Omos On Being Diagnosed With Brain Tumor In 2012, Having Unique Case In Medical

[Liz]

In a recent interview on Out of Character with Ryan Satin, Omos discussed being diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2012, having a unique case in medical history, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Omos on being diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2012: "My [college] coach said to me, 'I don't know who this guy is, but it seems like he's a very high up guy on the campus. I want you to look at his email.' So I read it and he just stated that, 'Hey, I noticed that one of your guys, I think he has a tumor by the side of his face. He has a pituitary tumor and needs to get checked out ASAP.' I'm reading this email, like, 'No way, I am fine.' I looked at my coach and I said, 'I don't think I have anything but hey, I'm gonna do it just so I can have peace of mind.' That Wednesday they set up an MRI appointment. The MRI takes about a couple of days [for results to come back].

"That following Monday, I came to practice. I go to the trainer's room. They said to go upstairs to the coach's office. I walked into the coach's office and there was the president of the university and all the doctors from the office were there. They said, 'So this is an MRI right here of your brain. Do you see that little speck right there? You have a brain tumor. We don't know whether it's benign or it's a cancerous tumor, and we're going to have to put you on the sidelines for a while to figure out how to deal with this.' So it was a little bit of a shock to me. Like when you tear an ACL, you can do rehab and get stronger and faster. I was like, that's easy. This was such a curveball because it was out of my control. I could not control anything."

On having a unique case in medical history: "Literally a month after the MRI, I had the surgery and they had to go through my nose. It was very, very traumatic....in the process of doing the testing, they found that not only did I have the pituitary tumor, I have partial Cushing's disease, which is very rare. There are different forms of large human beings, but it's a different variation and I had all three combinations. Andre [the Giant] had acromegaly, which is one of them, and I have that. But I had the other three combined with it. My case was very, very unique. It was the first time in medical history they had seen someone with all three together. It became this sort of anomaly in the medical world. I had a journal published about my case."