Sgt. 1st Class Jennifer Cox had a tumor the size of a golf ball in her brain. Talk about something loose in the cranium.

Doctors call this an olfactory grove meningioma; she skipped the science and simply named it "Lotto."

"It's kinda rare to get a brain tumor," wrote Cox in an email. "Instead of saying I had a brain tumor, I just joked that I had won the lotto."

A meningioma is a type of tumor that develops from the meninges, or the membrane that lines the skull and encloses the brain.

An olfactory groove meningioma grows along the nerves that run between the brain and the nose.  These nerves allow for the sense of smell; the growth of a tumor causes the loss of smell and taste.

About 90 percent of meningiomas are classified as benign tumors.  The remaining 10 percent are either atypical or malignant. The tumor in Cox's cranium was not malignant, but it was growing.

Shortly after delivering her second child in 2014, Cox began to experience dizzy spells. As the episodes grew worse, an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was ordered.

"I had the MRI on a Friday," she recalled.  "I got the call on the following Monday telling me that I had a tumor."

Cox's initial reaction was wonder, and then she texted her then-deployed husband, Sgt.1st Class Christopher Cox.

"Is this really happening?" continued the native of Michigan."This can't be that serious - this thing growing in my head."

But that golf ball-sized tumor presented a potential threat to her life - and its removal, by an operation known as a craniotomy, was scheduled. A craniotomy is a critical surgical operation in which a bone flap is temporarily removed from the skull to access the brain to remove the tumor.

In early 2015, Cox presented herself for surgery at Swedish Medical Center, Cherry Hill Campus, in Seattle.  Dr. Stephen Monteith and his team performed the surgery.

Since the tumor affected her sense of taste and smell, Cox had a "taste party" before undergoing the procedure to experience one last time what certain foods tasted and smelled like - just in case she lost those senses.

No worries, though; the surgery left them intact.

"The doctors had to cut from the middle of my head along my hairline to the right, down to just in front of my right ear in order to remove it during a five to six-hour operation," Cox explained.

She recovered for two months before she returned to duty.  She still battles fatigue, but said that her energy levels have improved.

One thing is for certain - Cox is going to complete 20 years in the Army.

"I am not prepared to get out; I will do twenty years in the Army," she said with force.  "Some days are hard, some are not so hard, but I will see my obligations to the Army through."

As she does, she will use her experiences to inspire others facing medical challenges.

"I feel this whole thing has taught me a lot about balance and perspective," Cox said, as she teed up for her last statement. "I figure if I can make it through this, the possibilities of what other people can endure are endless. Your approach, your attitude to what you are dealing with is what is going to get you through."

Sounds like she hit that one down the middle of the fairway of life.