Brain Tumor or all in my Head?

For starters I would just like to say that I wouldn't consider myself a person who constantly is worried about their health but when a symptom arises that alarms me I tend to do research on that issue and then focus on those symptoms.

So back in early May of this year I was in the gym working out like I usually would everyday. After working out I went to the school library with my friend where we just talked and went on our phones. We then decided to go to the school gym and play badminton. When we were playing I remember forgetting what the word "serve" was and I was saying it as swerve and I asked him what it was called. Then in the corner of my right eye I see a cluster of colorful splotches similar to those when you look at a bright light. At this point I knew that something was weird, so I got anxiety about it. I then go upstairs in my calculus class where it is not getting better. This is where the bad anxiety I have steps in because when I look up my symptoms it was saying I had a blood clot in my brain. I convinced myself in my head this was happening because it made sense because I literally just was lifting heavy weights and I truley convinced myself I could be dying. I went outside and called my mom and when I was on the phone with her apparently I mixed up the words "weird" and "word" which I don't know if it was related to whatever was going on or not.

So my mom thinking that it was weird as well drives me to the local walk in clinic, where the eye thing had gone away (been like 30 minutes). We told the doctor and he said we should go to the hospital just to be safe. When I went to the hospital the doctor said she thinks it something called a Silent Migraine with Aura. The reason she said it was silent was because I literally had no headache or other symptoms. She said to return if it happened again.

2 days later I had work in the morning at around 8am. I began lifting stuff and then out of the blue I start seeing the same weird dots in the same spot of my eye. I didn't notice any speech problem but I then began freaking out in my head again and looked up other possibilities and it said brain tumor. I told my boss about it and he let me go home. Once again after an hour or so the symptoms went away but I still felt "out of it". All day I did research and watched videos on brain tumors and peoples diagnosis.

The next day I still felt "out of it" but I realized this was definitely because of my anxiety about it. I payed close attention to mishaps I would have when speaking without noticing because it was all I could focus on. Usually little hiccups on words would go unnoticed with most people but I would notice every little hiccup I made on a word or sentence. Looking back on it it was definitely anxiety because I would notice the same for other people when they were talking.

I started University a few weeks ago (Beginning of September) and I feel as if I am cognitively slow) nothing extreme but every day in the back of my mind I still think "What if I have a brain tumor" and I think it is leading to make me feel like I am slower than I am. When reading it feels like it takes me a long time to understand what is written and I often have to read it over multiple times. (But I never really read anything in high school to be honest) My memory is fine for the most part even with my anxiety, but I feel like I am taking a little bit longer to understand concepts but that honestly may be because it is University which is significantly harder than high school.

However, what I may need to add is I did smoke marijuana throughout the entire summer and leading into University which I think may be causing it but I am still worried this is a brain tumor or something.

The things I tell myself to convince myself it's not a brain tumor:
1) The incident that happened to me literally hasn't happened in months or nothing like it, if I had a brain tumor it would surely happen again since it has been like 4 months.
2) The incident that happened before only happened twice and lasted less than an hour.
3) Since May, I surprisingly have not had one single headache or felt nauseous at all which I think would happen if I had a brain tumor at least even once.
4) What I had was probably migraine aura.
5) If I had a brain tumor that damaged the speech and writing part of my brain I would think that I wouldn't be able to write this normally like I am now.
6) I am feeling kinda depressed about leaving all my friends back home because I literally had the best summer. I miss high school and how easy it was and I have never been depressed but I honestly feel kinda depressed about the whole thing which makes me think that some of this may be because of that.

Some things that make me believe it is a brain tumor:
1) I am scared it is a slow growing or benign tumor and the incident I had was a warning signs even though it happened months ago and nothing has happened since.
2) I find it weird that I had the same thing happen to me twice in a few days even though Silent Migraines are supposed to be uncommon.
3) Very minor cognitive decline or a combination of hard university courses and smoking marijuana.

What is your opinion on what is happening to me? I honestly appreciate it so much if you read this. Thank you.

user19

I have had the brain tumour anxiety for six years now. I'd consider myself an expert on the condition (ha). I also work at an Oncology/Haematology Cancer Centre so I'm aroundt these things quite a lot. We're the regional brain tumour (malignant) treatment centre.

What you describe definitely sounds like a Silent Migraine with Aura. And what's reassuring is the length of time it happened. I assume you've read about seizures originating from the occipital lobe (this is the "visual" part of the brain). These seizures, irrespective of cause are usually short lasting e.g. less than 5 minutes. Migraine auras tend to last up to an hour!

It's almost unheard of for a seizure to last as long as you describe, without progressing to a generalised tonic clonic seizure. In fact, I can find no case reports online of a partial seizure lasting this long.

Secondly, when a brain tumour starts to cause seizures, they happen frequently. Genuinely, it's not uncommon for patients to experience 20 partial seizures a day when they have a brain tumour causing them. They simply would not appear and then disappear for months. No chance of it.

The word thing is something I do all the time. It's called "Spoonerisms" - saying a word that sounds similar to the one you're trying to say. It happened to me tonight actually when replying to a post. I said "varicose" in my head, but actually meant "varicocele". I typed this out!

You've been seen by a doctor, and because of the long duration between the incidents and now, I feel you can rest assured.

However, should it recur, see your doctor for reassurance (if anything). Migraine auras can cause some odd, strange, bizarre symptoms - and speech problems is one of them.

Good luck