CHAPTER SEVEN
MY OLDER brother tried to reassure me about the doctor situation, but I ended up reassuring him. Maybe I was just being naïve about the seriousness of the condition, or maybe I just didn’t care. I think I understood what was happening to me, and was trying to do everything while I still could.
I wanted to live life to the utmost, to be the best I could be. I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. I don’t know what drove me but it was very strong. I don’t understand it, but I had no fear. Fear of death seemed reasonable; maybe my will to live overshadowed it, or was too strong for that fear to come out.
My brother once had a friend in grade school who died from a brain tumor. Every time we drove by his house I would think of that. That was years before all these tests. When I started having those headaches I would always think that I had the same. As they got worse my belief in a brain tumor became stronger until I was almost sure. It was like I knew it was happening. So I found ways to accept it and live with it. Maybe that is why I was so fearless now: I had already accepted it.
October 21st was a Monday. But not just any Monday, the day for the brain scan had come. This would confirm or dispel Dr. John’s suspicions of a brain tumor. I wasn’t too scared even though I knew there were needles involved. I was more nervous. I guess I felt it would just confirm my suspicions and bring them to reality. This was the end of the road though, and it made me edgy.
They brought me into a room with WARNING-RADIATION on the door. I liked that. The room was filled with more electronic gadgets and video screens with graphs. Wow, this was neat. I imagined the days of joy I might have dismantling them to see how they wo