Josephine Perraglia of Mastic also suffered a brain seizure, but it happened to her at work.
“I’m a school bus driver. Someone was looking out after me because I had just dropped off all the students at school,” said Perraglia, 59. “I was back at the bus yard when it happened. I didn’t even know I had a seizure. I was very confused. I was driving around the bus yard looking for a parking space and I just continued to drive around the yard until someone stopped me. They called an ambulance. For the most part I couldn’t remember much for 2 ½ days.”
Perraglia, a mother of three, was taken to a local hospital then transferred to Mather for a high resolution MRI, which found a mass in the right frontal part of her brain. Dr. Sathi performed the surgery on March 25. Perraglia, is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment under the care of her oncologist, Gurmohan Syali, MD, of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in Setauket.
“Because of the high resolution imaging available at Mather, concern was raised that this mass was cancerous,” Dr. Sathi said. “Successful surgery with removal of the tumor confirmed that this mass was cancerous. With early diagnosis and treatment offered by the team approach at Mather, which combines neurosurgery, medical oncology and radiation oncology, she is expected to have a good prognosis.”
“I feel well,” Perraglia said. “I’m supposed to be re-evaluated in mid-September. For the moment I cannot drive. The nurses at Mather were wonderful. I was lucky enough to be placed in 3 North. All hospitals should be that way. The nurses went above and beyond. The last place you want to be is a hospital. To be in that wing I didn’t feel like I was in a hospital.”