Watch What Happens When I Press...Here!

The operating room didn't look like I thought it would. The predominant colors were white and gray, but I was expecting something...brighter, I guess. There were about six other people in the room that I could see, and all of them had a particular job they were getting ready for. The anaethesiologist and his student assistant gave me a shot to get things moving.

One thing you don't hear about very often is that you're going to be awake during the surgery. This is to make sure they don't do something that'll turn you into a country music fan or vote for Sarah Palin. So while I was getting anaesthesia, I wouldn't be out the whole time. They could and would be giving me something to make me forget about it though. So I had that going for me.

I got all warm and calm and they put a little tent up to cover my eyes. Probably for the best. There was classical music playing somewhere and we were off to the races.

They kept asking me questions. First, to make sure I was cognizant and second to check the progress of the anaesthesia. The questions were pretty basic -- stuff like "what day is it?" and "what's your wife's name" as well as whether or not I felt anything. I felt calm through all of it.

Because of the drugs, my memory of the actual surgery is a little hazy. One thing I remember quite clearly is the sound of my skull being opened. It sounds pretty much like you'd expect -- kind of a wet crunch and a crack. It didn't scare me and I didn't freak out. They were talking to each other and doing their thing. I could've been at the beach as far as I was concerned. I just kept talking and answering questions. Hopefully the line of questioning was on the up and up. I probably would've sung like a canary on all sorts of topics and had no memory of them afterwards. You could learn a lot about someone.

It took some time to get to the tumor, but when he did I remember there being some comments. Stuff like, "Here's the first sample" and so on. They sent it to a pathologist. I remember thinking that the fucking pathologist better be in the goddamn room next door and not across town. I also remember wondering how it would be presented to him/her. Would it be in a jar? Raced across town in an Igloo cooler? In some guy's hand?

I don't know how long it took for him/her to check it out, but the doctor asked me if it'd be okay for them to get another sample of the tumor for future reference and so students could study it since it was so rare.
Well, since you have the hood up, why the hell not? I said sure. If it would prevent anyone else from having to go through this, I'm all for it.

At this point the doctor reiterated that I should tell him if I felt anything. I did. It felt as if there was a thick string connecting my ears and someone was plucking it. It didn't hurt and it didn't make me piss my pants or anything, but it's not something you'd really like to experience if you can help it.

I said "Hey!"

Things got real quiet.

The doctor calmly asked if I was alright. I replied that it was fine, but it felt as if someone was tugging on the aforementioned string. He took a deep breath and said "okay." Things progressed without incident.

I don't remember much after that, but I do remember being wheeled out of the operating room, thanking everyone for doing such a great job. I have no idea if it was polite and classy or more like Motley Crue leaving the stage after a concert. Probably the latter. "Thank you! Goodnight Tulsa!"

Gimme Toro, Gimme Some More

Once the date was set, things went pretty fast. My wife's mom and sister, who are a hell of a lot of fun and completely wonderful, said they'd come up while I went into the hospital. My folks, who were equally excellent, offered to take me out for a meal at a restaurant of my choosing before I went in.

Since I had surgery and chemo ahead of me, I opted for sushi. I wouldn't be able to eat raw fish for a while, so off we went. I knew that neither of my folks were all that thrilled with sushi (they ended up going with some baked fish and rice), but it was a heartfelt show of support.

A few days later my mother and sister-in-law arrived. The night before the surgery, neither I nor my wife could sleep. We got up around three and went downstairs to talk.

At this point I thought there was a ten percent chance that I'd die on the table. My wife later told me it was closer to thirty. Regardless, we went over a few things. I wrote down all the usernames and passwords for our assorted online accounts and we talked about my final wishes.

That didn't take long. Mainly because I didn't have any elaborate or dramatic wishes other than "let people take whatever they want to remember me by." To me, it seemed a little pompous to put all this weight on possessions that ultimately didn't mean anything. I thought it'd mean more to my friends and family if they could pick something that reminded them of me. When my grandma died, the one thing I took that reminded me most of her was a funky TV tray with bongos on it. I'd eaten many a Thanksgiving meal off that tray and it was something I always associated with going to Grandma's. I didn't want to deprive someone else of that opportunity to take something.

What's more it still seemed abstract and surreal. I felt like I was watching a movie. I was a little nervous about the operation, but there really wasn't anything to do. There was nothing I could do other than go forward, and crying or worrying wasn't going to make things any better.

Point and Click

After all the tests and back and forth, my neurologist and oncologist agreed that they'd need to do a biopsy on the tumor so the oncologist would know exactly what he was dealing with. They'd been reading up on my special snowflake of a tumor, which was remarkably rare. Par. In order to get that biopsy, they'd have to do brain surgery. The date was set for a morning in June. I had two weeks to get ready.

Since the tumor was in such a delicate spot, they'd go in and get a small chunk of it for the pathologist to study. Then, they'd use that info to determine the best way to get rid of the thing. They'd literally be going through my brain in order to get to it. I would be awake the whole time.

Naturally, I had questions. Would this hurt? Would I be able to feel anything? Would I shit my pants whenever I heard a doorbell for the rest of my life?

Thanfully, the answer was 'no' to all these questions. The brain has no nerve endings, so there'd be no pain and I likely wouldn't feel anything. Your brain is more permeable than you'd think -- the fibers of the tissue have some give and would allow the needle/instrument to go right into my brain without cutting or puncturing any of the surrounding tissue. It'd be like when you insert your hand into a tree or bush -- you can touch the center of it, but when you remove your hand the tree's fine. It's in the exact same shape it was before you put your hand into it. It'd be the same thing with my brain.

However. There was a 30% chance I could die. On top of that, since the tumor was right up against my optic nerve, there was a chance I could go blind. Not the greatest odds, but I didn't have much of a choice. The tumor was growing by the day, and had shown no signs of slowing.

I had a lot of faith in the doctor who'd be performing the surgery, so we set a date. I had a couple weeks to get ready.

Finally, we meet.

After a few more vision and balance tests, Dr. Greene got out the MRI scans. It was the first time my wife and I had a chance to see the tumor. It was a white round mass in the center of my brain. Dr. Greene explained that that was good -- a round tumor was easier to kill than one that had tendrils that wrapped around the folds of the brain.

When you've got a brain tumor you take your good news when you can get it.

The bad news was that this was in the very center of my brain, making it very risky for them to try to go after it surgically. One wrong move and I could be blind, lose motor functions or even die. Dr. Greene, though a highly-skilled neurosurgeon, was not in favor of surgery.

However.

There was a type of treatment that went after tumors of this type; ones that were hard to reach. It essentially shot highly-focused beams of radiation from multiple angles that converged on the spot to kill the tumor. Instead of carving your brain up like Swiss cheese, the beams were only effective/dangerous (depending on if you're a glass half-full/half-empty kinda person) when they met. If this was the path they were going to go down, I'd only get one treatment, one shot of radiation.

A ray of hope!

Howling at the Moon

Finally, the day came to meet Dr. Greene. It ended up that he, like many specialists, was in great demand. So much so that he'd spend a day in one office, then the next day in another. I later found out that this sort of rotation isn't all that uncommon.

Of course this meant that we drove to the wrong office for our first meeting. After a harried rerouting, we found ourselves in Dr. Greene's office. Despite the complaints of the anonymous Internet poster, the office looked fine. Really.

He turned out to be a nice guy. He was an average, doctor-ish, nondescript looking guy. Quiet, but don’t you want someone calm doing your brain surgery? I don't want Rip Taylor digging around in my skull.


He had me do a few “look this way” type of exercises, then asked me to take off my shoes. My wife and I exchanged glances for a second. Hers was one of terror.

A word about my feet. They are flat. Really flat. I’ve worn arch supports (actually the same ones) since 1984. I have calluses on my toes that are so thick you can strike a match on them. My toenails, depending on when you catch me, often look more like talons. As they did when Dr. Greene asked to see my feet.

“Oh God,” my wife said.

“What?”

“Your feet,” she laughed, then shook her head. “They’re so nasty.”

“But they’re my only form of defense against predators,” I said.

An ever-so-slight smile flashed across Dr. Greene’s face. He asked me to perform a few more movements to determine what type of damage the tumor had done. Since it was in the center of my brain where all sorts of functions converged, anything could happen. Turns out I was okay for the most part. My balance and motor skills were okay.

Only thing is that he wanted to get a second opinion. He referred me to Dr. Thompson, the radiation oncologist who would be part of the team that would treat me. Dr. Greene and Dr. Thompson were going to compare notes and discuss the various methods of treatment to figure out what was best.

The Plot Thickens

About a half hour after I got back to work, Dr. Andersen called. They had some questions on the MRI and wanted to get another scan, this time with color. The dye would give them a better picture of what was going on in my head. Wouldn’t hurt. Wouldn’t take any more time than the last one did. I went back.


Same drill. I put my stuff in the locker, went into the room and got on the table. This time I asked for a rock station. The attendant took my hand and found a vein.

“Some people say they get a weird taste in their mouth when they get the dye injected,” she said. “But other than that you shouldn’t have any symptoms or a reaction,” she said as she injected me.

Sure enough, about sixty seconds later a strange, metallic taste bloomed in my mouth. It slowly subsided and we started the scan as John Mellencamp sang about pink houses for you and me.

There was an awkward silence as she unhooked me from the machine and we walked to the locker area, so I turned and asked her: “do you ever mess with people and tell them that everything’s going to taste like pepperoni for two days afterwards?” Either she didn’t see the humor in it or she was taken aback. She didn’t laugh. She just gave me this confused “what the hell was that about?” look and said “Uh, no.” I thanked her, got my stuff and left.
This time the drive back to work was a little more stressful; a brain tumor was starting to sound like a strong possibility. I didn’t really know much about them other than the fact that they were bad, really bad, and that you could die from them. Whenever someone got a brain tumor on TV, that was it. They were dead within minutes. If I had one, was it the size of a grape? An orange?

I wasn’t really having too bad of a time, all things considered. I wasn’t having headaches or seizures, the two symptoms I most associated with brain tumors. I wasn't dizzy. Other than the eyesight issues I felt fine. Deep down I thought it’d wind up being something goofy, like I ended up with the wrong eyeglasses prescription or something equally minor.


I’d been back at my desk all of forty minutes when the phone rang. It was Dr. Andersen again. “Kyle, we looked at the second set of MRI scans,” he began in a measured, serious tone, “and it looks like you have a small tumor in the center of your brain. It’s in the pineal region.” He calmly explained that it was still relatively small – about the size of a gumball – but that its location explained why I was having vision problems. Essentially, it was taking up space normally reserved for optical functions and it was putting pressure on the optic nerve so things weren’t functioning the way they should.

Predictably, my next set of questions were along the lines of “how the hell are we going to get this thing out?”

“I’m going to refer to you to Dr. George Greene,” he said. “He’s one of the best neurologists in town. If I had to see a neurologist, he’s the one I’d see,” he said.