Big D Does It For Me

I’ll do anything to avoid it. I feign ignorance as I tiptoe by
it—back and forth, back and forth—throughout my days,
but I know it’s there. Lurking behind the hall closet,
tucked under winter coats and random stuff I have
nowhere else to store.

It’s the dreaded V—the vacuum. Give me dog slobbered
and kids’ fingerprinted sliding glass doors to clean or
heaps of laundry to do any day. Heck, I’d rather scrape
soap scummed showers or load the dishwasher than
unleash the electrically powered beast.

Truth be told, I’ll avoid most chores at any cost. Unlike
many writers who rely on them to divert them from their craft,
domestic drudgeries are actually quite conducive
to my trade and have served me well.

Dishes. Dog shit. Dirty windows. So sorry they can wait,
I have a brilliantly comedic column to compose.
Deadlines are fast approaching!

My name is Liz. I’m a suburban housewife/mother/writer
and I confess, I am domestically disabled and—-dare I
say it?—-I am damn proud of it.

How did I get this way? Simple—15 hours of brain
surgery, rearranging your upstairs furniture and
screwing your skull back together, has a dramatic life
altering impact on someone. You wake up one day with
enough titanium in your head to sink a battleship and
proclaim “Chores, schmores,”—-the latter also being fun,
albeit a bit messy, to eat. Life suddenly has more
meaning. (Forgive my brain tumor survivor drum I have
to beat every so often to keep the masses aware.)

But that all changed one day, when an equally
domestically disabled girlfriend showed up at my door.
She popped open her car trunk to unveil the Holy Grail
of all vacuums—the Dyson. I’d heard about this elite V
class in the past, but thought nothing more of it.

At first, I thought it was a practical joke. But she wasn’t
kidding as she easily hoisted the box and carried its contents into my dust bunnies' ridden house.

“I promise you’ll love it!” she shouted as she bolted out
the front door.

It was just me and the beckoning box. But I already
owned a V. Where would I stash this one?

Well at least I could take a look, I reasoned. No harm in
that, right?

I’d tried Oreck’s, Hoover’s, Dirt Devil’s, Bissell’s,
Kirby’s, even my husband’s Shop Vac. They had no
staying power—they were all just flings.

But I immediately sensed the Dyson was different. I
guess I could take it for a test drive. After all, I could
always chuck it in the recycling bin or pass it on to one
of my other domestically unchallenged girlfriends.

I plugged Big D in and we had lift off.

Big D gently caressed corners and easily glided back
and forth. Its hose extended beyond reach to places I’d
never explored before. Under tables. The stairs. Even
the hardwood floors. It was quiet and not overbearing
like the others. And when it was done with the job, I
easily popped Big D’s top and disposed the contents
into the trash. No leaking, messy bags to contend with.
It was mess and muss free.

EUREKA! Yes, Big D does it for me!

Before the Sun Rises

It was nine years ago today, but it still feels like that morning. A damp, cold, gray, Colorado winter morning when the sun had yet to rise and peak through my shutters stirring me from sleep. Instead, the high pierced shrill of a phone performed the sun’s daily ritual.

With receiver pressed firmly against my ear, an uneven, sterile voice greeted (if you could call it that) me. The unfamiliar, gravelly voice delivered a fate I still carry to this day and will until my last breath.

It only took four words.

“You have a meningioma,” the hollow voice uttered.

“A whaaaat?!” I stuttered back.

“A BRAIN TUMOR,” the voice continued, sending chills down my spine.

How do you even spell that I wanted to know as I desperately rifled through my nightstand drawer in search of a pen, a pencil—ah, heck my Mac Spice lip liner would do.

Men-in-gioma sounds more like a group of guys test-driving the latest foreign import, with all the bells and whistles, not to mention the 2.9% available financing option.

If only it could have been that simple.

The line went dead.

But surely it was me who was dead. I had become that damp, cold, gray Colorado winter morning.

Just hours later, I sat in horror as my newly appointed neurosurgeon explained the MRI I’d had the night before. Never-before-heard terms soared over my head.

Middle third sphenoid wing meningioma.

Cavernous sinus.

Lateral ventricular compression.

You’d have to be a brain surgeon to understand any of this stuff. Thankfully, the man in the overly starched, white lab coat standing in front of me was.

I forced myself to look at the snapshots of my illuminated brain. Images of a baseball-sized mass glared back at me in defiance. My husband was a major league ballplayer at the time, but I never imagined I’d be looking at the equivalent size of one in my head. Surely there had been a mix up. I was healthy, only 32 and trying to start a family. Maybe this explained my struggles to become pregnant the past year.

“You’ve probably had this tumor for over a decade,” my neurosurgeon solemnly announced.

“A decade!” I choked. I had had a “roommate” living inside of my head for 10 years? The only roommates I ever recalled having were back in college and graduate school, who shared their English Lit notes with you and gave you aspirin and a glass of water after a night of one too many beers.

I couldn’t get out of my head the Kindergarten Cop scene in which Arnold Schwarzenegger shouted, “It’s not a tumor!” I so wanted to believe this. But this wasn’t a fictional movie.

It was real life and it was mine. Surgery would be long and risky, but I didn’t have a choice. Just eight days later I underwent 12 hours of delicate surgery to remove the roommate that had invaded my brain and my life.

I was well on the path to recovery when another blow sucker punched me. An oozing orifice led to emergency surgery—my second in just three months. Would I ever heal or had a brain tumor diagnosis forever altered the Liz I once knew?

Despite my resolve it proved tough to heal once again and doctors remained skeptical I could become pregnant, save for adoption or IVF.

It was a miracle that I’d survived two brain surgeries, but my greatest miracle arrived Sept. 6, 2001, when my daughter, Hannah was born. And on April Fool’s day 2004, my second miracle, Hunter, debuted a month early. Both naturally. I owe my life to them for had I not been trying to have Hannah and Hunter, you wouldn’t be reading this today.

And I’m no longer afraid of phone calls before the sun rises.

Blonde & Brain Impaired

Just some brain tumor schumor for the weekend...

To all those women feeling blessed, er, or rather cursed at times with being a true blonde, I can relate. I entered the world as a towhead, but not even sun and saline summers I spent year after year along the Pacific coast could preserve what Mother Nature had bestowed upon me. At nearly 42, (ok, only 41!) it’s actually sandy blonde and I have to pay what freelancing income (rather pittance) I don’t have, to achieve the gorgeous caramel and honey hues my 7-year-old daughter was naturally blessed with.

Lest I digress, I’ve had my fair share of “Dumb Blonde Jokes” sent to me. You all know the ones I’m referring to like “How can you tell if a blonde's been using the computer? There's white-out on the screen.” Or “Why do blondes take the pill?So they know what day of the week it is.”

And if being blonde wasn’t bad enough, nine years ago I discovered I had a brain tumor—a baseball-size tumor known as a meningioma, which shockingly had occupied my cranium for well over a decade. http://www.meningiomamommas.org/tumor.htm

So large was my uninvited guest that, like a schoolyard bully, it had actually shoved and pushed the right side of my spongy brain into its hemispheric left-sided counterpart. I’m convinced--or at least I tried selling this argument to my parents for years--this is why I wasn’t granted admittance into Columbia, Northwestern, CAL, (it’s too painful to name the rest), prestigious journalism programs.

Within days I was scheduled for surgery to remove the roommate that had invaded my brain and my life. I was told at the time that had my neurosurgeon not already been booked (I thought you only booked airline tickets and fancy dinner reservations), my half day surgery would have taken place within 24 hours.

It’s a miracle I survived considering how life threatening my blood thirsty tumor was and the fact that it was so tough and fibrous (as noted in my play by play path report) that in order to extract it, it was thinly sliced like deli meat.

Not long after my surgery I became more aware of how people reacted when I proclaimed I was a brain tumor survivor. Inevitably, the common reaction was, “You look too good to have had brain surgery.” Translation—why didn’t I resemble Herman Munster? OR people nearly gave themselves whiplash wondering how and where my tumor was removed. It didn’t take long before I offered an automated response, “Yes, the entire new line of Home Depot Dual Bevel Slide Miter Saws and DeWalt 18 volt compact drill drivers were demoed on my head!”

In fact, it’s become one of my many favorite mantras, which I don’t hesitate to share—the world needs to know that you can survive major surgery--including brain surgery. If you can’t talk about it and laugh at yourself, then this scary life altering subject will only continue to be shrouded in secrecy. And I’ve noticed that when I talk openly about not only being blonde but a brain tumor survivor as well, people lose the nervous laughter. They usually move in closer, cautiously inch by inch, curious about the bowling ball grip (courtesy of neurosurgeon drilling and tumor excavation) I point out beneath my highlighted hairline.

The best part about being a brain tumor survivor is being alive and reinventing myself. So without further adieu and in hopes of catching David Letterman’s attention, I present…

Top Ten Brain Tumor Survivor Benefits

10. Botox injections are painless if your face is numb like mine. I actually look forward to them, well that's if I did Botox.
9. My brain was occupied by a roommate, which explains why I wasn't accepted into an Ivy League school.
8. It's a great conversation starter: “I survived a brain tumor.”
7. It makes for really cool show and tell. I have an upside-down scar that resembles a question mark along my right ear.
6. I have a legitimate excuse for misplacing my keys, putting milk in the pantry and forgetting where I parked my car.
5. I’ll be on drugs for the rest of my life and am privileged to carry a dog-eared Walgreens frequent RX punch card.
4. I’m on a first name basis with the MRI techs at every hospital in my vicinity.
3. I love to gauge strangers’ reactions when I tell them, “I’m blonde; I don’t have a brain.”
2. I get my kicks when my titanium screws set off airport security alarms.
1. I’m waiting to get pulled over for speeding so I can say, “But officer, I’m blonde AND brain impaired!”