Welcome to my headspace

Hello and welcome to my blog about Achmed the dead brain tumor! I will get to how I named this in a few minutes, but first I want to tell you what you have either accidentally or purposly stumbled across on the interweb.

My name is Kevin and I have a brain tumor. It kind of sounds like I have entered a 12 step program when I say it like that, but I can assure you that I am not addicted to this golf-ball sized pain in the ass in my head and I am going to win the battle against it.

I have started this blog for 3 reasons:

1) I have been blessed with so many supportive people in my life who are concerned, worried and curious about my well-being, and want to be "kept in the loop" on what the hell is going on, that there is no way I can keep everybody informed and still get anything else done. This dilemma has forced me to embrace technology in order to let my family and friends know what is happening. Truth is, I really can't afford to screw up my relationship with any of these people, just in case everything goes south at the clinic and I need any of them to drive me around, cook my dinner or perhaps clean up my house during my recovery:)

2) This is also a form of therapy for me to vent; get pissed off; evaluate my options and think out loud about my issues related to having a new companion in my head... literally... I am not a split personality or anything!

3) If one or more of the few thousand people in the world, who are diagnosed with this tumor every year, happen to stumble across my ranting neurosis, as they do their online searching like I did, and can find some twisted comfort or possibly helpful information, and realize that they are not going through this alone, that is a bonus (how is that for a run-on sentence).

Over the next several months, if you decide to follow me on my journey, you might laugh; you might cry; you might think to yourself, "why doesn't this guy just shut-up"; or you might find out a small piece of information that may help you or a loved one discover a problem at an earlier date than I did.

Whatever your reasons are for reading, I promise to be honest and open. I won't sugarcoat my news or what I am going through and when it is all over, and I win the battle of the brains with Achmed... well, I haven't really thought that far ahead yet, but I am going to win!

So, yes, the Achmed name. Well, I promise that I am not a bigot, nor do I harbour any ill will towards people from mid-eastern decent. The fact is, my buddy Ajay is from India and he is the one who put me on to Achmed The Dead Terrorist (google it, it is funny) in the first place. (and in case you are wondering, yes, I felt a little bit awkward when he first showed me the video a few years ago). But it is my sister Tina who made me name my new friend.

After she stopped crying (she was the first one to get the news) she said, "Kevin, you need to name it and kill it, you know like that dead terrorist video, 'I keell you!'" So I said, "We will call him Achmed and we will keell him!"


Welcome to my journey:)
From Achmed and Me... Live Life!