Original story Written 2003
For the past twenty or so years I have tried to exercise, eat right and live as healthy a lifestyle as possible. But somehow that did not protect me from a mystery that today is still un answered. On March 28 I was preparing for an art show that upcoming weekend. As I was going down the stairs, my cat Scottie, ran in front of me. To keep him from going outside as my husband had the garage door up, and I reached over to grab his tail. The next thing that I knew I was at the bottom of 15 wooden steps. I had passed out and fallen down the stairs. After getting James, my husband to get Scottie I told him he had better take me to the hospital. I had dizzy spells quite a bit before that and they always went away. This time it would not go away and I could not get up to get in our vehicle, so he called 911.

The Wellmont Hospital in Rogersville was where they took me. After five hours, one set of x-rays and telling me that their cat scan was not working, they sent me home with a pain pill and told me if I was worse in the morning to call them.

The next morning my husband went to work as I instructed him as my parents were coming over. By the time I arrived, I was in convulsions. They took me to Wellmont Holston Valley Hospital where they discovered I had a rather large sized brain tumor, a meningioma. They estimated it at the size of a softball! And it had to come out now! I was immediately put on steroids to keep my brain from swelling. Early the next morning surgery was done to remove my brain tumor. Dr. Paul Peterson was my neurosurgeon.

The entire tumor could not be removed, so I was told that follow up MRIs were necessary to monitor the remaining tumor. I was in the hospital for nine days. You may think this odd, but with the work load that I had in the past few years and some stress caused by some very unkind people, it was sort of a mini vacation for me, although my surgeon suggested that I go to the Bahamas or somewhere else relaxing the next time I needed a vacation.

Recovery was slow as I had fallen down so many steps and was quite bruised from the fall. But with my husband's help I slowly began to walk again. I looked forward to his coming home for my daily shower. As I was taken off of the steroids, I soon discovered that I had major surgery.

For the next few weeks, I sat on my front porch reading. James and I had been so busy that we had never sat on our front porch and it was rather nice to read and watch the hummingbirds. Although some of my neighbors around me doubted there was anything wrong with me at all, I was really recovering and that takes time.

What amazes me is all the symptoms that I had and no doctors would even request an MRI or cat scan. I had reported undescribable headaches, dizziness, tingling fingers, hair loss and no on saw what was wrong. I dreaded getting up in the morning as I always had a headache. I later learned that this is a clear sign that something is wrong.