A fireside Guinness, with a 'stable' tissue mass

'Stable'. Again.

Not me, it.

It's not getting smaller, but it's not getting noticeably bigger.

Neurologist is writing his assessment to VicRoads - which kickstarts the process of lobbying to get my licence back. The small 'vague out' TLE episodes don't bother him - and I've been driving 19 years with about a half dozen of them a day and a perfect driving record. He's still concerned about me forgetting the Tegretol or by some other manner getting a 'more significant' seizure behind the wheel. But it's been a year. And I haven't fallen down again.

Time to get life back on track.

Neuro is still thinking some sort of chronic inflammation at the root of it all. But seems to have moved out of diagnosis mode and into monitor/manage mode. "We'll see in another three months, maybe another MRI in a year, or perhaps 6 months."

To me there's not enough being asked or said of 1991 - he's drawn the direct link between 19 years of epilepsy and this mass of tissue. SO, what else might have happened in 6 months of Asian wanderings (other than the tapeworm theory and various other parasites since ruled out), what about the original Lariam hypothesis?

Lots of medium term/longer term questions like, if it's taken 19 years to get to about 20 mm, that's potentially another 10mm by my 50th, and that's surely a size to seriously mess with functioning ... they all remain unanswered. There is no diagnosis, and I've got to live with that for probably quite a bit longer.

Anyway - it's Friday night. A couple of weeks of serious stress are starting to subside (I had steeled myself for the 'getting bigger' result), I don't have to go back to hospital until August ... and a fireside Guinness with some smiley company awaits.

Wouldn't be a true B Grade drama if we didn't drag it out for another year or two would it?