at St. Johns, and asked for him to call me back immediately. We got a call first thing the next morning, and so began the longest 9-day span of our entire lifetimes combined.
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