One day, I think, one day I’ll learn to ditch optimism at the door of the hospital.
It’s warm inside, full of sun-struck open corridors, Starbucks and welcome desks, still-faced paper-white patients in wheelchairs and walkers, smiling patients in hospital gowns chatting in familiar tones with receptionists, and couples where one of them sports a cannula in the back of their hand like a grim, slipped corsage. Glowing pregnant women roll around the wings like scattered pearls, lit differently to all of us visiting with our own personal decay.
The recent neurology appointment was so reassuring that I can actually read while we’re waiting. The neurosurgeon calls us in to say, Yes, hello, but have you thought about brain surgery? Because that cerebral anomaly is leaking, always, always, he says, and if it blows for good, the result could be - probably would be - catastrophic. And since it’s located in the area of speech, I’d not only be paralysed down my right side, but my ability to find words would be severely impaired, possibly forever.
I think, Seriously? My words? Are you kidding me? It couldn’t have been in my juggling lobes? I couldn’t be putting my Donkey Kong skills at risk? We ask more questions. I try to ignore the creeping sense of icy death spreading from the base of my spine, down my thighs, up my chest. I know I’ll fall asleep as soon as we get into the car; my usual shelter from the storm. The surgeon scoffs as we ask about mortality risks in the operation, which I suppose is the correct response, and we shake his hand and walk around the hospital and decide the best thing is probably to let him incise my skin, remove a section of my skull, and excise this stowaway from the delicate folds and walkways of my brain. I am so glad I am here with my favourite person in the whole world, even in this situation, even with this decision. I wonder what we’d do if I had a major personality change after the operation, as can sometimes happen, according to my vague recollections of fact-less Daily Mail articles. To be fair, my other half says, it’s 50/50 that you might actually end up with a better personality afterwards.
I fall asleep as soon as we get into the car.
In the evening, I speak to my neurologist brother-in-law on the other side of the world, who reassures me that I desperately need a second opinion, that I shouldn’t go flinging myself under a brain surgeon’s knife without a little more information. My sister knows how impatient I am to have difficult situations done and dusted, and understands that I would have had the surgery this afternoon if it had been an option.
I would have been calling you right now from my hospital bed, I say.
Yes, but using only your left hand, she says, both of us gurgling with laughter.
With my new vocabulary of twenty words, I add.
Oh my god, she says, I’d finally be able to best you in an argument! I’m beginning to think this operation has no downsides.