The mother of many children, fortunately, survived. But her face is half paralyzed, and the woman is half deaf.
During pregnancy, many suffer from incomprehensible sensations, which they attribute to their position. This happens especially often when the first child is expected. After all, something indescribable happens to the body, it behaves in a way that it has never done before. Therefore, at first Jessica decided that this was the whole point – she became a mother for the first time.
Something really strange was happening to her. Even during pregnancy, she was often dizzy, and after the birth of her first child (Josie is now 19 years old), these symptoms did not go away, but worsened. Now as soon as she got up abruptly, the room began to spin around her, and her head just split.
“I decided it was all because of lack of sleep and fatigue,” explains Jessica. “I was too busy with the crazy life of a young mother to think about it.”
Dizziness gradually subsided, but then Jessica became pregnant with her second son. And she felt really bad: she vomited, suffered from severe headaches and dizziness. A woman for most of her pregnancy simply could not get out of bed. But the doctors decided that she just had a hard time tolerating her position – it happens, a monstrous toxicosis, when it hurts even to touch her head. And Jessica was sent home to carry on the pregnancy.
Jessica’s second son was born 6 weeks ahead of schedule. Like the first, by cesarean section. And here it was impossible to write off the state of the young mother for the hardships of pregnancy – after giving birth, she only got worse. Doctors suggested that she began to leak cerebrospinal fluid after two caesarean, this happens due to epidural anesthesia. We started the appropriate therapy – painful and, unfortunately, unsuccessful.
Jessica 17 years ago and now
Only then Jessica had an MRI. The scan showed that a huge tumor with a diameter of more than 5 cm had formed right on the brain stem of the young mother. It had been growing there for more than one year, pressed on the spine, nerve endings, and caused the accumulation of fluid in the brain. But what kind of tumor it was, the doctors could not say – an additional examination was needed.
“When the neurologist told us all this, my legs gave way. I had a newborn baby in my arms, my husband and an 18-month-old baby at home. And I? What will happen to me? Is it cancer? I’m dying?” – Jessica said that the plans were rushing in her head at that moment.
An additional scan showed that the tumor was still benign. But a little more – and it could become inoperable due to its size.
Jessica spent the next two weeks in the intensive care unit, where doctors tried to reduce brain swelling and tumor size before surgery. Then the operation, which lasted 8 hours. Together with education, doctors had to remove the auditory nerve. As a result, Jessica became deaf in her right ear, her eyesight deteriorated, and her face was left half paralyzed, distorted in an eerie grin.
“It took me ten years to regain at least some control over my face. Only recently I got used to the fact that I will never look the same as before, ”says the woman.
She even took makeup courses to help herself accept her new look. And the hobby turned into a real profession. So everything ended well, despite such a terrible beginning. All this time, the closest people were nearby: mother: children, husband. Since then, Jessica has given birth to two more children, and the tumor has never returned.
“Now I am grateful even for the difficult experience that I had to go through. Thanks to all this, I am who I am. Now I can tell my story to people who have experienced this, to help them see their beauty. “