Shawn: An Almost Memoir

Chapter Four: It's Back

A year and a half later, it was back, but this time, it was in his brain. I remember my grandma calling me to tell me that he would be going in for surgery the next morning. Before that though, my uncle had had an incident at work, and his right arm and leg weren't moving properly. At Thanksgiving, I had to help him get out of chairs, get him whatever he wanted, etc. Nothing that big. Anyways, my grandma had told me that it was just one tumor that was the size of a golf ball. Well when they went in to do the surgery, he had two tumors the size of lemons.

Find a lemon or look up how big it is. That's what was in my uncle's brain. He made it through the surgery fine and at Christmas we had to be quieter than normal. It was more of a challenge for me though, because I'm normally the loudest person in the room. Always have been. That surgery was in late November-early December.

Not even six months later, the cancer was back again and it was back where it first started. Only this time, Shawn had no intention of doing chemo again. He would do the experimental stuff if it meant that he could help someone else, but other than that, he just wanted to ride it out. As his niece, I think that that is a very poor choice and I know that I can't change his mind this time around.