![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/MGH.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHere we are at Part 5 in the story………….A couple of days after the whole “LensCrafters” experience,\u00a0 I decided to go get some chinese food with a good musician friend of mine down in Boston. We met down in Chinatown in Boston for a late dinner. During dinner,\u00a0 I told him about all the things I have just told you in Parts 1-4 of this story. \u00a0I remember going through every detail. \u00a0He was fascinated and was asking a lot of questions.\u00a0 Needless to say, he was bewildered at why I hadn’t gone to see a doctor yet. \u00a0He told me that his Dad was a prominent Psychologist in Boston and asked if he could talk to him and get some advice from him about my situation.\u00a0 I answered\u00a0 “Sure. That’s cool”.<\/p>\n
The next morning,\u00a0 I went to work at my job at the convenient store. \u00a0I kept hearing my friends voice in my head asking why I hadn’t gone to my doctor as I sat in my office.\u00a0 I decided to call a doctor to make an appointment for a physical. \u00a0I think it was a 3 or 4 month wait until I could get the initial physical for a new patient. \u00a0I don’t remember going into all the details about what I was going through but I just booked the physical for their next opening in 3-4 months.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, as I \u00a0was counting money in my back office, the phone rang. \u00a0It was my friend that I had had dinner with the night before. \u00a0He told me that he had talked to his Dad and his Dad said I should go see a doctor ASAP. \u00a0I told my friend not to worry and that I had made an appointment for 3-4 months later which was as soon as they could see me. \u00a0I remember him saying that he thought that was too long to wait and that he would call me back.<\/p>\n
He called me back a few minutes later\u00a0 with a very serious and urgent tone.\u00a0 He said that he had talked to his Dad again and that his Dad said that my situation sounded serious and that I should leave work immediately and go to the Mass General Hospital emergency room. \u00a0I honestly thought my friend and his Dad were overreacting a bit and told him I would go after I was done with work that day.<\/p>\n
I hung up the phone and started to count the rest of the money on my desk but was having trouble concentrating. \u00a0I kept thinking about what my friend had just told me and was getting more and more anxious. \u00a0Finally, I put all the money away in the safe and called my friend to ask if he would go with me to the hospital. \u00a0He said he would meet me down there. (I know what you’re thinking “Finally!”)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The front of MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) Little did I know this was to become like a second home to me…..<\/strong><\/p>\n The drive down to Boston took me about 25 minutes. \u00a0I remember feeling like a nervous wreck the whole way down. When I got to the emergency room it had a fair number of people in it. \u00a0If you’ve ever been to a big city emergency room you know that it can be filled with people with quite a variety of problems.\u00a0 I remember sitting in a corner just giggling and laughing while people around me were bleeding, throwing up, crying and rocking in pain. \u00a0I was laughing the whole time. \u00a0 These sick and perhaps dying people were looking over at me like I was an idiot.\u00a0 My friend got there and sat with me for what seemed like hours.\u00a0 Finally,\u00a0 they called my name.<\/p>\n I walked over and the triage nurse asked me why I was there. \u00a0I remember just pointing to my face while laughing hysterically and saying “This!” \u00a0She was a bit confused so I went into detail about everything I have told you up until this point. \u00a0I remember going back to my seat and waiting some more. \u00a0Finally, they called me again and escorted me back to a room where they asked me to change into one of those awkward hospital gowns that are open in the back.<\/p>\n I waited there for awhile and finally a doctor came in.\u00a0 He asked me all the same questions the nurse had.\u00a0 He had me go through a bunch of weird tests that I thought were bizarre.\u00a0 He would have me point at an object and then touch my nose over and over again. He would touch and scratch various parts of my body and ask if I could feel it.\u00a0 He had me walking in straight lines and standing on one foot.\u00a0 He would press down and up on my legs and arms and ask for me to push against him.\u00a0 It felt like a DWI test being done by a state trooper………….Yes, I had one of those done once (I passed, but that is another story).\u00a0 Remember,\u00a0 that I am laughing during all of these tests.<\/p>\n Finally, he said he would like me to get an MRI.\u00a0 Everything I had told him made him think it was something neurological and that an MRI would be the best course of action.\u00a0 I’m not even sure I knew what an MRI was back then but I agreed to have it done.<\/p>\n I remember going into the MRI machine and thinking that it was like being in a coffin.\u00a0 Your in this long tube and the ceiling is maybe 16 inches from your face.\u00a0 I don’t think I am claustrophobic but this enclosed space was making me pretty nervous………The difficulty with having an MRI at that time was that I couldn’t stop laughing. \u00a0To get good MRI scans,\u00a0 you have to lay as still as you can.\u00a0 \u00a0I was laughing and bouncing all over the place.\u00a0 You wear these headphones they give you inside the machine and can listen to any kind of music you want so that the noise of the MRI isn’t as bad.\u00a0 They asked me what kind of music I wanted to listen to and of course I said “Jazz”.\u00a0 They said “No problem, we have that”\u00a0 and to make my situation even worse, Kenny G started playing in my headphones!\u00a0 “Lord, just take me now” I thought…………..<\/p>\n Kenny G\u00a0serenading me as I lay in the MRI machine<\/strong><\/p>\n As the MRI machine started it’s imaging,\u00a0 the smooth mellow sounds of Kenny G kept being interrupted by a man with a low\u00a0 growly “Barry White” type voice saying “Don’t move”\u00a0 “Please stop moving”\u00a0 “Please remain still”\u00a0 “DON’T MOVE!” (I detected a\u00a0 degree of increasing frustration in his voice and his words went from sounding like pleasant “Barry White” requests to what sounded like harsh “Barry White” commands and then finally threats within a few minutes).\u00a0 They finally got the scans they needed after what seemed like hours in that machine and I went back to waiting in my small room.<\/p>\n Not too long afterwards,\u00a0 a doctor came in with his best “sensitive” and “I care” facial expression and told me that they had looked at the MRI.\u00a0 In what seemed like a surreal dream,\u00a0 he told me that they found a tumor about the size of a golfball on my brain MRI.\u00a0 The tumor was apparently crushing my brain stem. \u00a0 I was laughing when he told me and my response was “That’s terrific!” \u00a0He thought maybe I had misunderstood him and repeated what he had told me the first time. \u00a0I had the same reaction…….. I laughed ecstatically.<\/p>\n Here is a MRI picture of my tumor I found in a Neurology TextBook entitled “Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases” by Hal Blumenfeld. This was published in 2002 but I just heard about this in 2019 from an adult sax student of mine who is a retired Doctor-this is without a doubt my MRI as another page says it is from a 27 year old saxophone player who laughed uncontrollably<\/strong><\/p>\n You have to remember,\u00a0 that up until this moment in time I was thoroughly convinced that I was going insane. \u00a0The relationship with my fiancee at the time had ended badly, \u00a0I had lost my music gig and wasn’t playing at all,\u00a0 my job performance at my day job was getting worse and worse, my friends all thought I was having a nervous breakdown or something . \u00a0I couldn’t have a normal conversation with anyone without totally losing it and cracking up laughing. \u00a0I couldn’t go to the bathroom in public.\u00a0 I couldn’t watch a movie without ruining for everyone in the theater.\u00a0 I was seeing a Psychologist for my problems and getting nowhere……… \u00a0I was totally convinced that I was going crazy……………… When that doctor came in and said there was something physically wrong with me that was causing all of this,\u00a0 that was one of the happiest moments of my life. \u00a0It was great news! \u00a0There was something physically causing this and maybe there was something that could be done about it.\u00a0 I wasn’t crazy!!!<\/p>\n After my initial diagnosis, the visits and meetings at the hospital are a bit of a blur in my memory. \u00a0I think I was there for a few days initially as they performed various scans and tests. \u00a0I remember seeing a multitude of doctors. \u00a0MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) is a teaching hospital so these large groups of interns would come in trailing the doctors like on Grey’s Anatomy and ER. \u00a0I would get the same questions from every doctor and every intern over and over again. \u00a0I also remember them performing multiple tests on me like that first Neurologists had done in the ER. \u00a0 At a certain point,\u00a0 I just felt like saying “Can’t you just ask the other 20 people that have done these same tests on me already?” I must have done that test probably twenty times. Touch your nose, touch my finger. Can you feel this?\u00a0 Can you feel this? Follow my finger with your eyes, etc…….on and on……….<\/p>\n MGH\u00a0 asked if they could have a bunch of doctors come from the Boston area hospitals to meet with me because of my intriguing symptoms (mainly the laughter symptom I think). \u00a0I went into this board room and there were about twenty of the top Neurologists from all the major hospitals in Boston asking me all about my story. \u00a0They actually video taped that session. (I would love to get my hands on that video tape just to see it)\u00a0 These were some of the most serious and intense people I had ever talked to in my life and I was laughing hysterically the whole time. \u00a0I don’t remember them even cracking a smile. (They were tough…….) They all asked me the same questions and I recounted my story just like I have for you here. \u00a0They were taking notes and \u00a0kept apologizing for all the questions.\u00a0 I got the feeling that brain tumors that cause laughter aren’t very common……….<\/p>\n Here is a page from that same Neurology TextBook entitled “Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases” by Hal Blumenfeld. This was published in 2002 but I just heard about this in 2019 from an adult sax student of mine who is a retired Doctor-this is without a doubt my case study as it is from a 27 year old saxophone player who laughed uncontrollably<\/strong><\/p>\n The way the Doctors explained my situation to me was that the tumor was crushing my brain stem.\u00a0 They showed me the MRI pictures and compared them to a normal persons MRI.\u00a0 With a normal person,\u00a0 you will see a nice roundish brain stem that leaves the brain and is attached to the spinal cord. \u00a0In my situation,\u00a0 right where the brain stem should have been was a big white golf ball type object. \u00a0The brain stem was completely smashed over to one side and was squeezed into a thin line making it’s way around the tumor. \u00a0What the doctors thought was happening,\u00a0 was that my brain was sending signals to my body and the signals were getting delayed or distorted by the smashed brain stem.\u00a0 When I would go to drink some water,\u00a0 it would get half way down and then the automatic message to swallow would get stuck in the brain stem.\u00a0 The same thing would happen when I attempted to go to the bathroom. \u00a0My brain would send a message to my body to go to the bathroom and the message would just get stuck in that smashed brain stem.\u00a0 The laughing was caused by my brain sending my body a signal and the message sent would get all convoluted and come out as “LAUGH”.<\/p>\n Here is a page from that same Neurology TextBook entitled “Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases” by Hal Blumenfeld. This was published in 2002 but I just heard about this in 2019 from an adult sax student of mine who is a retired Doctor-this is without a doubt my case study as it is from a 27 year old saxophone player who laughed uncontrollably<\/strong><\/p>\n The doctors finally decided that the best course was to operate and try to take the tumor out physically. \u00a0Now this was a pretty dangerous surgery but we’ll get to that later. \u00a0In the meantime, they sent me home for two weeks until the surgery date. \u00a0I’ll get to the details of that in the next installment (Part 6)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here we are at Part 5 in the story………….A couple of days after the whole “LensCrafters” experience,\u00a0 I decided to go get some chinese food with a good musician friend of mine down in Boston. We met down in Chinatown in Boston for a late dinner. During dinner,\u00a0 I told him about all the things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":97644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[1734,224,1739,1740,225,1728,1731,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brain-tumor-story","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-brain-tumor","10":"tag-doctors","11":"tag-emergency-room","12":"tag-laughing","13":"tag-meningioma","14":"tag-mgh","15":"tag-saxophone","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/kg.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/BrainTumorMRI.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n