Friday, February 1, 2008

During school, I was a wreck. I didn't want to talk to anyone, and I broke down crying in front of my dear Ms. Else for the second time that week. I was still in shock from spending half of my day in the E.R. They were currently performing her M.R.I., which would give us more clear results as to what was going on in her brain. I called my Dad at lunch and asked if I should go visit them in the hospital once school was over for the day, and he said I could if I wanted to.

It's a good thing I did.

I walked into the third floor, Room 309, to find my dad sobbing. As soon as he saw me he walked over and took me in his arms. "It's much worse than we thought," he told me, "it's brain cancer."

I remember just standing there holding my dad, staring at some bulletin board or otherwise all white Kaiser-esque wall decoration and just feeling everything in my entire body crumble. The words didn't all hit me at once; they chipped away at me slowly. And as they continued to sink in, my tears grew heavier and more painful. I walked back and forth, crying everywhere, not knowing where to go next. Not knowing what to do next. Not knowing how this could possibly happen. Our life was so certain. We had so many plans. Everything was so established. This was absolutely impossible.

The next hour or so sparked some of the most severe confusion and depression I've ever felt. I couldn't stop the tears from pouring out of my face (I'd say eyes, but it felt more like my entire face was just dripping off incessantly). The doctor showed me the M.R.I., which was basically a picture of my stepmom's brain infested by about 4 or 5 round, cloudy areas right in the center. He spewed some technical jargon while he dragged his cursor around each individual brain "lesion," but I wasn't paying attention. Everything was just too surreal.

We sat on Betty's hospital bed and stared out the window at the most bleak hill in the most gray weather imaginable. I'll never forget the fencing on the window, or the crows that hopped around the naked tree on that hill. Kaiser sent in their gratuitous Chaplain, to which my dad retorted, "We're not religious." Although I was slightly irked by the hospital's systematic response to our bad news, I did find the company of some calm individuals somewhat comforting. We couldn't always be the family that was "too good for everything." Clearly, there were some things we just couldn't control.