Spitzer Stories

Happy Holidays!! We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the rest of the holiday season. This is my our favorite time of year. The weather gets a little cooler, friends and family get together, good food and lots of fun are had by all. We live for this stuff!

Our Year in Review starts with the tail end of last year. Our niece, Hannah Mary Spitzer, was born on December 15th, 2011. She is the cutest thing we’ve seen since her brother, Joseph. Spending time with them has been a highlight of our year.

2012 was a big year for the Spitzers! It started off with Jenna turning the big 3-0 on the 24th of January. She tells people she is 28 but you heard the truth here.Jenna is finishing up her 7th year working as a college professor and has loved teaching some new classes this semester. The hours are long and the pay is not much to write home (or blog) about but it’s so very rewarding.

Jenna continued to develop her cooking skills in 2012, taking some formal cooking classes with her mom. This year Jenna (finally) got the DSLR camera she’s been coveting for years and is looking forward to becoming a master photographer. She’s started teaching herself the details of the camera and is proud to announce she is a master of the automatic mode.

Keith is working full time for Apple as a Genius. He got promoted to the Genius position a couple of months ago and just got back from three weeks of training in Cupertino at Apple’s headquarters. Jenna visited Keith for a few days while he was there and together they explored The City by the Bay (San Francisco) for a little mini vacation.

May 2012 marked 10 years of dating and 4 years of marriage for us. So, we decided to head to Maui! We could both talk forever about the trip because it was incredible. Here are a few of our favorite photos.

For more on Hawaii, check out the blog post two before this one or check back for a long-overdue conclusion post on our trip.

On an ordinary September day, I went out to get the mail and found a stray dog! After several weeks of vigorous searching for her owner(s), no one came forward. So, we decided to keep her! Keith named her Rosie and the name fits perfectly. She is a 2-year-old dachshund mix and is just the sweetest thing. Bubba the 9-year-old wondermutt is doing great. He has been trying to get used to sharing attention with Rosie but for the most part, he is a very sweet big brother.

For Thanksgiving, we are having the family here and Jenna is putting her cooking skills to the test. We don’t have any pics (from that lovely DSLR) yet because we’re trying to get this post finished before the holiday season rush. But, we are planning on having a great Thanksgiving complete with all the trimmings.

We hope you had an amazing Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a wonderful holiday season and beautiful 2013!!

All our love,

Keith, Jenna, Rosie, and Bubba

I know my last post was something about Hawaii- part 1. That would logically make this post something about Hawaii- part 2 but I’m not feeling the Aloha spirit at the moment so I’ll write about something else instead.

A few months ago I asked my Dad if he would take a few impromptu photos of us. I wasn’t thinking at the time they’d turn in to our Christmas cards for 2012 but they did. We headed up to our local park and struck several poses. Both Keith and my Dad had had quite enough of me by the time we were finished but they got over it. Here are some of the better pictures from the day.

Thanks to Keith and my Dad for putting up with me. I think they turned out pretty good for pics taken in the 30 minutes before I had to go to work, If I do say do myself (and I do).

All the way back in May, Keith and I took a trip to Maui, Hawaii. We went to celebrate 10 years of being a couple and my 30th birthday.

Flying in to Maui. Yay!

Some additional photos from high above Maui…

When we got there, we rented a car and we were off. We were told a convertible was the way to go so we went with it. We were really glad we took the advice to rent a convertible. It allowed us to see a to see a ton of things we wouldn’t have been able to see if our car had a hard top. So, if you go to Hawaii, rent a convertible. It’s so worth it. Trust me. Here’s the one we rented.

Loved this car!!

And because I am nothing if not neurotic, here are the several pictures we took of the rental car before we took it off the lot to prove its condition.

Side note: Enterprise Car Rentals tried to charge me $500 to repair damage they said I caused…until I showed them the pictures I took of the car prior to taking it. Then they dropped the issue. PSA- Take photos of the interior and the exterior of the car before you take it off the lot.

We rented a condo in Ka’anapali at a resort called the Honua Kai. We chose to go through VRBO.com directly from the owner and ended up being really happy with that decision. Our resort was beautiful and I loved everything about it.

I’ll post pics of the inside of the resort soon but for now, here is what we saw when we pulled up to the Honua Kai.

Our time in paradise had begun!

Crazy, right? I am only 30 and have already received my first cosmetic procedure. Only it wasn’t cosmetic. It was to treat a chronic issue I’ve been dealing with for a few years now. Can you guess what it is?

If you guessed migraines, you guessed right. I had no idea that migraines were treated with botox in some cases but, in fact, they are. And just to make this migraine treatment adventure a little more exciting, this is my doctor, Dr. Natalie Strand.

Do you recognize her? No? Do you watch the “Amazing Race?”

How about in this pic? I don’t watch the Amazing Race but when I Googled Dr. Natalie Strand to find out more about her educational background and medical experience (like any patient should!) I was bombarded with stuff about the “Amazing Race” and started to have serious second thoughts. At least she won, but that was besides the point at the time.

I wasn’t totally sure I wanted botox at all. I thought I had at least another 10 years before I’d be complaining with my friends over sangria about my crows feet and lamenting that I can’t afford botox. That’s what 40-year-olds do, right? Just kidding. I have no idea how these conversations go but that’s how it works in my mind.

Then my mom found the Pain Management Center at the University of Southern California. She works at the Health Science campus at USC so I don’t think she had to look too far but I still appreciate her checking it out for me. She would not stop nagging me until I made an appointment (and we all know how moms can nag). So, really I had no choice. I was going to the Pain Management Center and it just so happened that Dr. Strand had the first appointment available.

I had an initial consultation with Dr. Strand and then about a month later, I had the botox appointment. For more info on botox and migraine, look here.

I was nervous as all get out for the botox appointment.I am sure I’m not the only one that has heard botox causes frozen/plastic face. I did not want to end up like this…at all.

Joan Rivers

But I trusted the doctor, I trusted the USC Pain Management Center and I was curious. I have had a long and difficult battle with migraines that I don’t care to go in to at the moment but I was willing to try just about anything to try and make them better. So, I went for it. I got botox. Overall, I think I got about 10-15 shots in the following locations…

So far things have been good. I haven’t seen a huge improvement but any improvement at all when you’re dealing with migraines is a wonderful thing.

I was seriously paranoid about the plastic face thing so I took some pics right after my treatment to see if I could still move my eyebrows and in the interest of full disclosure, here is one of those pics.

What do you think? Can you tell I just got botox? If your answer is, “yes,” just keep that to yourself.

Injection Sites

I added some arrows pointing out the injection sites visible in the photo. Yes, I got needles shot into my face in those places. It did not feel good. But then again, it was like being licked by a kitten compared to a migraine. So, there’s that.

And so goes my first experience with botox about 10 years too early for my taste. I would urge anyone else dealing with chronic, debilitating migraines to discuss botox as an option with their doctor. It’s worked for me so far, for the most part.

I have an appointment with Dr. Strand in a few days and if there is any noteworthy and interesting news, I’ll keep you posted.

My post on my mom’s meningioma has been the most popular on this blog by far. Mostly, I hear from concerned patients or family members who are going through the diagnosis and treatment process we went through about a year ago. If you’d like to go back and give yourself a refresher (or read for the first time), the post I wrote on my mom’s initial diagnosis is here.

This is what a meningioma looks like.

As I’m sure you can guess, the darker portion of the picture is the brain and the lighter part is the tumor (enhanced with contrast to make it more visible). Let me preface this by saying I have practically no medical training so this is just a guess based on pictures but that tumor looks (to me) to be in the frontal lobe. It may also be partially in the parietal lobe like my mom’s was.

Gamma knife radiosurgery is the “gold standard” for the treatment of meningioma. I think they teach doctors to use the phrase “gold standard” in medical school because we heard that a lot during the treatment of this tumor. The gamma knife radio surgery (here on out referred to as GKRS) machine (for lack of a better term) looks like this.

The treatment is an outpatient procedure. Or, in other words, patients have brain surgery and then go home the same day if all goes well. Talk about strange. I’ve been in the hospital longer with a hangnail.

According to my mom, the worst part of the surgery is the “halo” they put on you to ensure you stay completely still during the procedure. Halo sounds nice, right? It’s not the end of the world but I wouldn’t call it nice. The doctor numbs four parts of your head (2 in front, 2 in back) so the halo can be drilled into your skull. What? That doesn’t sound like what a halo should be about? I agree. I think they should call it something else but no one asks me.

This is a patient with the halo on.

The halo experience may be better for others but they numbed my mom and then took too long to actually place the halo so they had to re-numb (I don’t care if that isn’t a word) her with the same giant needles they used the first time. Why she didn’t complain is beyond me. Once you are fitted with your halo, you wait for the actual procedure. I am sure they do a bunch of pre-surgery stuff but I don’t know exactly what that is because I was out in the waiting room. If you are terribly interested in the details of GKRS prep (beyond the part about the halo) let me know and I’ll ask about it.

The actual surgery was performed at the University of Southern California by Dr. Pagnini with Dr. Liu, Dr. Apuzzo, and a bunch of residents, interns, and med students consulting. That sounds like a lot of people (and it was) but USC is a teaching hospital so all the residents, interns, and med students were there more for their own benefit than my mom’s.

All in all, I was in the waiting room for about 8 hours worrying like crazy. My mom had to take it easy for about a week and then was fine. She had marks from where the screws went in to her forehead but they went away after a few months. Now she has to get MRIs every 6 months to check on the tumor and she should be ok unless it grows exponentially.

I need to explain that the GKRS does not actually remove the tumor. The tumor is still in my mom’s head but because it wasn’t causing symptoms the doctors decided on GKRS which just stops the growth (and sometimes shrinks the tumor a bit). Patients with symptoms resulting from a meningioma may have a craniotomy or other more invasive treatment to actually remove the tumor. Below is a picture of the more invasive crainiotomy.

The doctors mentioned that in some patients the tumor is pressing on the occipital lobe and can cause changes in or loss of vision. That and similar symptom producing tumors may be circumstances in which a crainiotomy might be warranted.

Today my mom is doing great. She had a knee replacement last December and said that was way worse than the GKRS if that makes anyone feel better. I think any ailment having to do with the brain is scary so being apprehensive about GKRS is so normal. I felt good about my mom having her surgery at a world-class hospital with highly esteemed doctors. GKRS is not something you want done at your neighborhood health clinic. I doubt they’d have the equipment anyway, but still.

That about depletes my knowledge on GKRS and includes the extent of my experience with it. I have gotten a lot of e-mails from people on meningiomas and GKRS which I am happy to answer to the best of my ability. But I have to point out I am NOT a doctor. I am a college professor and only know probably .05% of what there is to know about this stuff. If you are worried about your meningioma or GKRS please do not let this blog be your only resource. You will be doing yourself a huge disservice.

This is a doctor. I am not a doctor.

For those of you with a meningioma or who know someone with one, I hope this has been helpful. E-mail me with questions and I’ll do my best to answer them as long as you remember…I am NOT a doctor. Good luck!

I am mostly writing this blog for myself. It’s nice to interact with others (you know, via the thousands of comments I get on my posts). But mostly, I think this is a fun way for me to keep track of goings-on in my life and in the lives of those close to me at different points in our lives. I always regret not writing things down so, I really am going to attempt to record more of the events that take place in my life. With that said, this may not be the most interesting blog to read. Good news is that there are 3,456,321,945 other blogs out there to read that seem smarter than I am and actually write for an audience. I read all of the blogs (yes, all the blogs) so I can tell you for sure there are many bloggers out there who are excellent at what they do. They have a magical ability to write about themselves and still be interesting. That won’t be happening here. Just FYI.

So, first things first on the health thing. I don’t plan (at this point) to go in to detail about my health on this blog. I recognize that this a very public forum and I have made exactly zero attempts to hide my identity. I do, however, want to chronicle heath highs and lows for myself (see the above statement). (Sort of) sorry if that’s boring.

No one looks like this when having their blood sugar tested. It’s not the worst but still, a needle is piercing your skin to get blood. No smiling necessary.

So, I have problems with my endocrine system. That’s about all I’ll say about that but one thing to know about the endocrine system if you didn’t already know is that, the endocrine system controls many essential hormonal functions in the body. More info on that here. Part of what I am supposed to be doing is taking certain medications and checking my blood sugar every few days or so. I have been doing neither of those things for the past few weeks (months?) so I guess I partially deserved what I got last night.

In the sweltering SoCal heat, my dad and I went on a fairly vigorous walk/hike on the hills around the house. I was in no mood for exercise so decided to get it over with as quickly as possible. My asthma definitely protested at the pace, but I just kept going so I could get back. Have I mentioned, I hate exercise? Anyway, I wasn’t feeling well (or, I should say, was feeling worse than normal) after the walk and following the requisite amount of complaining and attempts to elicit pity from friends and family, I decided I might have to do something more proactive about the situation.

I have had low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) in the past and what happened last night felt like a hypoglycemic event. I tested my blood sugar and it was extremely low for me (don’t want to give numbers here since I am not a medical professional and normal range can range from one person to another). More on hypoglycemia here.

I did everything I knew to do to fix the situation (consumed the appropriate foods/drinks, retested, repeat) and after about 4 hours things were up in the low range of normal. I woke up 4 hours to re-test (as instructed by my doctor) and my blood sugar was back down to the level where it had been right after the walk. Ugh! So, that’s where I find myself right now. Nausea can accompany hypoglycemia (and it does for me) so when I’m advised to eat to remedy the situation, it doesn’t help. I don’t anticipate a viable solution until a visit with the endocrinologist.

My father-in-law and K’s aunt are out here to visit this week. We are going many fun and exciting things so posting will be sporadic (as if it weren’t typically).

xoxo,

J

- This is a post written just about this time last year. It’s been sitting in my drafts folder forever. I am not just going to delete this blogging gold so, here you go. –

I teach at a University during the year. In the summer when we don’t have school (and when I would like to be doing nothing) I teach swimming for some extra cash. It’s pretty well-known that teachers don’t get the big bucks. What? You thought an advanced degree = more money? Incorrect. When I consider the torture that was my thesis writing process and the abysmal pay I get as an instructor…I wonder why I chose this career. And then I remember I actually like teaching and try to stop feeling sorry for myself. But, just a PSA for those considering graduate school to avoid getting a “real” job…don’t do it! I worked a 9-5 for a couple of years before going back to school and it was WAY easier (although I did miss my summers).

Anyway, back to the swimming instruction thing. I have taught swimming in some form or another for 17 years. I feel old saying that. I shouldn’t complain too much because the money is really good and I love the families I work with. But, on days like today when it was like 65 degrees and drizzly (is it not late June in California?) I did NOT want to get in the pool.

Keith and I had an appointment at the DMV this afternoon. The swimming lesson I was teaching went long which cut in to the time I had to prep to go to said appointment. I tried to keep my hair dry during the lesson (didn’t happen) and then had like 20 minutes to go from sopping wet to DMV ready (also didn’t happen). I’ll let you guess if we had to take new pictures or not.

If you guessed yes, we had to take new photos, you would be right. I was REALLY annoyed by this because I had my last DMV picture taken when I changed my name after our wedding. I was freshly tanned from our honeymoon and had a newlywed glow (if I do say so myself). And today I went more with chlorine chic. Not ideal. I tried to persuade (borderline bribe) several DMV employees to let me keep my old picture with no success. But, that was not the worst part.

We were informed that in order to get our new California licenses we had to take a written DMV test! Whaaaaaat?!? I just had a CA license two months ago…this should not be necessary. Cue anxiety attack.

Let me say that I (think) I am a pretty good driver. Especially for California where you have to be on the lookout for all sorts of guerilla warfare on the freeways. But I guess I only have a loose grasp on the technical rules of the road. But…I got my licence anyway.

I haven’t written on this blog in over a year. A. Year. That’s a long time. I make a habit of reading several blogs on a regular basis. Obviously, this means that these bloggers post on a fairly regular basis. I think it gets easier to document your life on the Internet (or anywhere else for that matter) the more you do it. I haven’t really integrated blogging in to my life at this point and that is why I post so sporadically, I think.

I’m also crazy-don’t-really-have-a-free-moment-to-spare busy. However, I know that’s the case for most people including many prolific (or at least consistent) bloggers (who are seemingly busier than I am). So, I am choosing not to use the “overwhelmed with work/life/family” thing as an excuse for not writing more (both in terms of content and regularity).

Exhibit One. The desk needs cleaning. Badly. But, I’m going temporarily clutter blind so I can get this post written.

I think blogging, journaling, or just jotting down the highlights of one’s particular day/week/month/year can be both fun and rewarding. I can’t always say writing posts is a blast (tonight’s post is a direct result of insomnia) but recounting life events as they happen is, almost always, rewarding in the long run (IMO). It is especially fun to revisit these missives after several weeks/months/years. Recording the daily goings-on of my family and me is one of the two major reasons I hope to blog more consistently from here.

The other key goal I have in getting this old blog up and running again is so that I can share information/life events/updates with our friends and family. Growing up in different states and then attending college in a third state, KS and I have are blessed with friends all over the country. We also have family spanning the globe that we hope to do better about keeping in touch with.

So, everyone, Spitzer Stories is back. I hope you’re ready to hear about our adventures in laundry, grocery shopping, work, garage reorganization, and iPhone apps. Wait, what? That doesn’t sound interesting to you? It looks like I might have to step it up a bit. Stay tuned.

I have a few things on my mind tonight so I’m pretty sure this will just be a bunch of random thoughts (i.e. a Brain Dump…as it’s know in the blogosphere).

1) Do not exfoliate your knees/elbows/ankles and then put on scented lotion. It hurts.

2) Also, do not use raspberries in a fruit salad. They all get squished and it turns out like well, fruit salad with pieces of raspberry all over it. I am calling it a fruit salad with raspberry compote because I am fancy.

3) I should be looking for a new potato salad recipe to make for a Father’s Day BBQ we’re going to this weekend. I don’t want to though so I am writing this post instead. Father’s Day was “invented” in Spokane…where I went to college. I have also not purchased gifts for my dad or father-in-law yet. With my luck, they will be the only two people to read this post. Sorry!

4) My mom had another doctor’s appointment with a neurosurgeon at USC University Hospital. The good news is that the doctor was really positive about my mom’s prognosis. She is going to have the Gamma-knife radiosurgery I talked about in this post. The bad news is that we had to wait close to THREE HOURS to see the doctor. They came and got us…put us in a waiting room, and then we sat there for almost three hours. It was awful! We are meeting with yet another doctor, an oncology radiologist, next week.

5) On a related note, the first doctor we saw introduced himself as “Dr. So-and-So,” the neurosurgery chief resident. Later in the appointment we were joined by the “real” doctor (Dr. Apuzzo), a nurse and a medical student. At one point Dr. Apuzzo made reference to the chief resident and my mom said something like she was impressed with him…being so young and the chief resident of neurosurgery. Then the head/chief/main doctor (Apuzzo) interjected that the “resident” wasn’t the chief at all…”he just thinks he is.” What?!? So was this guy a resident at all…maybe another med student? Who knows. But he pretends to be the chief resident so that’s weird. Right?

6) I am getting a LOT of spam comments. Like 25+ a day. But no real comments. Bummer. Maybe you should leave a comment. Just sayin’.

7) Keith got his job at the Apple store back! He worked at the Apple store a few years ago but I’ve never mentioned that here. If you’ve been following this blog at all…then you know he quit his job as a videographer in Orange County to work in the Spokane, WA market. For several reasons (see previous blog posts) that didn’t work out. So, Keith didn’t have a job for a little bit…until today!

8) < --- This is supposed to be showing up as the number 8. It does in my drafts and then when I preview how it'll look when I publish it, a happy face shows up. Maybe I am just that happy about Keith's job? So, number 8 is that I am as excited about getting our health insurance back as I am about Keith getting a regular paycheck again.

9) Our dog, Bubba, busted into his food container today and helped himself to a self-serve buffet. I was shocked he didn't eat the entire 35 pounds of food available to him. He knew what he did. But Keith and I couldn't stop laughing while reprimanding him. We're going to be great parents. Just so you know the sweetness we're dealing with I'll include a photo of Bubba. But don't let the face fool you. He's very, very bad.

Relaxing Poolside

*FYI- There may be some formatting issues with this post. I don’t know enough about wordpress/html/whatever to figure it out.*

Anyone remember this scene from Kindergarten Cop?

So, Arnold denies having a tumor. Sadly, in the case I’m referring to, it is a tumor. My mom has a brian tumor.

I think (hope?) that sounds worse than it is. The tumor is benign and slow-growing. We found out about it last Saturday after she fainted at a church meeting and we were called to pick her up. We took her to the hospital to get checked out and the tumor showed up on a CT-Scan.

I have a lot of things floating around in my mind about the whole thing and figured writing things out might be helpful. *Disclaimer* this post may be long and boring to read but I’m not too concerned about it since I’m writing it more for me than for you. That’s how blogs are supposed to work, right? No? Well, that might explain why I have about 3.2 subscribers.

The tumor my mom has is called a meningioma. She can’t seem to remember the name of it so I keep saying things to her like “Think of meningitis, ok? Then just switch out ‘itis’ with ‘oma.’” Or “You know that Russian revolutionary, Lenin? It’s like that but with an ‘M’ instead. Then add ‘gioma.’” Neither of those brilliant explanations worked. Looking over them now maybe they aren’t so brilliant.

Lenin - "L" + "M" and "gioma." Meningioma.

She also has a torn meniscus in her left knee. That really isn’t related to the meningioma except for that it’s happening at the same time and has doubled the amount of medical appointments we’ve been to over the last few days. But, we did get her a temporary handicapped placard which is a silver-lining is there were was one.

So back to the tumor. We met with a neurosurgeon today at USC University Hospital. I was sort of hoping Derrick Shepherd would show up at some point but that did not happen. I’m not sure why I was thinking Dr. Shepherd would show up anyway. My mom has a brain tumor…not Alzheimer’s. < --- Reference only makes sense to you if you watch Grey's Anatomy.

The doctor we met with is named Dr. Charles Liu, M.D., Ph.D (!!!). I was impressed before we even met him. I am pretty much in awe of anyone with the tenacity to finish medical school or get their Ph.D. This is directly related to my experience getting my M.A. which was pretty much the bane of my existence. I *barely* made it. Well, actually since I am writing this post for me (remember?) I do need to remind myself every now then (for self-esteem's sake) that I did get a 4.0 in my coursework. It was the thesis that really got to me. It took a few days short of eternity for me to finish it. ETERNITY! Anyway, back to Dr. (twice over) Liu. He has an M.D. and Ph.D. and I was really glad he was the one to explain all this brain tumor business to us.

After a few unsettling analogies (including one about my mom meeting her maker...what?!?) Dr. Liu got to the explanation of what was going on and how to treat it. The meningioma is in my mom's left parietal lobe. For anyone out there who is not doctor, that is here...

It kind of looks like surgery of the future, right? Apparently, per Dr. Dr. Liu, the surgery is an outpatient procedure and my mom would be able to go back to work the day after the surgery (!). If you can’t get time off work for brain surgery…I don’t know what will get you out of work. Anyway, I asked Dr. Dr. Liu what he would recommend if his mom or aunt had a meningioma exactly like my moms (in size, location, etc.). He said he would definitely recommend going ahead with the Gamma-knife radiosurgery because he is a “proactive person.” I’m guessing that’s how he ended up with an M.D. and a Ph.D. Take note, proactivity is good for you.

Dr. Dr. Liu recommended we meet with another M.D./Ph.D., Dr. Dr. Michael Apuzzo, the person who performs Gamma-knife radiosurgery for the department. We have a joint appointment with Drs. Liu and Apuzzo next Monday (6/13). Dr. Apuzzo will be able to provide a second opinion about my mom’s treatment plan and be able to further describe the Gamma-knife radiosurgery procedure. I am not sure what will happen when two geniuses (genii?) get together. It’s possible they will be to bright (ha ha, get it?) to actually look directly at. We’ll see. I’m just glad they’ll both be advising us on what to do.

So, that’s the loooooong version of the tumor story. Kudos if you made it this far (and aren’t one of my aunts). I’ll try and keep everyone posted.