Derek's Memoirs Part 6

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I first noticed something was wrong in my head when I was doing somersaults, warming up for jiu jitsu class. When I stood up I got a little dizzy, and this had never happened before. At first I didn’t consider it that big a deal and just ignored it, but then I noticed it more doing other things. When I raised my head up from the workout bench, shoulder checking while driving, even getting up in the morning became a chore. After a trip from overseas I saw a doctor close to my new home, rather than my family doctor in Richmond - which was a mistake. This doctor did a few tests, and then scheduled an appointment with a neurology specialist. During this time the dizziness got worse, and no matter how much I ate I was losing weight. This appointment with the specialist took months, and all he did was schedule me for some stupid balance tests at UBC. Waste of time in my opinion. After this things started to deteriorate very quickly. I couldn’t always eat in the morning because of the nausea, I had to call in sick more because I was too sick to my stomach. Eventually I made an appointment with my family doctor and explained my situation. He immediately made an appointment for a CT scan, but even with my symptoms the next appointment was months away. One thing about our medical system, it’s not always the fastest, but you can’t beat the quality that’s for sure. While waiting for this scan, my condition deteriorated, and now I was throwing up every single morning. My doctor then scheduled me for a rush CT scan, and even that was a week away. When the day came I drove into Richmond to have my tests done. I have never had more than a sprained ankle in my life, so these types of tests were new to me. If you’ve never had a CT scan or an MRI, they’re kind of weird for the first timer. At this time in my life I’ve had about 30-40 of them, but sometimes they’re as uncomfortable as ever. With this CT scan I had to lie down on my back, perfectly still for about 20 minutes, which wasn’t too bad. They told me the results would be sent to my family doctor, and he would call for follow up. As soon as I walked into my apartment 20 minutes later the phone rang, and I knew it wasn’t good news. It was my family doctor who requested an appointment immediately.



I drove down to his office about 2 hours later, and I knew exactly what he was going to say. The tests had revealed what appeared to be a tumour, in the right side of my brain. To be honest I wasn’t really shocked, because I had been telling my close friends for months I thought I had a brain tumour. The ct scan isn’t always conclusive, so my doctor, James McCreary in Richmond, scheduled me for a follow-up mri in about a week’s time. Dr, McCreary has been my family doctor since I moved from the Bahamas in 1980, and I have to give him some praise. This is the kind of doctor that used to do house calls for my mom, when she was in bed for a month with a slipped disc and migraine headaches. If he wasn’t retiring soon I would recommend him, but he had a big part in saving my life.



One day my mom was at my house helping me, and I said forget this I’m going to the emergency room. I was starting to feel so bad at this point, I was desperate. I almost attended a private clinic to pay for my own MRI, because I got fed up having to keep waiting when I KNEW there was a tumour there. I checked myself into the emergency room at the Vancouver General Hospital, and I ended up staying there for the next 3 weeks. Even though they pretty much knew I had a brain tumour, I still had to wait most of the night before an mri became available.



The mri confirmed what I already suspected, a brain tumour in the right cerebellum. This is the part of the brain that controls balance and equilibrium, and that explained the dizziness and nausea. What I found out later is this was called a medulla blastoma, and it’s one of the more aggressive tumours. These types of tumours are normally found in children and infants, some as young as 2 years old. There are so few adult cases in Canada, they don’t have enough cases to study clinically. The treatment works, but the cause remains unknown.



The surgeon came to talk to me about my options. His name was Peter Gooderham, and he was one of the lead surgeons at the Vancouver Cancer Clinic. He gets a special shout out because he also played a big part in saving my life. He said I could go home until a bed becomes available, or stay as an in-patient - that way I would get treatment quicker. Even though hospitals bore me to death I decided to stay.



The way they treat tumours differs that from what I expected. Tumours in the body can either be benign, non-cancerous, or cancerous. Surgery is very invasive, so they avoid that at all costs, because lots of things can be lost like speech, eye sight and loss of movement in the arms. If the tumour is cancerous, the plan is to skip surgery and go right to radiation and chemo. To determine if it’s cancerous or not they must initially perform blood tests. If those are clear, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not cancerous, so they must perform a spinal tap, or spinal epidural. This requires a doctor to insert a very long, sharp needle into your lower back to extract spinal fluid. If cancer is detected in the spinal fluid, then you’re pretty much done. If there is no cancer is detected in the spinal fluid, it doesn’t mean that it’s not cancerous. At that point they perform surgery, and extract a very small part of the tumour. The tumour is shown to a pathologist in the operating room, and they determine at that time by physical inspection if it’s cancerous. If it’s determined to be cancer, they immediately end the operation, close up the wound, and proceed to radiation and chemotherapy. In my case, the pathologist could not make a final determination, so the surgeons removed as much of the tumour as they could. Later tests proved that it was a cancerous brain tumour.



The road to surgery was not easy at all. When I first entered the hospital I weighed about 195 pounds, and I was eating less and less. When I left 3 weeks later, I weighed 163 pounds. At 6’3 I looked horrible. About a week into my hospital stay, Dr. Gooderham told me I was scheduled for surgery. Prepping for the surgery meant fasting for 24 hours, which meant no eating or drinking. To best describe how I felt at this point, imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had. Now imagine that 24 hours a day, for the next 8 months or so. Now imagine feeling like that, with no food or water for 24 hours. Five minutes before my first surgery date, Dr. Gooderham walked into my room, and by the look on his face it wasn’t good news. He explained to me that an emergency case had entered the hospital, so my surgery was postponed until a future time. This happened again about 3 days later, and by this point I was so sick I couldn’t life my head off the pillow. The only food I got were the ice chips my nurse hand fed to me. At this point I really wanted to die - right then I wanted off this planet. When my surgery date finally came they started wheeling me down to the operating room, and as I got close to the room I thought I could hear the helicopter coming in. Keep in mind, if someone got into a serious accident with head trauma and needed to be airlifted, I could be bumped at anytime. Thankfully this didn’t happen, and the procedure went by without a hitch.



When I woke up, seriously I felt instantly better. It wasn’t just the fact that the tumour was gone, it was all the drugs and steroids they had me on. They don’t let you stay long this day in age, all the doctors and nurses agreed that being at home is way better than the hospital. The next day I had to learn how to walk again, and getting up 5 sets of stairs was a big challenge. Two days later I was back at home, and my mom stayed with me for the next month or so. At this point I want to acknowledge that my mom is one of the best people ever, and I couldn’t have done it without her. The next 8-9 months of treatments were absolutely horrible, but at the end of it I’m free and clear of cancer - and that’s what matters.



At this point I want to acknowledge everyone that helped me through this ordeal, and other things in my life.

My surgeon Peter Gooderham and his whole team for helping to save my life.

My radiation technicians Johnny and Sara, who were instrumental in saving my life,

My nurse practitioner Rosemary Cashman.

Colin McDouall and his wife Mercy who brought me a rose plant in my hospital room.

My work colleague Carla, who stayed with me in the hospital before my surgery.

My friend Robin, who also stayed with me in the hospital during complications.

My work colleagues Sonny, Al and JJ who visited me in the hospital.

My ex-wife Stacey and my good friend Erin, who gave me sponge bath when I was too sick to get out bed.

My good friends Nyan and Malcolm, who drove me to and from the hospital.

One of my best friends Dieter, who brought me protein powder and some other things to help with my recovery.

My auntie Betty, who has been a great support for me.

My good friends Mike and Paul, who brought me some of the best Chinese food ever when I got out of the hospital.

My work colleague Sarah C who helped me with my transition to Ottawa.

My friend Jen in New York, who sent me a gift basket during my treatments.

My friends Rick and Gord, who came over to support me during my divorce.

My awesome work colleagues Jen, Chelsea, Lise-Anne, and Simona who also helped me a lot.

A special thanks goes out to my wonderful mom Dorothy. She is the most amazing woman in the world. She stayed with me in the hospital numerous times, and lived with me for a month during my recovery.

The final thing I want to mention are two of my best friends, Piper the lab who is with my ex wife, and my other buddy Ben the cat. I want to give an extra thanks to my ex wife Stacey who is an amazing woman, without her I wouldn't have had these two in my life. Every day during my treatments, no matter how I felt i knew I had my Benny waiting for me as I walked in the door. When I was laying in my bed, feeling like death, puking all day, he was right by my side ready for a cuddle. I'm crying as I write this because they both mean the world to me, so I'll let the photos do the talking.

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