The Unpicked Apple

 

A Ripe Apple, deep red

Unpicked, drops into the dirt,

Rots, then disappears.

I wrote this Haiku in January. I was struggling to find meaning in my life, which happened to flip a massive bitch recently. So, this blog will do the same. I will now tell a more current story through my journal entries. 

March 21st, 2022

The doctor just told me I have the C-word. Brain C-word, to be exact. Type II Astrocytoma. This type is not benign. We knew this was a possibility, based on a number of CT's, MRIs, neurosurgeon and oncologist visits. We knew it was near my brain stem, and thus inoperable, which was devastating. But for about a year, the doctors had told us that they didn't know what it was. 

It was "not typical," according to Srinivasan, a neurosurgeon my doctor had sent me to after my first MRI. We saw this as a good thing, and even though I shed some tears, we decided that our only choice was to stay positive and expect the best outcome. 

Whatever this was, it was causing what is called a Chiari malformation. My cerebellum is swollen, so it extends farther than normal into my brain stem, causing a restriction of spinal fluid flow. This was causing my new headaches. After a lot of thinking, we went ahead with the surgery to address these headaches by removing some bone in my C1 to create room for my spinal fluid to flow. To perform a biopsy on the area of concern, they had to make a small hole in my skull, so we did that at the same time. 

Since we previously melted down after reading some MRI results, we asked the doctors not to release my biopsy results online. We decided to believe that the results would be negative and speak with Dr. Graber when they came in. Since Srinivasan had told us it could be an "inflammatory response," we believed that's what it was. Together and separate, we imagined the relief we would experience when the doctor gave us the good news.

After the surgery, my oncologist Dr. Graber specified to his nurse that he wanted to see me in person. Positive thoughts or not, I understood the implications and immediately freaked out. Matt calmed me down by saying that the doctor probably just wanted to look at my incision. 

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Our positive intentions had been wrong. I tried to harness the tears and focus on what the doctor was saying, but my mind was hurtling through a minefield of fears and confusion. It helped that the bottom half of my face was covered by a mask, but most of my emotions showed through my eyes. Dr. Graber spoke calmly, but I broke into small sobs as I asked certain questions. There were times that he seemed to see my sadness and try to finish his thought before I started up again. I apologized multiple times, to which he replied "Why?" He encouraged me to let out my emotion. I don't think he knew what he was asking for.

I collapsed into Matt's arms as we sat down on the couch just outside Dr. Graber's office. 

"What are we going to do now?" I asked.

"We just keep going," Matt said. 

He helped me get myself together just enough to make it to the car. When we got there, I pawed around for my phone, which wasn't in my usual jeans or jacket pocket. 

"I must have left it in the bathroom," I said, too exhausted to get upset. I knew that Matt would go find it for me. He grabbed his "screened for COVID" sticker out of his pocket and slapped it back onto his hoodie.

The parking garage was dark and gloomy. In the safety of our Camry's space, I wept without control. I didn't realize that there was an older man in the car directly facing us. 

It felt like the longest wait of my life. He left his phone with me so that he could call it if he found mine. But there was only silence.

I felt miserable as I wondered what was going on. I waited a few minutes, and then called my phone. No answer.

Finally, the phone buzzed. He had found it in the doctor's office. The office had closed, so Matt talked a security guard into letting him in. When he came back, I saw that his COVID sticker was upside-down.

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About ten months ago, Matt and I were visiting Magnuson park as a recently married couple. It was one of the first hot days of Summer in Seattle. While in the car, I felt a dull pressure in my head, kind of like what you feel when you need to pop your ears on the plane or in the car. 

As we walked along the sidewalk, we saw people playing around on the beach and in the water of Washington Lake. We came to a wooded area to look for birds, and I started to experience something I had never felt before. Looking at a bird, I noticed a foggy, wavy spot on the left side of my field of vision. As we walked and looked around, it grew, becoming a crescent with jagged edges that were constantly moving and flashing. Bewildered, I stopped and told Matt, who became concerned and suggested we walk back to the car. He held my hand as he led me there, and we drove home. 

From that point, often when I had just woken up in bed, I felt a pounding headache that moved from the back of my neck to the front of my head. It would pulse a few times, sometimes eliciting a shout of pain, and then disappear. But then the visual disturbance from the park would appear. It would last about fifteen minutes, and then fade away. I would sometimes experience a version of this when I crouched down or looked up too long.

I made an appointment with my neurologist, Dr. Nago, who medicated me for migraines but seemed concerned about these new headaches. He told me to get a CT scan. At the time, I was just following orders, knowing that they do these things to rule out anything serious. When Dr. Nago called me after the scan, he said that they saw something. He wasn't sure if it was a "shadow" or something else, so we scheduled an MRI. 

Although I was told that someone would call me the Monday after my MRI on Thursday, no one did. I called, but Dr. Nago was on vacation, and after multiple calls and a message on Mychart, another doctor finally messaged me back a week after the scan. "MRI showed nothing acute such as bleeding or a stroke. There are some findings that are similar to what the CT showed. A follow-up with Dr. Nago is recommended to discuss in details about these findings and next steps."

I talked to Nago, who sent me to the neurosurgeon Srinivasan, who sent me to the oncologist Graber, who after surgery and a biopsy told me I had the C-word.

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I promised my Mom that I would call as soon as I knew, so on the drive home, I called the house.  The freeway was noisier than I expected, so it took all my energy to force out the words. Matt helped. 

My mom was audibly emotional, but said "I believe in miracles."  My dad sounded calm and sweet, but he feels far more than he shows. 

After the call, my body filled with anxiety. The initial shock had faded, and calling my parents had made it real. 

The C-word is not supposed to be for me. It is supposed to be for stories you hear about other people.

When I met Matt, his dad had lived with both lung and prostate C-word for over ten years. While we were together, his Mom contracted ovarian. Sadly, Matt's father passed away a couple of years ago due to complications. But he was 75, and his Mom is now 78. I'm only 37. 

Maybe I came too close. It happened to Matt's dad, his mom, then me. I believe that if you think about something a lot, it will manifest. The law of attraction. Thoughts become things. 

My thoughts became darker as night came upon us. 

"You don't have to make your mark on the world, or impress anybody. There's nothing you need to do to justify being alive," Matt said, reading my mind as he usually does. 

"You're not here for the world. The world is here for you. The trees, the birds," he said. 

I cried, tears tumbling off my cheeks as his own made soft, slow trails down his sad but determined face.

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