If You Love Me Take Me Now [Paperback]

I wrote this book about a two year period in the life of my family. It is very much a story about the straighten of love, yet it is a story so horrendous the reader will never forget it. I had symptoms for more than a year. It started with spontaneous bouts of hiccups. Whenever I ate or drank, I would start hiccupping. I was forced to stop eating or drinking until they passed. Sometimes, the hiccups would start for no apparent reason and they came any time throughout the day, even while sleeping. In August of 2003, I finally went to see my doctor. He sent me to a gastroenterologist because he thought it might be stomach related. It took a month or so to get the appointment. In the meantime, I was traveling around the world on business and burning up more time. Around Thanksgiving I started to have difficulty swallowing. My ears started to ring and I had this strange sensation that felt like my head was in a bucket of ice water. I also began to have headaches. I went back to my primary doctor in late January and told him of these new symptoms. By now I suspected that something was seriously wrong inside my head, but I didn't want to think tumor. My wife and I actually joked about it being a tumor. My doctor finally sent me to a neurologist on Monday and a few days later, I had an MRI. The neurologist called me right away with news that they had found an egg-sized tumor attached to my brain stem and in the forth ventricle. On February 24, 2004, I had nine hours of brain surgery with complete resection of an ependymoma. It measured 4 X 3 X 2.5 cm. The recovery was not much fun. Among other things, my brain could no longer control my blood pressure. If I simply sat up in bed I would pass out. This lasted for a few weeks. I still couldn't swallow and wasn't given any nourishment for more than a week. I had lost more than 40 pounds. They eventually inserted a feeding tube in my belly just above my belly button. The nerves that controlled my tongue were damaged and my sl#,