The doc didn’t beat around the bush. He just pointed at pictures of my brain and spoke, very matter-of-factly. I could see the black mass he was outlining as clear as day. He turned to look at me.
“You haven’t had trouble with your handwriting, trouble with speech . . . maybe weakness in your right side. It’s off to the left side of your brain, which will always affect the opposite side of the body. You haven’t had any symptoms?”
I wanted to say no, but the symptoms had been there. I just always rationalized them away. “I’ve been seeing spots when I’m tired, and I have noticed more muscle fatigue on the right side. My left hand has always been my dominant hand, so maybe that’s why it didn’t affect me as much. I’ve been training hard. I thought it was dehydration. Thought it was stress.”
“You took a blow to the head in an altercation?”
“Yeah, to the forehead. It didn’t even hurt, but it stunned me a little. It was a good thing he stopped swinging because I couldn’t see a damn thing for about ten seconds. I just stood there while he laid on the ground, covering his head. My vision cleared once I mopped the blood off my face, and I could see again. I guess it was a good thing the guy was drunk and stupid.”
“Guess so.” His lips quirked, and I was glad he wasn’t going to lecture me on the seriousness of the moment. I got it—the seriousness hadn’t escaped me.
“So what do we need to do?” I asked.
“We have to get in there, see what the mass is, and remove as much of it as we can.” He didn’t call it a tumor. He called it a mass. But I wasn’t stupid.
“Get in there?”
“Craniotomy. We put you out, drill a hole into your head, remove as much of the tumor as we can, take a section for biopsy, and stitch you up. It sounds a bit Frankenstein, but you can actually go home in a day or two. It’s not something that requires a lot of recovery time.”
“So it’s no big deal?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. We are talking about your brain, after all.”
“And what are the risks? What if I don’t want you drilling into my head?”
“The risk of leaving it there, of not determining whether it’s cancer or not, could be fatal. If it is cancer and you don’t treat it, it will be fatal. And then there are the risks that come with any type of surgery that involves the brain. Loss of memory, sight, motor functions . . . We’re talking about the brain,” he repeated.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Idon’tknowwhattodoIdon’tknowwhattodo. The words became blurred and blended, and yet I couldn’t shake them from my brain. The doctor urged me to move quickly. He said time was “of the utmost importance.” He said we needed to act . . . And all I could do was shake my head.
“No,” I’d said. “No.”
“David. It’s the only way we can move forward. We have to operate as soon as possible.”
Millie was the only one who called me David.
“Tag. Call me Tag,” I insisted numbly.
“Tag,” he nodded agreeably. “Talk to your loved ones. Tell them what’s happening. You need some support. And then we need to see what we’re dealing with.”
“What are the odds?”
“What do you mean?”
“This kind of mass—it’s a tumor, isn’t it?
“Yes. It is. We don’t know if it’s cancerous, but even benign tumors need to be removed.”
“What are the odds?”
“That it’s cancer?”
“Yes.”
“I would be lying if I told you I believed it was benign.”
“Have you ever seen a tumor in the brain that wasn’t cancer?”
“Not personally. No”
No. No. No. No. There was an odd echoing in my ears and I couldn’t sit still.
I stood and headed for the door.
“Tag?”
“I need to think, Doc.”
“Please. Please don’t think too long, Mr. Taggert. You have my number.”
I jerked my head in a semblance of a nod and pushed out of his office and into the long, sterile hallway beyond.
I don’t remember walking out of the hospital. I don’t remember walking across the grounds or whether the sun was shining or whether rain fell. I remember pulling my seatbelt on and staring at the buckle in my hand and clicking it home carefully, as if it would protect me from the news I’d just received. I stuck the key in the ignition and backed out of the lot as my phone rang. I couldn’t talk. I wouldn’t be able to hide my agitation, but I clicked the speaker anyway almost desperate to avoid myself. I didn’t look at the display, didn’t know who was calling, but it delayed what came next.
“This is Tag,” I barked, and then winced at the volume of my voice. The echoing remained and I rubbed at my temple as if I could adjust the reverb in my head.
“Tag. It’s Moses.” With his voice on speaker it was like he was sitting beside me in my truck. I wished he was and was grateful he wasn’t.
“‘Sup, man?” I shot back and winced once more, this time because I was such a fake.
“You okay?” It was an I-demand-to-know question, not a polite how-are-you, and it shook me. It made me defensive too. How the hell did he know I wasn’t okay?
“Yeah. Yeah. Why you askin’?” I pushed back.
“I saw Molly.” Moses sucked at polite conversation.
My mind tripped over itself again.