Violet Mastodon

Even now, nearly two months since this all began, they’re still not 100% sure about my diagnosis. But back during the early days of my initial visit to the ER and hospital, they had no idea what to make of me and my “interesting presentation.” Long-story short, I spent five days in the hospital that first time. They didn’t know if I had a tumor, lymphoma, some weird brain infection, a stroke, or something else. They just couldn’t be sure, so to be safe, they kept me. It sucked majorly. Royal suckage. Alyssa was the there the entire time. She was the only certain thing. She continues to be the only certain thing in my life. I hate that I’m putting her through this, and I’m trying to just accept her love. But its hard. Hard to have everything so completely focused on me, revolving around me all the time. I worry about her, worry how this is affecting her, worry she is tired and scared, worry how she is coping through all of this.

And here is the thing I begin to understand, I mean really understand: It is not only me going through this, Alyssa is going though this. We are going through this. This is not a totally novel realization, I’ve known this the whole time, but as I sit here now, I know it even more completely. The unformulated has become formulated. I cannot even say that it breaks my heart, because the pain in me feels located even deeper, lower, inside. It isn’t even just pain that I feel, there is a solidness, not exactly heavy, but dense, solid, unyielding, like a large smooth stone that has been there for ions, impervious to all things, even time, even cancer. And I realize right now, it is us that I am feeling, she and I. I can actually feel where we are located within me. Sounds fucking weird, I know. But think about it this way: You have to have a place to feel pain. Do you understand? Pain doesn’t just happen out there in the aether. Pain has to find a place to locate itself, to inflict itself. In this way, I begin to realize that this pain has lead me to find us, to feel us, Alyssa and I: Violet Mastodon.

“Wait.What the hell is Violet Mastodon?!” You’re probably saying. “Am I taking Crazy Pills?!”

I’m sorry dear Reader. Please let me to explain. Once, several years ago, Alyssa’s brother asked us what our “couple animal” was. I’d never heard of this, there might even be a different word for it, I can’t remember, but apparently, your “couple animal” is what you and your significant other are, fused, combined into one single entity. “Violet Mastodon” is what came to my mind. Alyssa laughed her ass off when I said it, said she thought it was perfect, and I’ll leave it at that.

Second Opinions, Thirds…

On the second or third day of my initial 5-day hospital visit, they still weren’t sure what my deal was. I hadn’t seen Neurosurge1 since the first day. A A young neurologist came to see me, a person called a hospitalist came to see me, and two of the residents I had met the first day came to see me. Those two residents actually came to check on me more frequently than anyone. Although only residents, it was helpful to have a familiar face who I knew and who also knew my case. they continued to run tests, including another MRI, this time to look at my spine. Neurosurge1 said that perhaps a second “lesion” might present itself there. What a gross fucking word for something tht may or not be inside you. Lesion. He said it was far less dangerous to biopsy something from the spine, than to go stabbing into my brain. He was real reluctant to do the brain biopsy, if he didn’t have to, because of the location of the lesion, and it was kind of hard to disagree with him on that one. At this point Alyssa had been on the phone with her dad and stepmother, who knew someone high up in the radiology department at the hospital. This guy was helpful. He was retired but he came to visit me anyways. He looked at my tests and recommended a different neurosurgeon at the hospital. So we asked for this new guy, Neurosurge2. We had to push a bit, but we got him. Neurosurge2 came to see me. His bedside manner was better than neurosurge1, but he didn’t have a whole lot new to tell me. He agreed with neurosuge1 that if they could not determine what this was, and neurosurgery was required, the “needle poke” approach to biopsy was the way to go. It was the least hazardous of

The Breakdown

When I say “the breakdown,” I really mean, my breakdown. I’m not going to spend to much time on this one, because, frankly, I don’t like to relive it. We weren’t sure about the diagnosis nor the recommended next steps so we started looking around for people to provide second opinions, or third as it were. Alyssa got me an appointment at a major university hospital. We went and my father who was now in town, came too. After waiting for more than an hour past our appointment time, the neurosurgeon arrived. He brought up my scans. It was clearly the first time he had looked at them. After a few moments, he wheeled her chair around.

“This is a tumor.” “What’s hard to tell is what kind it is, and how big it actually is.” “Uhuh?”

This doctor proceeded to explain that what we are likely seeing on the scan is just the edema, medical term for inflammation and swelling. He then grabbed a piece of scratch paper and proceeded to review pi with me. For you mathaphobes, pi is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter. The reason he reviewed pi with me was to make the point that, in his opinion, the tumor was not the size of a pea, but instead…

“probably more like this…” Holding out his closed fist. “Likely a glioma.

To say my heart dropped is an understatement; It nearly came out my ass. I just went from a pea-sized “something” to a fist-sized glioma tumor. There is no scenario where this is not really really really bad. Things are now worse. I can’t tell you anymore about how I responded at at that moment, or what I said because I honestly don’t remember. I know that I took a second lorazapam, an anxiety medication one of the other doctors has prescribed me.

As I rode home from this latest doc appointment, I’m sure I said nothing. When we arrived home, I walked quietly into our bedroom alone, buried my face in a pillow, and finally lost it. All out sobbing, like I don’t ever remember doing in my life. I soaked that fucking pillow. Had to get a second one. Alyssa came in and just laid with me.

That’s all I can write about that.

Oh wait, one more thing. Half an hour after my breakdown. That same neurosurgeon/math tutor called and left a message. He thought he had spoken too soon. He didn’t think it was a fist sized glioma tumor after all. I just listened to that voicemail in a sort of weird exhausted spacey state of my post-emo collapse. I didn’t know what to think. Just handed the phone to Alyssa so she could replay the voicemail herself. That’s about all I can remember. But I didn’t choose to work with him.

Dr. McKnifeSkillz

The first time I met Dr. McKnifeskills, the very first thing he did, was show me a piece of artwork that one of his other patient’s had drawn. It was a picture of the brain, with a spot in it. Dr. McKnifeskills said my MRI scan had reminded him of this drawing, so he wanted to show me. Dr. McKnifeskillz brought up myMRI scan on his computer. He spent time educating Alyssa and me on MRI, and the brain, and brain surgery. He He showed me before and after MRI scans of a patient who had a brain tumor removed. He had done the surgery. Mcknifeskills was confident, not in an arrogant sort of way, but more just positive. He said he disagreed with the “needle poke” approach to biopsy that the other neurosurgeons had recommended. He said that he would go for open brain surgery, a craniotomy. McKnifeskillz explained his reasoning. He said the needle poke was in his opinion, more dangerous because it was in someways a “blind poke.” “Blind” is not exactly what he said. Essentially, parascopal neurosurgery (the needle poke) utilizes imaging of the brain and computers to guide a needle into the brain, avoiding (hopefully) critical brain areas including but not limited to vital arteries that if ruptured, kill yo ass. Once they reach the “mass” or “lesion”, out pops some sort of slicing and catching devise from the needle, and they cut, catch, and retrieve a piece of the lesion in order to biopsy it. Dr. McKnifeskillz did not like this approach, thought it was potentially more dangerous and also less useful. He talked about taking out most or all of the tumor, if he could, but this would require more than a needle poke. He would have to open up my skull, go deep into my brain, and cut out this tumor. In the event that he could get the whole tumor out, he would. He added that if the subsequent pathology report found it to be benign, I would spend a few days in the hospital, then go home to recover, and that would be it.

Kind of a big decision right? Should I choose this form of not-safe-shit with this dude or that form of not-so-safe-shit with that that other dude? Or should I not let any of these dudes go stabbing and hacking into my head and just wait and see what happens. In spite of my fear, I was intrigued by Dr. McKnifeskillz. Alyssa was not so hot on McKnifeskillz at first. She thought he seemed a little too excited about sawing into my skull. We were going to talk to some other neurosurgeons before she let anyone inside my brain. That’s how she’s been this entire time. Fiercely protective of me. I’m not surprised by it, by her power, because I’ve always seen it in her, admired it. Some might say I’m lucky to have her. But that is not how I see it. Luck implies something just happened. But luck is not how she and I happened. I had to recognize who she was, and she had to recognize me. Us, took her and it took me. Still does.