THE SUMMER of 1969.
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I was seven years old, and my brother Shawn was three years older. We lived down by the river in a cabin, and after school we would come home, throw on our shorts, and disappear until it started getting dark. We fished, swam, and rode the rapids, rump riding, w
ithout flotation devices. How we didn’t break a leg or drown is beyond me. I always had Shawn to rope me in when I was doing something crazy and he probably saved my life on a few occasions. We had a summer cabin a few hundred feet away where one of the kids, Frankie, had a new mini-motorbike. We went out on the road, and on heading back I had an idea – I grabbed the handle behind the seat and ran. The bike accelerated and I kept running and holding on. I couldn’t run any faster but I wasn’t backing down so kept holding on. I fel and hit the pavement but stil kept holding on as my head smacked the ground. I let go when my adrenaline drained and my head hurt. I staggered up and eventual y made it home. I kept the incident from Mom because I wasn’t supposed to be around the bike.
Years went by and I started having headaches. These were so bad that I’d be on the couch screaming for hours and pressing my head as hard as I could between the cushions and the armrest. When it final y went away I felt the calm after the storm. There was a settling, euphoric stil ness. I would go to my room and lay down with a book and go to sleep. A few times I was awakened by an older lady with white hair and a dress that appeared to be flowing like a wind had it. I told my mom and she told me it was my great-grandmother.
I spent the next year on different medications and was tested for al ergies. Twelve years old I was laid down on an operating table as they made a hundred cuts with a smal scalpel putting different al ergens on them - one battery of tests after another only to wait, wait, wait, and keep having those violent headaches.
I was taken to a neurologist who put me through a brain scan and an MRI. MRIs were new back then and more accurate than brain scans. When the results came back the neurologist explained to my mom that I had a brain tumor.
He gave me some more tests. I couldn’t walk in a straight line, my hearing was not very good in my left ear, and my optic nerve was damaged beyond repair. He explained that a tumor in your left cerebel um affects your right side.
I would be al set for brain surgery the next Thursday.