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Mike Traphagan

Up to 1992, I had been a teacher and a coach for 11 years, two very stressful jobs that took up a large part of my life.

About 1990, I began getting what I call "pressure headaches."

I figured it had to be related to my job and learned to live with it. At the end of the 1992 basketball season, I resigned as head coach at North Garland High School and began teaching full-time in the Math Department. I felt my health was going downhill, and I thought getting out of coaching was the answer.

The summer following the 1991-92 school year was when I started to have problems. In early June, I was sitting in my living room visiting with a friend, Steve Whiffen. When our visit concluded, I got up to see my friend to the door. I took two steps and felt a numbing, light-headed sensation. Everything was clear as a bell, but I could not speak or move. I passed it off as a head rush that people get from getting up too fast. I was averaging about one a week but could not find any type of pattern.

At the beginning of the 1992-93 school year, they became more frequent. The kids never knew because the attacks would give me about a five-second warning, so I could either sit down or brace myself against something. They would last between 15-20 seconds and by 30 seconds; I was back to normal. It was also at the beginning of the school year that my left side (arm and leg) started to shake uncontrollably.

I realized something was wrong, but I didn't know what.

Other than the pressure in my head, which I learned to live with, I was in excellent condition.

It wasn't until October 1992; that I realized something serious was going on. I was driving down the road and felt an attack coming on. Fortunately, I got to the side of the road and waited until the attack passed. That day I called my regular doctor to set up an appointment. I could not get in right away and settled on seeing him 3-4 days later.

After the initial observation, the doctor couldn't see anything wrong with me on the surface, but set up an appointment for an EEG at the hospital for the next day. It did not show anything, so he set me up an appointment with a neurologist. It took about 2-3 weeks to get in with him.

The neurologist did a battery of tests including an extensive medical history. I remember him saying, "A person your age (34 at the time) and in excellent health, we can rule out a brain tumor." He set me up an appointment for a MRI at 3:00 p.m. By the time I arrived home around 4:30, I had a message to call my neurologist. When I called, he told me he wanted to see me first thing on Monday. I asked him if I could come in after school, and he said that would be okay. He also told me I had to go straight to the pharmacy to get two prescriptions, Dilantin and steroids. At the time I did not know Dilantin was for seizures and steroids were to control swelling of the brain.

After school Monday, I drove to his office for the bad news. He slapped up the MRI on a light screen and said,

"Remember what I said about ruling out a tumor? I was wrong.

You have a large tumor, about 4cm by 7 cm, located deep in the right side of your brain."

Everything was beginning to come together. The pressure in my head was the tumor. As the tumor grew, it was pressing my brain against my skull. This pressure produced the seizures I was having. The tumor was on the right side of the brain; therefore, causing problems on the left side of my body.

I went ahead and attended school that week. The only people I told were the Principal and a few close friends. I told my classes and the teachers on Friday that I would be out for awhile. That was the first time in 11 years I used a sick day. Glad I saved them all up.

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This is a personal account and is not intended in any way to provide medical information.
©Mike Traphagan, 2001
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