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On Christmas Day last year, my daughter Merlin suddenly began experiencing a massive headache. For a typical 24-year-old, this might simply be a symptom of exhaustion or overindulgence in spiked eggnog the night before. We hoped it was a migraine or stress headache, but given our daughter’s medical history, we knew there was a possibility that it was something more serious. We took Merlin to the emergency room to be safe.
At the hospital, the ER doctor ordered an MRI, which found something shocking: a golf-ball-sized tumor in our daughter’s brain. Doctors rushed Merlin into emergency surgery, where a team of surgeons removed the tumor. After an agonizing wait, we finally received good news: The surgery had entirely removed the tumor, which was thankfully benign and likely caused by a previous brain surgery. After a month of rest and recovery, Merlin was back to her usual, happy, productive self.
The above excerpt was originally published in The Wisconsin Independent.
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