Valentine's day: our day of giving thanks

My brother had a brain tumour removed today -- a tumour the size of a tennis ball. Fortunately for him, it was benign -- a meningioma, but it had invaded the meninges. Benign brain tumours can kill -- just because the space within the skull is limited. So the question becomes: how could he have such a big tumour and be asymptomatic. No headaches. Nothing. How lucky was he.

None of us worried about it. A specialist had told him years ago that he had a bone abnormality -- his forehead seemed to have changed shape, gotten bigger. And it had. Recent scans showed the skull there to be 2 cm thick, whereas elsewhere it was 0.8 cm. No one queried anything else much, and it was only by chance that he went to a plastic surgeon to have droopy eyelids lifted so he could see, and the plastic surgeon refused to do anything till he'd had it all checked out.

Now comes the waiting game. Part of his skull has been ferried interstate so a replica can be made of it, and put in his head. The biggest risk now is infection.

So, he's lying now in hospital, being woken every half hour. I imagine his progress will be slow and painful -- at the moment he's doped up with morphine. But as long as he does improve, everything will be fine.

It's hard being so remote to it. He's interstate. Times like this we need to be geographically closer. I'd like to go in tomorrow and see him, but I can't. Can't contemplate the trip up because classes start next week, and I'm not on top of things.

We do need to give thanks that they found it now. And now we're left scratching our own heads about how no-one, not one of us, was worried enough about his lump to insist of further investigation. Was it because our grandma had a strange lump on her head? (Maybe she had a tumour too.) Was it the lack of concern by the doctors? Was it just our need to believe that everything was okay? That old head-in-the-sand attitude never helped anyone. I'm just glad he got to it when he did -- before there was any damage. The consequences could have been horrific. And now I'll pray for the bugs to stay away, and for his op next week to be just as successful.