Who’s Immortal Now?

Who’s Immortal Now?

My husband and I silently sat in our wooden booth, waiting for our breakfast to arrive.

It was only 10 o’clock, but we’d been awake for five hours and were still trying to process what the neurosurgeon had said.

Though my husband’s benign (non-cancerous) brain tumor had grown, the change was small enough to quantify the tumor as “stable.”

Because of the position and growth rate, the neurosurgeon said that stereotactic radiosurgery might be an option, which contradicted what another doctor had said in the fall.

I peered around the coffee shop, which had been one of my favorite spots in my early twenties. Now, my thirty-one-year-old lip curled as I watched the teenagers—in their unisex flowing scarves and artfully messy buns—sidling up to place their vegan/organic/fair trade/free range orders.

They were so confident in their own immortality that I wanted to trip them.

I even stuck my right boot into the aisle and jokingly told my husband my fiendish plan. I whispered, giving the oblivious teens the side-eye, “And then I’d laugh and say, ‘Who’s immortal now?’”

Sometimes, the medical world turns me into someone I can’t quite recognize.

My body becomes sheathed in barbs, my tongue like a saber. I didn’t care that the neurosurgeon was the head of the department. I wanted him to sweat. I wanted him to know I’d spent five months trying to get our appointment, and you’d better believe it was going to be worth our time.

I was pretty awful and tried to balance this awfulness by being funny, which didn’t translate well since my comedic supply was limited to neurological reflexes and brain tumor growth. I wanted to shake off my barbs like a dog shakes water from its coat, but I didn’t know how.

As I stared at that prancing line of teenagers, I remembered—years ago—being at the coffee shop with my husband (then boyfriend), my best friend, and her future husband (though they weren’t officially dating back then).

I remembered right where we’d stood, waiting for our coffee. I remembered my husband wore a navy sweater with a buttoned collar, and he’d looked so handsome that I couldn’t stop snuggling him all night (my best friend/big sister later had a talk with me about that). Even though my best friend had already battled cancer once, at that time I still believed myself immortal.

No doubt, I sashayed into that coffee shop while completely oblivious of my surroundings. I wonder if another couple sat in that wooden booth after a consultation at Vanderbilt, a few blocks away. I wonder if they sat there, slightly melancholy and lost, and watched us laughing and flirting and sipping lattes while the December wind gusted against the dark windows and the paper snowflakes, suspended from the ceiling with pieces of fishing line, fluttered each time the door opened or closed.

If that is the case, I am sorry. I apologize to that hypothetical couple waiting for their food, which they wanted to eat mainly just to see what normalcy tasted like. I am sorry I was so unaware of anything but broad shoulders beneath a blue sweater and the first sip of a caffeinated drink.

When we were standing at the hospital’s check-out desk, scheduling my husband’s next MRI, a senior man in a sateen bowling jacket was at the other side, scheduling his wife’s next scans.

“Here, Hon,” he said and passed her the round black buzzer, like we were merely patrons at a restaurant. “You go on upstairs.”

After she left, I stood there and listened as he calmly—but firmly—wheeled and dealed to get her appointments set for a better time.

“High noon,” the secretary said.

“What?”

“High noon. Twelve o’clock.”

“That’s gonna get us home real late.”

“You don’t know how hard I had to work to get it that early.”

I looked over at the senior man and smiled, and he smiled as I stood beside my man. I’d heard that man earlier, cutting up with the spouses and patients so that I wanted to sidle closer just to hear his punch lines, and yet here–in this setting–he was as barbed and prickly as I.

“See?” I said to my husband. “He’s doing for her what I try to do for you.” I then quickly walked away so I wouldn’t cry.

Yes, sometimes the medical world turns me into someone I can’t quite recognize, but I am glad I am not the same, for my barbed, thirty-one-year-old self holds life a lot closer than the “immortal girl” did back then.

How has time and experience changed you?

Editing to add: This experience happened last week. We are both doing better now, but I wrote about it anyway to prevent “emotional backup.” Journaling/blogging is such a therapeutic endeavor. Even if no one ever reads our words, it is astounding how much writing them down helps us understand what we think and feel.

Blessings and love on the journey,

Jolina