I have a brain tumor

I have a brain tumor.

My life certainly hasn’t turned out the way I expected it. I have a brain tumor. I mean, who grows up and gets a brain tumor? Me, apparently.

This is not how my life is supposed to turn out. I know my life isn’t the usual life, the life that the TV says we are all supposed to have. Oh sure, my childhood was more like Titus than The Wonder Years, more Twilight Zone than Leave it to Beaver or The Brady Bunch. And yes, I tend to do everything out of order, but I never expected a freaking brain tumor.

My childhood was pretty typical, you know the drill, atheist parents who sent me to an evangelical private school, parents who later discovered religion when I was ten years old. Of course, the religion they discovered was Krishna consciousness and Mind Dynamics with a dash of Buddhism thrown in for good measure. My mom taught me to roll the perfect joint using a dollar bill, but would beat me when the moon was out of phase with Mercury. You know, a typical San Francisco Bay Area sort of childhood in the 60’s and 70’s.

I never really cared what people thought of me. I never really have. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve always sort of lived in my own little world or if I possibly have a touch of Aspergers, who knows. I’ve never really cared for what other people wanted, I never fit the tribe. Perhaps it’s because I started way early in school and didn’t develop socially, perhaps it’s because I’m Pisces and I just swim a different stream.

Anyway, 4 years ago, I thought that right now, late August, I’d be working in a government job, helping to secure our national infrastructure from private individuals and agents of foreign national governments. I figured that I’d be working away as a senior security analyst reviewing network architecture plans or security policies or reviewing and overseeing biometric installations at military bases. Or perhaps I’d be reviewing help-desk logs at the Treasury Department, mining them to see if I could discover spyware or other malware infestations. Or even perhaps, I’d be at the NSA reviewing spyware issues of a different sort all together.

You see, I’ve been awarded a full-ride scholarship as part of the National Science Foundation’s CyberCorps, the Scholarship for Service program. I was finally going to get my bachelor’s degree, finally, at the age of 44.

I also thought that by this time I would have lost at least 75 pounds because I had weight loss surgery; I had the Lap Band. I figured that I would be a sexy size 14, picking out my new smaller breasts and planning my tummy tuck.

Instead, I’m sitting here with a brain tumor. I have Cushing’s, one of those rare diseases. And when I say rare, I mean, 10 to 25 people out of a million are diagnosed with this. Parts per million.

My original blog was on the lap band board that I belong to, but they have since discontinued that feature. I am moving all those posts over, so there will be plenty to review...