I named my brain tumour Justin Bieber

Justin as a name seemed fitting for my tumour- annoying but nonetheless stuck in my head.

Tomorrow is Justin's farewell concert: that is he's getting removed and well I am bricking myself.. I am absolutely terrified.  I've had about a month to get use to the idea that my new deafness wasn't hereditary, earwax, blocked sinus or caused by one too many times standing by a night club speaker, it was a nasty disgusting brain tumour thing called an epidermoid.

Apparently Justin Bieber's been squatting in my head since birth and its taken 33 years to make a difference and what a difference he's made.

I can't really hear properly in my left ear, I mean I can hear noises and mumurs but I can't really distinguish much. When I put a phone to my left ear the person on the other end sounds like a slow mo man robot.  Its made all social situations a blast- If I am not looking directly at a person while they're talking to me then I'm a lost cause.

And loud music- forget it altogether. It can throw we so off balance I have to walk out doing some sort of interpretive wobbly knee- I need someone to hold my hand to guide me outta here dance which is well when sober quite embarrassing.

I don't know if I'll regain any hearing in it now, the new neurosurgeon I met last week during my preadmission appointment, said I wouldn't and boy that was a bad day. I am a little bit hopeful though, I read other blogs of other people's experience with this kind of tumour and some have regained their hearing so you know fingers crossed and fingers crossed the only thing I need to worry about in the hospital is if I get jelly for dessert....

Long time no blog

I became one of those people who judged other people who "blogged", I would roll my eyes on the inside secretly judging them in my smug little: "blogging was so 2010" way.

I know my judging mcjudging came from petty jealously. I hated those "bloggers" who not only kept up the habit but made a conscious decision to commit to it.

My internal eye rolling was clearly an internal self defence mechanism kicking in placating my guilt and jealousy.

"I had a blog back when it was cooler" my inner Morgan Freeman narrator would say- "I was a Eurasian taking pictures of my food before Instagram" he would spout.

I've been lazy....years and years of blazy (blog lazy) has meant I've not posted. I've wanted to, I've been a lot of places, I've eaten a lot of things, I've cut and grown my hair umpteen times!!!!

And here's the truth....I've been well - kinda busy, busy changing careers, moving house, playing house and even studying again. My love of small decorated baked good and ash blonde foils has taken a proper back seat.

I've been feeling too serious, too old, too passé to blog the last couple of years. Seriously I thought, can a woman now in her thirties be talking about flans and weaves....Morgan Freeman's resounding answer would always be "yes you are too old to be talking about flans and weaves Amy"

So I stopped.

And then I got diagnosed with a brain tumour. A 3cm one that's made me lose my hearing, my balance and  Morgan Freeman's inner narration.

I've been feverishly googling "brain surgery hair cuts", "brain tumour"+ sex+"recovery times" "tumour+peroxide use" and have been given so much comfort reading people's experiences.

 I felt so much relief when I found the everywhereist who gave me a list of things to expect before and after surgery.

I found stay sudsy who told me to  save myself from post surgery hair palava and cut it off before I go in (which is a week today) and those two blog posts have really helped.

So here I am again, rebooting Cupcakes and Cornrows hoping that someone might find some help/relief/distraction from the post brain surgery constipation through reading about my experience with it all here.

No doubt there will be days when I'll be terribly confused and typing absolute nonsense but hey, it'll be real and I promise to tell it like it really is, one staple and steroid at a time.


 (These are not brain cupcakes, they're soaps!! Cool huh, you can get them here http://www.etsy.com/listing/52918765/gooey-brain-cupcake-soap-halloween)