Hi friends! I was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor. It has been a LOT, and I wanted to have a page like this so that I could try to keep everyone in the loop and post updates as needed. I've gotten really sweet messages and phone calls and have been feeling a little stretched thin in terms of being able to respond as quick as I'd like to, and let people know what's happening! I'm still working full time at the moment (medical leave is possible for me starting in mid June) and figuring out what my capacity is for everything. Here's a little timeline of my life the past year or so... Anyone who knows me knows I've always struggled with my health a bit, and can't seem to avoid the strangest health situations- acute renal failure at 16? going septic in Kenya? getting hit by a drunk driver...never a dull a moment! :) Anywayyy...I had been having more intense symptoms- constant headache, dizziness, brain fog, nausea, and just a general feeling of being unwell for the past year or two. I went to a lot of different doctors and did different tests to try to figure out what was wrong and got diagnosed with POTS and SIBO in the past few months. In March my mom was just by chance in a scan diagnosed with a rare vascular condition called Fibromuscular Dysplasia that I'd never heard of, and upon doing more research I found it's very genetic, happens mostly in AFAB folks, and causes bad headaches. I asked my doctor if we could rule it out, and had a CT done at the end of March. More testing since then has made it clear that there is a tumor, likely something called a meningioma, and that it's partially on my pituitary gland and also wrapping around my optic nerve. They aren't able to know the true nature of the tumor without surgery, but they are optimistic that it might be slow-growing. Unfortunately, in this part of the brain, things are very fragile and tumors often press on important structures. I saw Neurosurgery at UVA a few weeks ago, and they are concerned about the complications of a surgery that involves the optic nerve due to risks of blindness. I've since gotten an appointment up at Johns Hopkins, where they have a meningioma clinic.