my craniotomy

I'm crying right now. It's been six months, and it's just hitting me now that I had a square cut out of my skull and my brain messed with. There is one visible scar from the whole thing, but it's not where you'd think, it's on my neck. My long, luxurious strawberry hair has covered the 32 staples, the red angry horseshoe carving and the dent where the plastic skull cover didn't quite match the size of my face.
In July last year I started noticing I had a headache all the time. It wasn't a big headache so I just went about my life, but I kept noticing that it was there, all the time, in the back ground. I assumed that it was stress from the recent death of my father in law. The kids had taken it pretty hard. Hud seemed on the surface to be doing okay, but he's such a deep personality that I was always worrying that he was crying inside. His mom was taking the death especially hard, and we were all worried about her health and her psyche. I figured there was enough there to be causing the constant pressure. In August though, about half way through, I realized that it was affecting my personality. I was getting angry with the kids so much more. I had such little patience with everything. And always, in the background, was the knowledge that I was angry or frustrated because my head just wouldn't stop hurting. I kept running, kept lifting, kept biking, hoping that the activity would loosen the stress and stop the pain, but it just didn't go away. Finally, about the end of the month, right when the kids were starting back at school, I decided to run to the doctor for drugs to tamp this things down. I don't remember much about the initial visit, other than I couldn't describe just how annoying the headache was so that he would understand my concern. I knew I didn't have a migraine. It didn't effect my vision and it didn't make me nauseated. I couldn't be sure if it got worse as the day went on or better. All I knew, was that by that point I was sure that every morning when I woke up, that pain was going to be my first sensation. He gave me something, and told me to take it for a week and see if I felt better. By the time I left the office, I had already forgotten anything else he might have told me. I took one of the pills, but it didn't do anything for the pain and I didn't take any more.
About a week later I couldn't take it any more and went to get a second opinion. I went to Hud's doctor because he had been happy with the results of going to visit him. I hoped to see the same results. When I first came in and described my symptoms, he told me there are 5 different kinds of headaches, and they each have different symptoms. He told me what they all were, and then we both stopped and looked at each other. I didn't fit into any of the categories. He decided to set me up for an MRA at the local hospital.
This sounds weird, but I knew when I was laying there having the MRA that there was something different. I kept telling myself I was just being over dramatic, since that is part of my personality, but I just felt something.
A week past. I remember that when he called and asked me to come in, I thought it was funny that I was going to have to go with my toddler. Baby is so wiggly! I came in to the room and sat across from him and he had that look on his face. Baby was climbing all over the patient table, playing with the stirrups and opening and closing drawers. The doctor said, well, the MRA came back, and there is something there. You have what's called an aneurysm. I knew what that was. My neighbor had gone to the post office one day, about a year earlier, and one minute he was standing in line, and the next he was comatose on the floor. He died later that day, a burst aneurysm he didn't even know he had. And now, a year later, I was being told I had the same thing. It was sitting just behind my left eye. It was small, about 5mm, about the size of a pencil eraser. There was no idea for how long it had been there, or how fast it was growing.
I sat there with a small smile on my face as Baby wiggled around the room and the doctor tried to give me all the information. I responded normally, I didn't cry or get emotional or anything. He asked me if I had any questions, and I figured I didn't, I already knew what this thing was in my head. He told me about the two options, and what would have to happen next. We both stood and shook hands and I gathered Baby and headed out to my car. It was when I got Baby in and started the car that I started shaking. I began to cry as I pulled out of the parking lot. There was a prayer in my head, and it came out of my mouth as I turned right and towards my parents' home instead of left and towards my own. Hud was at work in the city, I knew I couldn't reach him and he couldn't come to me, so as I drove, prayed and cried, I headed to my father, knowing he would be there. My prayer was simple as I went, "Father in Heaven, thy will be done. I have these babies, I have this husband, if it's thy will I would like to stay with them. If it is not, help me bear this well, help me to please thee in the process, and please, give me the strength to keep my faith in thee." I called my dad and asked him if he would give me a blessing when I got there. He called my brother and we met there where they laid their hands on me, and by the power of the priesthood, they blessed me. My shivering stopped and my tears went away and I felt peace. We hugged and laughed and talked for a minute and then I headed back home. Hud had gotten my messages by then and called me on the way, and we met together at home. I won't talk about that moment, that's for us, but it was sweet, and it was good. We went out for lunch together and laughed and planned for what would and might come. Tomorrow We'll talk about angiograms and CT scans.