Introduce myself - and my Meningioma

Hi, a couple of weeks ago I was laying down resting after getting out of a very long, very hot bath (when I mean hot, it's scaldingly hot, I daren't move as the moving water in the batch would force me out), I was in this over an hour keeping adding more hot water.

I began to get a strange tingling feeling in my right arm and right leg, and then numbness and the limbs became difficult to move with any precision.

My wife got worried and rang 111, who were concerned about a stroke, so sent an ambulance.

An hour later when the ambulance arrived they were concerned about a TIA (a mini-stroke), though I had none of the other symptoms, and by now they were fading away.

At A&E, after several hours, they made me an appointment for the next day to be seen at the TIA clinic (in Croydon University Hospital), who sent me down for a MRI.

After a couple of hours my wife and I we told (I have some good news and some bad news...) Consultant takes wife's hand.... it's not a stroke.. but there's something there and I don't know what it is, and I'd like to admit you..

A&E are the gatekeepers, so I head back to A&E and wait, and after 12 hours I'm brought through to a trauma room where I'll spend the next couple of days. Next day I'm getting another MRI (with contras), and a CT scan.

They discover a 15mm nodule in my lower left lung, and they tell me that they believe that the brain tumour is benign, and so they will concentrate on finding out what the lung nodule is before coming up with a plan. I'm sent home with a supply of Dexamethasone and told to await a call arranging for a PET-CT scan at the Royal Marsden. (which I had yesterday morning (Saturday).

I had a wonderful call from a Macmillan nurse, who seem to be acting as the coordinators between myself and the NHS.

My work have been brilliant throughout this, I've been off 2 weeks since this was diagnosed, and I am starting back tomorrow (Monday), and can do what hours I like.

I have had no symptoms since the initial episode, and in fact the first week I was on 8mg daily Dexamethasone and I was bouncing off the ceilings and doing cleaning, DIY, tidying and just generally doing all the things that I'd never got around to doing, now down to 4mg on advice from Macmillan nurse.

It has all been surreal.

The terminology around the meningioma is confusing, as the Macmillan nurse said that cancer was always malignant, and as my brain tumour was benign, then I haven't got cancer (in the brain anyway, we'll need to see what my lung scan shows), is it cancer? If it's not cancer, do I not qualify for free medical prescriptions?

I know I'm very lucky.