rother 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 stil 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 wil 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 al 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 fil ed 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 worked.
In the middle of the room was the operating table. Over that was a thing that looked very much like a huge electromagnet - the kind they used to pick up cars at the junkyard.
The radiologist came over to me and said, “This is a radioactive isotope containing a dye that shows up in the scan and outlines abnormalities.”
I made a joke about metamorphosing into Spiderman. I was trying to do anything that would stal the inevitable needle stick. I had had so many needles during this ordeal that I was becoming a little used to them.
I grunted as he pierced the skin.
There’s something about shots. The anticipation of it hurts more than the physical pain. Everybody reacts to needles.
Time for the scan, and the big electromagnet was right there above me. I saw a car being lifted up to throw in the crusher.
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They had me move my head to different angles, and at one point I was lying on my left side. As I lay there I saw a TV type screen with graphs and an outline of my skul . I saw the dye creeping upwards into my head like a smal black snake barely inching along my vessels. It seemed the snake was looking for a home, a recess in my cancerous brain.
I watched that black ribbon for what seemed like hours. It final y slowed to a stop and pul ed up its trailing end. It had chosen a spot in the middle of my brain to rest.
At that point it spread. It was now a dot expanding rapidly, darkening a space the size of a smal orange.
When the session was over, I left not feeling much and hoping that what I had just witnessed was some kind of trick of the mind.
I kept what I had seen to myself and let the doctors analyze the images of my brain. I held onto the hope that what I had just seen was a mirage or some normal anatomical structure I didn’t know about. Maybe it was a drug induced hal ucination caused by their syringe-happy nurse. Possibly I was dreaming and my imagination had produced this image for some deep psychological reason.
The fol owing Thursday afternoon I entered the hospital for a sort of orientation. Actual y it was a surgical prepping session. They had scheduled the operation for 1pm the fol owing day.
The day started with Jel -O, and I got soft food from then on in, cottage cheese, yogurt. .
I had a color TV (without graphs) and my own bathroom. I didn’t mind sharing, and I would have liked to have somebody to talk to, but I didn’t want anyone else seeing the bedpan.
A few hours before surgery, more relatives than I knew I had came to see me, paying their last respects, perhaps. They al said the same thing – “Don’t worry, it’l be alright.”
I knew I was going to be alright, like I had some mystical cloud resting on me, letting me know the outcome and dissolving the fear.
Now it was about half an hour before they wheeled me into the operating room, and the nurse walks in with two hypodermic needles the size of caulking guns with springs inside. She proceeded to stab my legs and deliver the whole load. It hurt a bit, but it was over before I had a chance to think about it.
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Within a minute or two I was on a cloud. I felt great - stoned and delirious. The only problem was that I had to pee. I tried to climb over the railings around my bed to get to the bathroom, but the nurse caught me before I made my drug crazed escape. I pleaded with the nurse to let me use the can, but to no avail. She was quite convincing in her promise that I could go afterwards. Basical y, “Back to bed”, was al I could get from her.
I lay back in my stainless steel bed and took in the euphoria. The inanimate objects seemed to be only partial y there, like they were in some other dimension which I now saw. It was al so unreal, but there was no sense of struggle to find reality.
As I was floating around in the bel adonna haze some people in white jackets (possibly angels) came into my room and lifted me onto a gurney. My Mom, Dad, Aunt, Grama, and Gramps were there walking with me down the corridor with strained smiles. They were worried but I was at peace. I wanted to tel them everything would be alright but no words would come. Instead I could only express giggles and jokes, like being at a party. For them it was more worrisome, they had no idea how things would pan out. The doctors had their own opinion of my confidence: they thought it was highly overrated.