BRAIN/PITUITARY TUMORS COMMUNITY
Any help is appreciated...

Any help is appreciated...

I am a 37 year old man with a wife and four children to support.  In early 2000, I injured my back on the job and began seeing a Dr.  I was experiencing cluster headaches/migraines, had numbness and tingling in my extremities and had severe neck and back pain.
As the Dr. treated me, I never seemed to get better, so he sent me for an MRI of the brain.  They found a Giant Sub-Arachnoid Cyst in the posterior fossa of the brain about the size of a golfball.  It is attached to the Cerebellum and Occipital lobe and has caused a thinning at the rear of the skull.
The first step was to fenestrate the cyst in 2001.  After that, a VP shunt was placed in 2003 and removed in 2004 after they found that it was over-shunting.
After removal, the incision site began leaking Cerebral Spinal Fluid and I contracted Bacterial Meningitis.
The headaches, when severe enough, cause pseudo-seizures.  I have been on/off work continuously since 2000 because of the pain and increasing symptoms, (i.e.- Vision Impairment, numbness and tingling of extremities, constant pain in head)
My family has lost everything and I am beginning to feel like more of a burden than a help.
I have been on several medications that were supposed to help and am now on Percocet, Valium, Atavan and Promethazine and am awaiting a new referral to Stanford Medical Center.
The doctor's are all, obviously, having a difficult time in diagnosing me and I have to get back to work.
Most recently, over the past few weeks, my feet and ankles have begun swelling making it very difficult to walk.
Any help is appreciated.  I'm desperate at this point.
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