Phobic

Chapter 3: The Poo Hits the Fan: Director's Cut

The night we got home from the hospital nobody slept, except Shrub, who insists on sleeping in my room and smells like a dead rat wrapped in rotten bacon. If I try to lock him out, he scratches at my door till I let him in. Not only that, but he won’t stay off my bed; even if I push him off he jumps back on. Plus, he farts. And slurps his nuts: shlurp, shlurp, shlurp, shlurp. And itches, making my bed shake like there’s an earthquake or something. I seriously hate that dog. Except right then, I actually didn’t mind him being there.

 I was awake all night long, imagining the worst possible scenario, like what if I have an inoperable brain tumor or something? It seemed like a total drama thing to worry about, since you only hear about that in those lame chic movies. Thirteen year-olds don’t get brain tumors.

So the next day the whole family sat in front of this neurosurgeon-scientist-doctor guy’s desk: Grams, Myah, Mom, Dad and me. My parents are super into being open and honest with me and Myah, and not treating us like we are subhuman kids, so when the nurse said me and Myah should wait outside, they told her to stick it up her…kidding. They brought is in, anyway.

After all the small talk, and getting through the second round of kids-wait-outside, the doctor said he wanted to run more tests to be sure, but basically I have a brain tumor.

“Is it inoperable?” I asked and kind of laughed. Lame joke. Everyone stared at me, including the doctor. I started to feel dizzy, like my brain was just going to just check out of my body for a while.

“Well, Sonny, we aren’t quite sure about that. We need to run some more tests. Let me explain what we do know. You have what’s called a Pediatric Low Grade Astrocytoma, or a PLGA. It’s the most common type of brain tumor found in juveniles. Yours is located in….”

At this point I actually did check out for a while. When I woke up a nurse was holding my wrist and my mom was holding my head.  Myah was crying hysterically and Dad was yelling about “taking it too far” and “Some things kids just can’t hear” and blah blah.

“Seriously, everyone, just stop it, okay!” I yelled, or maybe just croaked. Or maybe I didn’t say it out loud, I don’t know. I yanked my wrist out of the nurse’s hand and sat up. Whoa, head rush. There were a few guys standing in the waiting room with a bed thing to strap me to and wheel me away. I looked at it and then at my family.

“No way am I getting on that!” I yelled, and then everyone starting talking at the same time. The doctor’s voice cut in and he said something doctor-ish like, “Everyone please calm down. Thank you nurse, please wait outside and dismiss the attendants.”

“Doctor, Sonny has some, well irrational fears that sometimes cause him to get a little excited,” my Mom said.

“Actually, Mrs. Cardiff, this is something I’d like to discuss further with your family. If we can just have the children wait outside with the nurse….

Myah was still crying and Grams was hugging her, so I mumbled something all sarcastic like, “Thanks, Myah…” like it was all her fault. She stopped crying and snapped back, “Oh, right, Sonny, like this has nothing to do with you totally passing out?”

Good point. We went outside.

 So this is what my parents later, while we sat over lattes in our own kitchen, told me the doctor said. Wow, I had to write that sentences like four times so it didn’t sound like the doctor was in our kitchen drinking lattes. This writing stuff is hard.

I’ve made a handy little summary for your viewing pleasure. Plus, it’s for my pleasure too, because I’m getting tired and find it easier/less boring/less tedious to summarize all this medical stuff. Please take a moment to read it over and ask any questions at the end of this little presentation. Not really. You’ll just have to Google it. I suggest that you play some nice, thought-provoking thrasher skate punk music while you study, as I find that it always help me concentrate in my own academic endeavors.