February 14, 2004. My mom, dad, and I walked into the Children's hospital for my neurosurgeon appointment. We still had no idea what was going on with my headache, and we thought this appointment was to learn what it was and discuss options. We went in with high hopes, because we're pretty positive and awesome people.
We parked the car and went in the building. The Children's hospital at the time was very colourful in a 70's seizure-inducing kind of way. We sat down on these hard plastic couches and proceeded to make fun of all the people sitting around us. Well, to clarify, Mom and I did, and Dad shook his head in an I'm-laughing-but-am-actually-so-embarrassed-that-I-know-you-two way. It was super depressing around that area of the hospital because all the children with brain conditions and stuff are there, and a lot of the people are pretty sad. Well, I should say the parents are pretty sad, because the kids always seem to decide that no illness will get in their way of being a kid, and are just excited to be able to spend the day playing with the grubby toys while they wait for the adults to talk. The parents though always seem to feel that no one else could understand how terrible their lives are because of this, which is weird because if they all talked about it while they waited, they'd probably end up feeling infinitely better. Just my opinion though.
Finally the nurse comes out and announces my name. The three of us follow her in a giggly single file line into a room. I sat down on the bed, my throne for the next few years, and my parents sat down in the chairs. And then we waited.
Waiting for the doctor for things like this is like waiting to see whether you've attached a really expensive TV to the wall properly when you take your hands off for the first time, but that few seconds is stretched out for about a half an hour or more. Your heart is trying to escape through your mouth, but it kinda got stuck half way and is instead trying to punch a hole through your throat. You have to sit there though pretending that you aren't about to have a heart attack and are the bravest person in the world, because no surgeon likes to walk into an exam room with a person curled in a ball in the corner with tears streaming down their face. Believe me. The three of us chatted and made fun of the room for a bit, all of us pretending to be super brave and having an awesome time. And then he walked in.
I won't say his name just in case any of you are feeling super bitter about my health stuff and decide to take it out on him, but he has crystal blue eyes and is about 9 feet tall. Even dad later admitted that this guy is "dreamy" (I'm not removing that, dad!). He shook our hands and sat down, and proceeded to excitedly explain what was wrong. He showed us my MRI and was taking measurements and everything on the pictures, clearly fascinated by this whole thing. I was momentarily distracted by the fact that I was looking inside my own head, but managed to focus. I had something called Ciari Malformation 1. My brain tonsil was too large, causing the spinal fluid to not flow around my brain. They usually do surgeries to correct this if the tonsil is 5mm (1/5" or something) too big. Mine was 19mm too big. It was so large that it was coming down into my first vertebrae. The typical symptoms of this is a headache when you cough or sneeze, because of the extra pressure. Mine, a constant headache, wasn't anywhere near typical, and he said it was "significant" and "the worst case he's seen in a pediatric patient" and other encouraging words about my massive brain. Being us, of course, my parents immediately started making fun of me for having a big head. We weren't really using humour as a way to hide that we were scared, we were just being us and finding the humour in the situation. The doctor and his nurse didn't really know how to react to this, though throughout our various meetings in the future he began to join in. He explained the surgery (which I will explain later in the story), and asked if we had any questions. My parents asked a couple, none of which I remember, and then it was my turn. I asked what the odds were of me dying. I'd never had surgery before, and this seemed like a pretty thing in my mind. I was assured that the odds were quite slim, but that just told me that there was some chance that I could. That freaked the heck out of me. Although, if I didn't get the surgery, it would kill me, so I didn't really have a choice. I tried to focus on the idea that my headache would be gone after. At this point, the doctor measured my head (I was thinking he was trying to figure out how big of a jar he would need to put my head in after I died) with this tape measure thing. My parents then asked if we could measure their heads to see which of us has the biggest head. Turns out it's me, then dad, then mom. We later measured Kyle's too, but I forget how his placed. Bigger than Mom's freakishly tiny head, anyway.
At the end of the appointment, we were given a date for my brain surgery, April 12th, 2004. It was the first week day of spring break, and I would be recovered and back to school by the end of the break. We left feeling hopeful, giggly, and scared out of our minds.
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