I think it’s human to hold on to specific dates from our past, be that days of traumatic events when we were young, anniversaries with loved ones, or dates of big accomplishments. Mostly, these dates are the ones we felt our “lives changed forever.”

My date is May 30th. This date tends to be a more somber day for me as I reflect on where I am now in light of all that has happened since May 30, 2007, the day my brain tumor was removed. I know I haven’t shared much in this blog about my brain tumor experience, but I honestly think I’m still processing it. Even though it’s been 13 years, I’m still trying to understand what it meant then, what it means today, and how it’s affected my life as a whole. Throughout my last couple of years of high school, I wrote a lot to help myself comprehend the experience. I hoped one day I could share my story in a book. Since 2016, I’ve been working more and more to make that dream a reality.

Here is a passage I wrote about the day my tumor was removed. The “bones” or “structure” of this section was written in 2007 and much of it is written from the perspective of a scared 16 year old attempting to find reason and order in things not so easily understood. Some of it is dramatized. Some is written in how I imagine the scenarios would have occurred. And other parts are seemingly inaccurate as my memory of the events don’t necessarily line up with what my parents remember to be true. But all in all, it’s my account of the events, written to the best of my ability. I’ve filled in a few more details in my last few years of writing and updated some of the language, but for the most part, this section is how I wrote it as a teenager.

Before you dive in, I will provide some background and introduce some characters. Since this chapter is cherry-picked out of the middle of my book, it assumes you already know the following details:

My tumor was removed on May 30, 2007. I was 16 and had just completed my sophomore year of highschool.

Tonya was my best friend in high school

I named my tumor “Verny.” I was 16. It’s how I processed.

Nick is my older brother. Lisa is his wife. Both worked in the medical field at the time of my tumor’s removal. James is my other brother; his wife is Bridget. They were all in their late 20’s/Early-to-mid 30’s when this occurred.

My tumor was discovered after a very strange two-week occurrence of the hiccups — these hiccups lasted 24 hours a day for about 16 days straight. These hiccups were what spurred us to see a neurologist because we thought maybe there was an issue with my phrenic nerve – the nerve going to my diaphragm. The doctor didn’t necessarily know what to do, but after prescribing a nerve medication and an ultrasound of my diaphragm, he also suggested I have a MRI of my brain. Hiccups are not an indicator for brain tumors or other brain disorders, so this was fairly abnormal. But so are 2-week rounds of the hiccups, so maybe anything goes?

My tumor was identified on this MRI. It was a 2×1 inch mass suggestive of an oligodendroglioma and was located slightly inferior to my corpus callosum, in a section of the brain called the septum pellucidum. This tidbit is for the science nerds, but this means simply it was almost directly in the center of my brain.

Italicized text are my thoughts

“#” is a break indicating a change in scene

“###” indicates the end of the chapter

Dr. A discovered my tumor. Dr. L removed it. Dr. S assisted Dr. L on the day of my surgery. Doctor’s names are currently not included for privacy reasons. I will revise or change names upon the book’s release.

Finally, this is simply my account of the day. It doesn’t hold as much analysis as my typical posts. Hopefully, I’ll write more posts down the road that fill in those thoughts. As for today, I’m just soaking in the memories and processing them as they come.

I hope you enjoy!

My account of May 30, 2007. This chapter is entitled “Sort of,” from my up-and-coming (not quite finished) book, “Tell me I’m Valuable.”

I sat on the gurney in my pale-blue hospital gown waiting.

Waiting for it all to get started.

Waiting for the doctor to arrive.

Waiting for what could be my salvation or my doom.

Simply waiting.

Some say all of medicine is to “hurry up and wait.”

I say, it’s mostly wait.

My discomfort rose as I became increasingly aware of how extremely exposed I felt with only my undergarments, a thin blanket, and even thinner backless gown covering me. My gurney felt like an exhibit.

“Come see the girl with the tumor on display in bed three.”

“Did you hear about this girl and her hiccups?”

My previous nightmares of arriving to class naked paled in comparison. Everything throughout the morning felt surreal and vague, like a mere shadow or reflection of my regular life. Even my IVs began to feel more like extensions of my body than they did plastic tubing and medication as I began to completely disassociate from my reality.

Am I really about to have brain surgery?! Like, actual brain surgery?!

#

May 29, 2007, was my last day of normal. Tonya and I celebrated our couple weeks of summertime freedom spending as much time as possible at my Grandparents’ pool, fulfilling one of my main objectives in the snippet of summer I had prior to Verny’s resection: getting a tan and eating as much ice cream as possible. On the day before my surgery, Tonya and I spent nearly the entire day in the sun, and I remember having a wicked sunburn (one of those burns where all of your freckles from the summer before start to peek through the pink and red splotches on your cheeks).

What’s the big deal about skin cancer? I already have a brain tumor. I thought foolishly while smearing chilled aloe on my burnt nose and forehead that evening. That night, Tonya and I attempted to do something that felt on the verge of normal and went to see the thriller Disturbia in theaters. The 2007 teen movie stared one of my favorites in that season of life, and it did not disappoint in the realms of excitement, mystery, and “jump-scares.” The hope was distraction. The goal was escape. In the words of Demetri Martin, it worked, “… sort of.” Throughout the day, I felt half in the moment but half elsewhere, in a distant and contemplative plane inaccessible to anyone but myself. I attempted to be goofy and fun, yet without realizing it, I would fall into long bouts of silence. If you haven’t noticed by now, silence used to really scare me. It signified something was wrong. It meant life wasn’t operating the way it was supposed to be operating. At that point in my life, I avoided it at all costs and filled every quiet space with as much noise as possible. Thankfully, my silence didn’t drive Tonya away. Our friendship didn’t always require constant entertainment. We could be comfortable in simply each other’s presence, and that meant a lot.

After the movie, we drove back to my parents. Yet, after turning into the driveway, there was still a sense of restlessness in the air. I wasn’t ready to head inside. Going inside meant going to bed which meant one step closer to the next day. So, in the spirit of avoidance, we turned back out of the driveway and drove back into town. A pair of Oreo and banana Blizzards and a dance party to “Panic at the Disco’s” newest album release worked wonders in soothing my nerves. But, eventually, the fever had to end, and we were summoned back towards reality.

We returned to my parents’ house around 1:00 am that night. My surgery was scheduled for 8:00 a.m., which pushed our arrival time to the hospital to around 7:00 the next morning. I only had a few hours left. Needless to say, I was rejected by sleep once again. As one o’clock rolled into two and two rolled into three, I pondered the possible outcomes in the dark, and I wondered again how much hair I’d lose through the whole process. In between strung along prayers and apprehensive thoughts, I drifted off into a restless slumber only moments before the ring of the alarm clock jolted me back to consciousness.

5 am. So. Early. And I’m so tired.

But, now, I’m awake. Again.

Tonya was still asleep. I left her in my room and walked quietly towards the kitchen, avoiding the creaky parts of the hallway floor in case my dad was also still asleep. My mom stood hunched over the coffee pot, wringing her hands in an attempt to warm her cold digits and looking off into the distance. I glanced around the kitchen taking in all of the changes we had been through in the past year. Nine months ago, this part of our house didn’t exist. It was an expansion of our smaller, darker, and outdated kitchen which stood here before. Now, after months of renovations, the kitchen felt new again. Cool tile replaced the soft and worn linoleum beneath my feet. New cabinets, updated appliances, and fresh paint filled this space in our house that used to belong to the outdoors. The small window above the sink had grown in size and allowed more natural sunlight to spill into the room and reflect off the new, shiny granite countertops. The renovations to our home carried throughout the entire first floor of the house. The shaggy, worn, marbled carpet in the living room had been replaced with hardwood. The once popcorn ceilings had been scraped bare and repainted. My bedroom and my parents’ bedrooms were updated with new paint, new furniture, and new decorations.

Throughout the majority of the renovations, we actually moved out of our house and lived with my eldest brother and his three young kids. We had only been back in our home for about two months before the beginning of the hiccups and Dr. A ordeal. Other than the changes in my childhood home, the past year conceived and birthed so many transformations; I sat for a moment soaking in each of them one by one.

I had my own car and was driving independently.

I was preparing to switch schools, somewhere with more college preparation and greater social opportunities.

I was growing more and more into an adult.

And also, I was sick.

My mom remained shrouded in herself, stoically rooted in front of the sink for another few moments before she realized she wasn’t alone in the room. Without a word, she came over and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. Another silent hug, just like the one from the night we first learned about my tumor. Neither one of us spoke, but I realized again in this moment I needed to keep being strong. Even though I was the “sick one,” my worry felt less important than her fear. Looking back now, I’m sure she felt the same way.

Tonya and I sat by the door waiting for my parents to finish grabbing any last items we might need for the hospital stay. Again, no talking. While we marinated in the silence, I remember being so thankful to have her with me.

My dad, wearing his tan, leather cowboy boots and one of his favorite t-shirts from the Mid-America Corvette museum tucked into his nicest jeans, entered the room with a stern and fore-drawn look on his face. He looked down to Tonya and me and said,

“Now, girls, no funny business. Meghan, if you have any issues at all with your memory or anything else, you have to tell us. No jokes and no secrets.”

His warning caught me by surprise. Does he really think I would joke or lie about my memory? I know this is serious. My pride piped in,

“Really, Dad?” I replied with teenage sarcasm.

His lips pulled into a thin line and his circle-encased eyes returned an exhausted response. Normally my attitude would warrant a more charismatic reply, but he let my response slide. It then dawned on me that I probably wasn’t the only one with a restless night’s sleep. We came to a standstill as my mom entered the room and asked if everyone was ready to leave. The three of us all nodded, and we walked in a quiet procession out to the car. Silence once again filled the air as we rolled out of the driveway at 6:10 a.m. As we drove, I used the ride as a physical countdown. From our trips over the past few weeks, I had the route from my home to the hospital memorized:

Turn onto St. Mary’s Road. Check.

Pass over the highway and merge onto the main county road, HWY AT. Check.

Merge onto highway 44-E.

Drive past the Six Flags exit.

Drive through the hills just past Eureka. Check.

Pass by Krispy Kreme and the old Chrysler Plant in Fenton.

Pass Lindbergh Blvd, Big Bend, Hampton Blvd and the zoo. Check.

After about an hour on the road, Take Exit 287 to Kingshighway.

Pass over HWY 40.

Turn right after the animal-shaped shrubs on the Children’s Hospital lawn.

Drive in circles until Dad parks in his preferred spot on the 4th floor of the garage.

Check.

Breathe, Meg. Now, smile.

I flashed Tonya a semi-grin. She returned a similar gaze, and we followed my parents to the garage elevators. My mom carried my suitcase under her arm. Although we were uncertain how long after surgery that I would stay in the hospital, we planned for about a week. My feather pillow encased in a pale pink fleece fit snuggly in between my torso and my folded arms. I hugged it for comfort, hoping no one would notice. The goose down had first been my mother’s; she slept on it to “break it in” before giving it to me when I was a toddler. I couldn’t sleep a night without it.

We settled right into the waiting room as my mom handled all of the paperwork. Next, the nurse asked for identification from everyone in our group. That way, when I was out of surgery, they would have a list of everyone who could visit me in the ICU. As Tonya pulled out her wallet, the nurse stopped her and said,

“You don’t need your ID, honey. I know you’re her sister.” Tonya froze and looked to my dad. Their silent conversation confirmed Tonya’s hesitation to correct her. The three of them shared a set of glances as the nurse insisted Tonya agree she was my sister. Without waiting for Tonya’s full response, the nurse handed her a family member sticker.

After another indeterminable lapse of time, Dr. L, followed by a few of his residents, entered my pre-op room, now packed with Tonya, my parents, and Nick and Lisa, who arrived a little after I got settled into my bed and gown. As nurses, Nick and Lisa were affiliated with the hospital. In fact, Lisa had even scrubbed in many of Dr. L’s surgeries prior to our journey with him.

As Dr. L discussed the final details of the day’s procedures with my parents, Tonya and I attempted to chat nonchalantly. Soon, my parents, Tonya, and Lisa said goodbye to me as the pre-op team began their procedures. Nick stayed with me throughout the rest of the preparatory process.

After the installation of my IVs and a throughout review of pre-op questions with the anesthesia team, one of Dr. L’s residents, Dr. S, began the stages of preparing me for the neuro-team. This included another “Squeeze My Fingers” Exam, an overall assessment of my vitals collected by the nurses, and the installation of the Stealth imagining machine. Since my tumor was located very deep in my brain, the doctors decided to use a particular imaging technique with a device called Stealth. This remarkable piece of equipment gave Dr. L and the other surgeons a real-time, three-dimensional view of my brain as they operated.

Dr. S was assigned the menial task of shaving off sections of my hair where the leads for the Stealth imaging would be placed. He picked the placement of the leads with caution, and with every chunk of hair he shaved off my head, my nervousness grew. By the time he was finished, I had clumps of my hair all over my lap. I remember thinking how unbelievable it was that he just laid each of the locks of hair on my lap like they were nothing. My beautiful, brown hair. The hair I grew out of my own head. The hair that I was certain I would lose all of by the end of the day. To him, I’m sure my hair wasn’t even on his radar. This was just a part of his job; he needed to place each of the leads with precision and accuracy; focusing on some girl’s hair drama wasn’t a part of the procedure. To him, it was just routine, but to me, it was on the verge of devastating. Yet even in this instance, I refused to let anyone see my own horror. Perceptively, with the instinct that only older brothers tend to have, Nick caught my quick glance of dismay and asked if I was still doing okay.

“Oh, everything is fine,” I attempted to reassure him. The house is burning down around me, but everything is fine. I’m not certain if he believed me, but thankfully, he didn’t pry. I don’t remember much else after Dr. L did a final look over the stealth leads, put in the orders for my pre-surgery MRI, and completed yet another, but abbreviated, “squeeze my fingers” exam. Once satisfied with his preparatory steps, Dr. L turned to leave the room, and cheerfully called out,

“You won’t see me, but I’ll see you in the OR!”

The valium given to me as an introduction to my anesthesia then started to take a deeper effect, and soon, only flashes of saying goodbye to my brother in the hallway as he stood over my gurney, climbing onto the cold steel table, and counting backwards a few numbers from ten sit in the back of my mind as distant memories.

While I dreamed and the doctors initiated their assault on Verny, the empty waiting room holding my parents, Lisa, and new sister, Tonya, slowly began to become more and more crowded with my family members and friends. Tonya recalls my grandfather sitting next to her and whispering to her,

“She is going to be alright.” To him, it was a declaration, which he quickly followed with the same uncertainty that everyone was feeling, “Right?”

According to Tonya, my grandmother sat silently with her rosary for hours, running the beads through her fingers and whispering the same prayers she taught me during my first few months in the states. My brothers and their wives sat stoically waiting for the next bits of information, and reportedly, my Dad sat silently, holding my mom’s hand, in a constant state of being on the verge of tears. A large portion of the day passed before a very tired Dr. L greeted my parents in the waiting room.

Radiology confirmed clean scans.

Pathology declared me cancer free with clear margins.

Surgery was a success.

He elaborated more on the surgery and answered my parents’ questions. For the first time that day, my parents fully exhaled while thanking him for his vigilance and help. After saying he’d be back to check on me soon, he left the waiting room and jumped back into his never ending machine of answering messages and checking on other patients. A nurse then gathered my parents and immediate family to take them back to recovery. After reading Tonya’s sister badge, she insisted that Tonya go along with my parents to the recovery room. Unfortunately, my actual brothers and their wives had not picked up their matching family badges and were left in the waiting room with the rest of my loved ones, as this nurse was unfamiliar with Lisa and Nick’s roles in the hospital. No one decided to press the issue though, as everyone just wanted to make certain I was okay. Although my mom assured her that she could join them, Tonya later confessed to me the guilt she carried for years from this sister-non-sister mishap.

We’ve all seen countless portrayals in movies or television of a patient who first wakes up from a surgery, a coma, or an unexplained accident. The scene usually begins with a black screen, simulating the patient’s closed eyes, and the distant beeps from nearby heart monitors or nursing pages overhead that grow louder as the individual blinks a few times. The room decorated with flowers and get well soon cards slowly comes into focus as the patient’s friends or family, already present in the room, collectively release long-held sighs and rush to the sick person’s bedside. The gratitude of their loved one entering back into their world displays itself in happy tears and heartfelt exaltations as a member of their group rushes into the hallway, beckoning the nurse or the doctor to come “right away.”

While this is how I imagine my own moments after surgery might have been dramatized as cinematically, I actually have no memory of waking up. I have no memory of my parents or Tonya coming to visit me. In fact, I don’t have many memories throughout my entire stay in the hospital. Even so, all three of them recount a mental image of me lying on my hospital bed with my head wrapped in bandages and babbling on in confusion to the nurses and anyone within earshot, saying contradicting and nonsensical statements, as a scene that will forever be stamped in their memories.

Yet,

Dr. L had fixed me.

Ding-Dong, my witch was dead.

I was better.

And now, the worst was over.

Sort of.

###

In another post, I’ll share more about the results of my surgery. As for today, I’m just going sit in thankfulness for 13 years of clean scans.

Thanks for being a part of my journey. And I’m so thankful for each and every one of you who read my blog.

Happy May 30th!