TUMOR
continued from page 1
for lunch. Heider went to Burger
King, bought two Whoppers, ate
one and relaxed. She had no idea
what was wrong with her eyes, and
she thought they would be better
for the second test — the clinical
segment — if she relaxed them.
They didn't get better.
By the end of the day, Heider had
miraculously completed the first
and second tests with 99 and 100
percent scores.
Heider had her nursing license,
but she had a new priority now. She
had no idea her blurry vision was
only the beginning of a long med
ical ordeal. An excess of cerebral
spinal fluid had begun to pool in
Heider's brain, causing vision prob
lems that doctors couldn't fix or ex
plain. She had no idea that it would
get worse, eventually inflicting short
term memory loss, dyslexia, slow
comprehension of speech and writ
ing, and a swollen body.
The build-up of fluid, also re
ferred to as a tumor, has resulted in
surgeries, drugs, spinal taps,
Computerized tomography scans
and Magnetic Resonance Imaging
scans, endangering her health and
often hindering her daily life.
Right now Heider, a 46-year-old
University student, is in urgent
need of surgery. Heider said Dr.
Catherine Gallo, a neurosurgeon in
Eugene, doesn't think she'll live an
other 10 years.
That's why Heider wants her story
told — to thank everyone who's
helped her through the tough times,
to thank the people who have helped
keep her alive.
The medical roller coaster
After the state nursing exam, Heider
went home to Redmond and began
searching for a good optometrist. She
eventually found Dr. Michael Stauder.
A couple of weeks later she sat in
his Bend office.
"He looked into my eyes and he
wasn't saying very much," Heider
said. "I knew from my experience that
that wasn't a good sign."
Over the next few weeks, Stauder
dilated Heider's eyes and ordered di
abetic and peripheral vision tests.
Then, he ordered an MR1.
Heider received a message on her
machine from his office at 5 p.m.
on a Friday evening. He wanted her
to go to St. Charles Medical Center
immediately, but he didn't tell her
why, she said.
At the center, she met Dr. Gary
Buchholz, who was first to tell her
what was really going on in her
head. He discovered that the pres
sure in her skull was more than twice
that of a healthy person. Buchholz
administered Heider's first spinal tap
— an operation where a 4-to-6-inch
needle is inserted into the spinal col
umn — and measured the pressure
of her cerebral spinal fluid. He then
removed about 15 cubic centimeters
of it from her spine.
Next, she went to Oregon Health
Sciences University in Portland for a
second opinion. Experts at OHSU sent
her back to Bend to neurosurgeon Dr.
Norwin Newby, who gave her another
spinal tap. It was an operation that she
would become intimately familiar
with; she estimates she's had 90 spinal
taps in the last 10 years.
Filling the void
In 1998, Heider started school at
Central Oregon Community College
in Bend, her second trip to college.
Going back to school after 20 years in
the workplace was a relief for I leider,
who graduated from Portland's Roo
sevelt High School with honors.
It was a way of filling a gaping
void in her life after much of her
family went away. Heider said her fa
ther, Howard, died of heart disease
in 1995; her mother, Louise, suffers
from dementia at home in Portland;
and her older sister, Bev Clark, has
all but abandoned Heider because
she couldn't handle her chronic
medical condition.
Jan Steele, I leide/s younger sister, said
their mother has disowned them both.
"She has more or less said she doesn't
have a daughter named Jody," Steele said.
Despite these personal setbacks,
Heider persevered academically. In
1999 she got her first degree, a two
year general associate of arts.
But Heider wasn't finished. She
wanted to get a four-year degree like
her father had always wanted her to do.
In fall 2000,1 leider became one of
the first students to enroll in the Uni
versity's General Social Science pro
gram in Bend. For the next two terms,
she buried herself in 12-credit course
loads, laboring toward a four-year de
gree while working as a certified nurs
ing assistant in home health care.
"She has gone through a tremen
dous amount of heartache," Steele
said. "I ler journey has been quite in
credible. 1 don't know how she has per
severed to keep going when she didn't
have anything left. I low she picks up
and keeps going, I don't know."
Contact the people/culture/
faith reporter
at jaredpaben@daiiyemerald.com.
IRAQ
continued from page 1
decades and that "these ideas need
some time to be corrected."
Hedo, who is from Baghdad, said
Iraqis realized after "the liberation of
Iraq" how deprived they were under
Hussein's regime.
"We used to be misled by the previ
ous regime," he said. "Especially
about the United States and the west
ern world in general."
The men had different views on the
future of Iraq.
Faizula said he's not optimistic
about the future because both Turkey
and many of the Shiites oppose a fed
eral system for the Kurds.
Muhammed said Iraq in five years
will be heaven for him. He said Iraqis
are thinking about business, raising
children and developing their country
instead of killing or destroying.
Two of the men said they want U.S.
troops to remain in Iraq until the
country is stable.
Faizula said pulling out is not prac
tical and that the only thing holding
the country together is the presence of
an international force.
Hama Amin agreed, pointing out
that Iraq has become the front line in
America's war on terror and that
pulling out may bring the front line
back to New York City or other
American cities.
"I think Iraq can do it," he said.
"But, for the time being, they need
help from others."
Contact the people/culture/
faith reporter
at jaredpaben@dailyemerald.com.
MEASURE 26
continued from page 4
what is called a balancing test.
"What the court has to do is bal
ance the interest in free speech ...
against the state interest on the
other hand to prevent fraud and
overreaching by signature gather
ers," he said.
Epps said there have been several
cases throughout the nation in
volving restrictions on petition
gathering and free speech issues
which fell on both sides of the
fence as to whether such restric
tions were unconstitutional,
though none of the cases involved
laws exactly like Oregon's.
"It's not the end of the story by a
long shot," Epps said. "This could def
initely go on to the Supreme Court."
Contact the city/state politics reporter
at nikacarlson@dailyemerald.com.
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