Things That Probably Gave Me a Brain Tumor

After thinking about how to do these journal blogs, I'll probably just post there pages with a caption that is directly related and then write about whatever other non journal crazy stuff in the main body. I'll probably write stuff in the sketchbook on the left page and draw on the right. If I include that text, I'll just put it in quotes. I chose this bowl because it surprised me when I took it out of the stack and I saw the pattern on the interior. Like me, it has lots going on in the inside right now. I wrote "I am somewhat relieved that the seizure did not seem to affect my drawing abilities. I've never had a time where I've been unsure of whether or not I still possessed that ability. I find the handwriting part hard because there is no auto correct to rely on. Jan 10 2018" I spent around 5 minutes on this loose sketch. Baby Steps.

 It is inevitable in times like this (discovering a brain tumor) that you reflect on your past choices and wonder if there was anything you did that may have caused weird things to start growing in your skull. Now, I have my degree in Googling, and apparently meningiomas can be (but isn't always) linked to radiation exposure. So, between not living near Hiroshima in 1940's and that stretch of 6 years where I was too scared to go to the dentist due to some over packed fillings, my brain has wandered a little further afield to find Sally's Origin Story. (BTW to my friends named Sally, my tumor's name was suggested by my niece. This in no way has anything to do with you. My niece on the other hand is probably harboring a really sick grudge.) 

I debated about doing a "Top Ten" format and have avoided that trap. Point form is better in my current head space because I will end up with something like 13 points and then I'll have to change this to a "Top Twenty" list and spend the rest of the morning thinking of 8 not as funny points and then have a headache. Win win. (Edited to add that I reread this and realized that 8 + 13 do not equal 20. I decided to leave it in here for you to wonder if I made a mistake or if I am being profound because I would then have to make it a "Top Thirty" list and the cycle would continue and somehow that was a metaphor for life)

So, in no particular order because I've been coming up with these for the last 12 hours and then promptly forgetting them...

Things That Probably Gave Me a Brain Tumor: 

- That time when I was around 5 years old where me and my friend Aaron decided to pretend we were cats and to be more authentic we snuck into the kitchen and started to eat Sammy's dry food straight from the dish while meowing loudly. Then we continued to eat it not because we were being authentic but because it actually wasn't that bad. 

- When I was at Langley Fine Arts School, the visual art majors had to paint sets for the upcoming production of the Wizard of Oz. We were left alone in the gym with huge buckets of artist grade acrylic paint. Naturally, we decided it would be HILARIOUS to coat our arms and faces with thick globs of Cadmium laden paint and walk around the school like a bunch of weirdos. When the teacher discovered this, she lost it and said a bunch of stuff about health and paint absorption through skin that remained dormant in my psyche till last week. 

- Wearing thick layers of pancake foundation in the lightest shade available, trying on clothes at the Value Village on Hastings St. or listening to The Cure/Sisters of Mercy/The Smiths on endless repeat during my Goth phase. Or all of the above mixed into some toxic depressing tumor causing stew. 

- When I ran my only marathon in Vancouver and hit my wall at mile 16 and there was that lady who was walking a little behind me who was wearing headphones started swinging her hips and loudly singling along to her folk music that I couldn't hear and so I started running again only because I needed to get away from her, probably at a great personal health toll.

- In my late teens when I worked at the Body Shop and my coworkers and I secretly smoked cigarettes on our breaks and then came back on shift and coated ourselves in a thick layer of Dewberry Perfume because our manager didn't think that we were projecting a healthy Body Shop image. 

- That time my dad took my sister and I to the Science Centre and we got to touch a python then on the way home my dad let us pick out our favorite flavour of yogurt at Safeway. At home, as I started to eat my bowl of yogurt, my sister casually informed me that people who forget to wash their hands  after touching a snake and then eat Black Cherry Yogurt would turn into a python during the next full moon. That little seed of fear that was planted probably equals a brain tumor now. 

- In Grade 10 I was trying to convince my mom that I was too sick to go to school so I tried warming up the glass thermometer on the stove and it broke and mercury leaked all over the element and I did a terrible job cleaning it up. (Oh, by the way my family may want to book a cautionary CT scan once they read this, just saying) 

- Cleaning washrooms at the New Westminster Starbucks. I'm sure that gave me some sort of permanent disease or disability. The fragrance of their mop water mixture of industrial cleaner plus the inescapable realities of public washrooms of certain neighborhoods in certain towns is permanently scarred into my brain. (I confess I struggled with how to word this one kindly) 

- All the times I secretly tasted Scratch 'n' Sniff stickers and Mr. Sketch markers to check if they were flavoured as well. Possibly that roll on lip gloss I got in my stocking that year that really tasted good so I secretly just kept rolling in on my lips and licking it off and then reapplying it till it was gone. 

- Reading most of the Sweet Valley High novels and/or the fact that I know all the lyrics to Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It" album. Throw in all the acquired knowledge of the inter connectivity between spin off sitcoms related to the Facts of Life as well as Three's Company. Those items alone left to fester in my cranium could easily have fused into some sort of 80's pop culture spawned tumor. 

Whoa. I think that is actually just 10. I'm going to stop while I'm ahead. 

Real Life Update

I have decided that "Multitasking" is just fancy speak for people who can't concentrate on anything very long. Prior to my seizure, I could focus for long stretches at a time on very intensive stuff until I finished. No longer for the moment. I work on many many things a day and get very few of them completed because I lose track of what I came into that room for. I feel okay today though, so I'm happy that I'm at least appearing productive. Having no concrete long range plans and not striving towards goals right now has left me fidgety and bored. Blogging has been useful because instead of thinking about all the things I could be worried about, I'm thinking about dumb jokes. 

​​To read the whole story of my Meningioma click here.