Why am I at school? How did I get here?
These aren’t metaphorical questions.
I’m sitting on the floor of my classroom, leaning against the wall, fanning myself with my top. A handful of people are all standing just inside the doorway looking at me. It’s so odd. There’s my principal. The school nurse. A colleague. And it’s summer time. Why am I in my classroom?
Tina walks up to this group. The others are so relieved. I’m groggy but it’s good to see Tina. She always knows what to do. She’s our team’s snow driver on days when the roads are bad. She’s seen everything in the world of Kindergarten. If there’s an accident, injury, a runner, or any kind of meltdown, she calmly reacts because she’s seen it all. If you are having a crisis, Tina’s a good person to have at your side. Or in this case, standing above.
“Hi, Susan!” She’s smiling. “Whatcha doing?”
I don’t answer. I’m hot and sweaty. I think I’m just sitting around cooling off. I can barely think at all - only short little thoughts mixed with confusion.
She asks some questions about what day it is, what I am doing at school, and what happened. The thing is, I have no idea what the hell is going on and why I’m sitting on the ground with all these people standing up. She asks, “How did you get to school today?”
“My mom drove me,” I say with a smile. I realize I’m sitting with this odd grin. It’s like something is kinda funny, but not really.
Tina becomes very serious. An ambulance has already been called but she knows now that something is very, very wrong. She knows that my mom has dementia and lives in memory care. She knows that I miss school sometimes when my mom’s in the hospital or needs to be driven to the doctor. Mom definitely did not drive me to school.
“Susan, do you remember your new car? It’s right out there. You told me about it.”
I smile. I have no recollection of a new car.
Fortunately Tina has the number of my husband, Wrayal, so she calls to let him know what’s going on. He’s going to meet us at the hospital. I hang out with the crew, sitting on the floor, fanning myself, waiting for the ambulance. There are many questions that I may or may not be answering correctly. Everything feels like a dream. There’s some discussion that I might have fallen onto the ground. Will I be able to stand up and climb on the stretcher? I think so.
As each minute passes, the beginning of my day starts to creep back into my consciousness. Of course! I had been in a four-hour committee work session at school. It’s August, the week before teachers return to set up their classroom. Zane is with Granny. I remember that before I fell on the ground, I called her to see if Zane could stay for a few more hours so I could begin to set up my classroom. My sense of humor is activated enough to realize that ending up in an ambulance after a four-hour committee meeting will be a good joke some day, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.
They are taking vitals in the ambulance. There’s an IV in my arm. I’m still groggy, but I'm starting to remember some things. At this time of the school year, the cafeteria is full of things that teachers have discarded. It’s a great time to get that perfect piece of furniture or hanging chart that you need. You can dig for treasures among boxes of items. I had been moving some filing cabinets and tables back and forth through the hallway, trading items for others, designing a new layout for my room. I remember this small trapezoidal shaped table that will be perfect for a listening center. Maybe I’ve just passed out from exhaustion, which would be ironic given the school year hasn’t even started! It’s not as if this is my first day to do anything physical. I’ve been dragging things around in the garden, in rows instead of hallways, in the blazing heat all summer without passing out!
I reach up and touch my head. It’s the oddest thing. I feel a bunch of bumps on my head. I swear they weren’t there before. We aren’t talking about mosquito bites. There are bumps all along the sides and back of my head, some bigger than others. This is the moment I realize that I haven’t simply passed out or fallen down and conked my head. I’m a little bit proud of that. Funny how you can make judgments about the preferred kind of emergency. It needs to be a good story, right? Whatever these bumps are, at least it's not simply that I fell down while hanging my table group labels! I tell the medic about the bumps and he tells me we are almost at the hospital.
We arrive at the hospital. They take me to one of those ER bays to be examined. I sit on the table with my bumps, but my head doesn’t really hurt. Wrayal has arrived. I can tell he is scared, but he is holding it together and he is asking many good questions whenever someone walks into our bay. I tell the doctor about the bumps and he feels them. He imagines that I’ve had a seizure, causing me to rattle my head enough on the ground to create all of those bumps. I’m glad I don’t remember it. He asks if I have ever had one before. No, I haven’t. Hmmmmm. They take me for a CT scan and after that, we wait for results while Wrayal calls family and friends.
The doctor walks in. The CT scan results are in. He tells me that there are masses in my brain. We need to get an MRI for more detail.”
Well, shit. Off to the MRI I go. I’ve never had one before. It’s extremely loud, but I pass the time by thinking of songs that would match the tempo of the rhythmic pings and pongs. Ping. Ping. Pause. Pong-pong-pong-pong-pong-pong.
We wait. I’m scared. Masses in the brain are bad news, right? I’ve never heard good news about brain masses. And we keep saying that word, “masses.” At least no one has said “brain tumor.” I’m not sure if there’s a difference.
Now we are just waiting to find out how many masses and what kind. A doctor returns and tells us that they are sending the results to Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) for confirmation. I live and work in two adjacent small rural communities that don’t have the medical specialists that Portland does. We will need a diagnosis from someone with in-depth knowledge of brain masses. That said, from the looks of things, it appears that I have metastatic brain cancer. This feels like a “mic drop” statement, but he continues. Brain cancer metastasizes from other organs, so they need to scan my entire body to understand where the cancer has originated. We will do this while we wait for the more specific results from OHSU.
Well, shit. My dad died from brain cancer, metastasized from the lung, within weeks of his diagnosis. I don’t smoke, though. So I have to ask, or maybe Wrayal does. “How long?”
“Well, we need more information, but you should probably start making plans. We are probably talking about months. I’ll leave you two alone to process this.”
At this point I am experiencing alternate waves of numbing shock and razor sharp planning. Zane will need a mother figure. I should talk to my sister, Laurel. Wrayal will need help. How are we going to tell Zane? I guess I’ll quit my job. Or should I keep things normal? Zane will still need to go to school. Maybe we can take some really cool trips. What’s on my bucket list? Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
A full body scan takes a while. It’s probably a good thing that Wrayal and I have some time separately to take all of this in. I know Wrayal will be sad, but he’s tough and has shown he can deal with anything life throws at him. At least Wrayal and I can figure out how this is going to go down. But Zane. Shit. Shit. Shit. Beep.Beep.
About the time we are all back in our little ER bay, a doctor returns. There’s good news. It turns out, based on the discussion with the OHSU doctor, that I don’t have cancer. And my body scans appear to be relatively clean, splenic mass aside.
“If you have to have brain tumors, these are the good kind. You know, the ones Elizabeth Taylor had. She lived a long time after that. You’ll need brain surgery, but these are not going to kill you.”
He apologizes for the false alarm, but we all agree that it makes this latest news seem less daunting. He hands us a CD of the brain scans and a number to call to set up a consultation with a brain surgeon. I should rest for the next few days. Not for the tumors, but because I’ve apparently had a grand mal seizure and those bumps represent multiple concussions.
“Can I work? School is about to start!”
He tells me to take the rest of the week off. I guess I’m going to miss the math and science curriculum training. If you’re a teacher, you probably realize that this is not the end of the world. I’ll be able to go to teacher in-service and work day on Monday.
We get into the car, scans in hand. The next morning, I wake up wondering if this has been a dream. I look in the mirror and see that a black eye has developed. It turns out that you can get a black eye from the inside out. The black eye is awkward. What will I say? Should I wear sunglasses?
Leta, my sister-in-law, drives Zane and I to his middle school registration. The black eye invites some curious looks. Waiting in line with Zane for his school picture, I tell a friend, “Long story, but I have brain tumors.” I realize that’s not what she is expecting to hear as an explanation . I need to figure out what I’m going to share with people.
We step up to the front of the line for Zane to be photographed and I’m handed a form to fill out. This might be the first thing I’m asked to read since the seizure. I stare at the form. The first part of the form says, “Name:”. I pause. Do they mean Zane’s name or my name? I guess that’s too much pondering for my brain and I find that I’ve written “Name” on the line. I don’t even notice it until Leta helps me. Fortunately, I’m able to laugh at myself while in this muddled state, realizing that taking a few days to rest is probably a good idea.
After a seizure, Oregon law says you can’t drive for three months. I have to build a driving posse. Wrayal takes the lion’s share of our errands at home. But how am I going to get to school 20 miles away every morning? Thank god for Tina and Emily. I catch a ride to school as if it's a snow day each day. My neighbor Lorna, along with Wrayal’s mom and partner, helps with errands and driving to pick up Zane from cross country practice. Indeed it takes a village.
Now I know the frustration that mom feels when she wants to go somewhere and needs to rely on someone else to drive. My sister Laurel and I discuss whether we should tell mom. We don’t want her to worry, and she may not retain the news anyway. I can’t imagine telling her over and over about it. I definitely do not want to show up with a black eye. I call and tell her that I’m busy with school and will stop by when I can.
The school year begins and I meet the new kids. My vision is blurrier than normal, but I’m mostly reading those big books with large print to the students. It feels strange, knowing I’m meeting these Kindergartners and will only be with them for a few weeks before taking leave for surgery. I’m strangely detached from this group in the beginning. My mind has a constant murmur of fear. Brain surgery. Nonetheless, our class becomes a team, as we work on art, our alphabet, counting, and being silly. After a couple of weeks I feel ready to make the sub plans.
Laurel flies in to help with Zane for the surgery part. I’m likely to be in the hospital for four or five days, followed by six weeks of recovery. Those first weeks at home need to be quiet and soothing, so I will need some help. Thank god for Laurel. We don’t tell mom why she is here and treat it like her usual visits.
The day before surgery, Wrayal and I complete an advanced directive. Off to Portland we go. Atypically, we stop at a McDonald’s on the way out. I’m not concerned that a Filet-O-Fish will kill me. After all, I’m living on borrowed time. Might as well seize the day.
Ow. We saw a tiny part of the aftermath as party of the driving posse, but the full story is still hard to hear. You're all amazing.