III
Every Now and Then I Fall Apart
Suggested listening “Cry Baby” by Janis Joplin
Three months have passed and
there is still no sign of the needles and pins. Subsequently, I begin
experiencing a pain in my neck that is excruciating. The harsh, sharp pain comes
on at breakneck speed, feeling as though a flathead screwdriver is being stabbed and twisted into the
muscle connecting the left side of my neck to my left shoulder.
I try stretching and rolling both
my shoulder and my neck as past gym teachers and coaches had instructed in my
school years with intention to alleviate the pain, but my efforts only seem to
worsen this growing problem. Was this in fact a pinched nerve as I had read and
my doctor suspected? The pain continues to progress for close to a month;
and when I can at no point get comfortable for a little over a week, I make the
decision to see a chiropractor for the first time.
I can understand how people
become addicted to this kind of practice; it is intoxicating. After walking
through the front doors, I sign the sign-in sheet and the woman behind the reception desk immediately ushers me into a long rectangular room filled with cushion-covered tables. I deduce that she is the nurse of the man I am here to see. She instructs me to lie down on the
cushioned table of my choice before laying a half-circle cushion under my neck
and an angled cushion under my knees. She hands me a remote control and shows
me how to adjust the motorized massage rollers speed and intensity. I settle
onto a gentle, deep kneading clockwise roll that travels laterally down my
entire body. For the first several consecutive minutes within the past month,
I am able to relax and almost completely ignore the pain in my neck. This is one hell of a doctor’s
waiting room.
After twenty to thirty
minutes, the nurse returns to escort me to a smaller room with a chiropractic
table in it; something that I have only seen in films like, Jacob’s Ladder. The doctor of sorts enters
the room; though tall and thin, it is obvious, even under his lab coat, that he
is a very psychically fit man. After we shake hands he has a seat in his desk
chair and asks that I describe my pain. After explaining the pain in my neck
that has been lingering for a month’s time, I relay to him my concern that it
could be a pinched nerve. I suppose I am taking too much of his time as I can
barely finish my sentence when he very abruptly dismisses me saying that it
could just be the way that I hold my body and have for the duration of my life.
After our exceptionally brief meet and greet, feeling self-conscious about my
what I thought and have been told all of my life to be good posture, he has me lie down face first on the table where he cradles my head gently with his bare
hands before cracking my neck twice. It is just as satisfying as opening up a champagne bottle, and the sound alone is worth the co-pay. I stand upright, cross my arms across my
chest where he cracks my upper and lower back against a convex cushion he props
up on the wall before sending me on my way.
The visit leaves me high on
endorphins for a few good hours, but the pain would soon return. I make a
couple of weekly return visits per his advice, but discontinue my meetings with
him when the monumental migraines begin.
This is my second clue that something very serious is at work. Never in my lifetime have I experienced headaches except for occasional sinus headaches that mercilessly appear once or twice a year when Louisiana's Live Oak trees shed their pollen ridden catkins. Nonetheless, every morning like clockwork, I wake up with debilitating migraines that leave it nearly impossible for me to think straight. Between the pain in my neck and the relentless migraines, I cannot stand to be in pain for a minute longer when I desperately schedule an emergency appointment at Dr. Braedt's office.
When we meet later that afternoon, thankfully he does not reprimand me for not having the MRI performed, but reiterates and encourages that I do. He hears my plea for mercy and in the meantime prescribes a bultabital, acetaminophen, and caffeine oral for relief.
I stumble and fumble for a couple of days and can barely get through the nine-hour workday. My brain is not working properly and the migraines are now almost
at a constant. One evening, my sister Ellen and I are shopping at her favorite pseudo-department
store, when she becomes concerned about the way I am acting while on this
cumbersome barbiturate. I can only imagine what a sight I must have been to
the fellow patrons, as I egregiously rove around the houseware section of
fucking Marshalls on psychoactive drugs. Ellen pulls me behind one of the
mirrored columns of the big box store and insists that I take only half a pill instead
of the full dose as my doctor has prescribed, coyly alluding to the fact that I
am acting like a junkie. I agreeably accept her advice.
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
It is a sunny Sunday in April and my extended family is having a crab boil at
their fishing camp on Lake Catherine; a fishing, boating and crabbing hotspot
on the eastern edge of New Orleans. My mother and my two twin sisters make the
quiet scenic drive down Chef Menteur Pass, as we had done so many times in the
past while on our way the Tally Ho Club, the hunting and fishing club my father
belonged to known to be the oldest in the US.
I feel dreadful, with a
migraine that hasn’t fully subsided for a few days now and the sun pouring
through the back window of my sister’s Nissan Sentra is by no means helping.
But, it is a beautiful Southern spring day and there is no way I am going to
miss out on an opportunity to eat my favorite food caught right off of the pier
that my four uncles built by hand.
While riding down the pass alongside
the marshy banks, my mother and two sisters are having a conversation about
planning a vacation in the Florida panhandle, which progresses into a conversation
about “beach bodies” and bathing suits, which ultimately turns into a
conversation about weight; an inane and frequent conversation in a family
solely consisting of five women. My aching head lying on the headrest of the back
seat and more than bored by their conversation I make some silly remark for a
little comic relief that is returned with the usual, “I guess it must be
nice that you don’t ever have to worry about your weight, Erin.” In keeping
with the norm, to be funny and dramatic, my clever response is, “Yeah, well I
probably have a brain tumor.” We all share a laugh as we exit her vehicle.
I don’t see my only living
family, my mothers five first cousins and their children, nearly enough. I see
my Uncle Mike most often since he runs Port of Call in the French Quarter,
which my mom, sisters and I frequent for tequila laden, “Red Turtles” and
arguably the best burger in New Orleans. Uncle Mike was one of my late father’s
fishing buddies, and ever since my father’s untimely death in 2010, he very
notably brings my mother fresh redfish, speckled trout and red snapper when he
goes fishing out on the Gulf. Upon seeing me for the first time in several months,
Uncle Mike asks how I am doing, not in the way of just being polite but with an
air of concern. I must look as terrible as I feel. I tell him and some of the
cousins around me about my newly acquired headaches and the heavy drugs that I
am on, over the sound of a boil pot and a can of Barqs root beer (no bottles
are allowed at the camp).
My twin sisters and I are
returning from lying beneath the rainbow colored umbrella at the end of the
pier, where I notice my mother glaring at me as I walk up to the wooden
picnic tables, blinded by the afternoon sun. She calmly insists that I sit down
next to her. Grabbing my arm discretely she pulls me in close and says under
her breath so that no one around us can hear, "I do not care how much it costs, you need to schedule an MRI tomorrow. I will pay for it."
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
Just as my mother had
insisted, I apprehensively make the call to Advanced Imaging first thing on
Monday morning. This time, I reach a young woman with a voice like a baby, who puts
me on the schedule for the very next morning at 9:30am.
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
On Tuesday, April 24th I
return to the diagnostic imaging facility that I walked out of once before. Naturally
for me, I am met with the same sour woman from my prior appointment. With a smile
on my face, I calmly try to arrange for billing to be sent in the mail. With no
surprise, the resident front desk growler has an issue with this. I am not asking
for a mountain to be moved, just a printed bill and a stamp; but again I am met
with much resistance as she continues to growl in my direction. I relay to her
that my mother would like to pay for me to have the test done, and she would
like the bill to be mailed to her. She gets to use her power against me once
more stating that I will need to pay a deposit of $240 if I want to be billed
for the test. I hand over a check that she accepts with a scowl on her face. I
give her my mother’s billing information before taking a seat in the waiting
room.
Shortly thereafter, a short,
fit man in scrubs of questionable ethnicity greets me. He leads me into a room
where I am faced with the largest piece of medical machinery I have ever laid
eyes on. The machine is expelling a bizarre chirping sound that sounds as
though it is breathing.
 |
The man in scrubs introduces
himself as Jimmy, the technician that will be performing my scan. After he has
me change into scrubs in a curtained corner of the room, he instructs me to sit
on top of the long table that juts out the circular center of the machine.
While circling the perimeter of the room and grabbing everything that he needs,
he asks if I would like to listen to music during the test. He explains that
the headphones will not only help block the sound, but will also help in
keeping my head stable within the machines facial apparatus.
When he returns to my side,
he has a seat and wraps a long elastic band around my left arm. Aggravated by
my interaction with the woman up front and made anxious by the foreign sounds
coming from the machine, I begin to reconsider whether or not to go through
with the scan when I learn that I am about to have a needle go into my arm.
My pediatrician was my
primary care doctor even into high school. I am sure that he has had hundreds
of patients over the years, but every time he saw me he brought up the story
when I was fifteen and he diagnosed the dysfunctional Eustachian tube in my
right ear. He could always remember me because my response was, “Do you think I can use that as a band name?” Evidently it really tickled him.
When it was time to get a meningitis
shot required in order to attend college, he was the doctor I went to have it
done. He really enjoyed poking fun at me, a seventeen-year-old “adult” brought
to tears by the thought of a needle. Laughing with his eyes, he asked if I had
heard the toddler in the next room crying. I replied that I had not. “Exactly
my point,” he says. “I just gave a three year old a shot, Erin, you need to pull yourself together.”
Recalling memories of this
three year old, I take a deep breath while he inserts the first IV that I can
consciously recall into my arm. I put the headphones on and lie down, having to
scoot up so that my head is on what I suppose is a headrest (though I would
hardly refer to this as a place to “rest” your head). He places foam vinyl
covered batting and small rolled white towels over and around the headphones,
before placing a white helmet-like mask over my face. He covers me in thin,
warm white medical blankets and reiterates how important it is to keep my head
as still as possible during the scan. The lights dim, the music comes on and
the table begins moving backwards into the center of the circle.
I can barely hear the sounds
of the machine with the classic soft rock jams of Magic 101.9 blaring through
the headphones throughout this extra-terrestrial experience. I begin to dose
off when the test stops suddenly. I grow slightly concerned seeing as the
technician has told me that the scan would take around thirty minutes to
complete, and I know that I have not been in the machine for nearly that long. Several
minutes pass where absolutely nothing happens. Strapped down with the inability
to move inside of this tunnel of modern medicine, it may as well have been an
eternity. I have never known claustrophobia or the feeling associated with it,
but this test certainly gave me my first genuine glimpse into the disorder.
As I lie silently thinking to
myself that this must be a feeling similar to being wrapped in a
straightjacket, the table begins to move outwards. Through the small oval mirror on the inside of the mask I see a
tall man in a white lab coat appear from what I now can tell is a two-way
mirrored glass wall just across the foot of the machine. The man circles behind
the machine where the small mirror will no longer allow me to see; though I cannot
see him, I can feel his presence beside me. He does not introduce himself; he
frankly states that he is going to administer contrast in order to complete the test.
I had held onto my doctor’s
referral for quite a while now, and had skimmed it over more than a dozen
times. I know that Dr. Braedt referred me for an MRI of the head without
contrast, but I am not in any position to argue. I feel a
warm tingling rush into the vein of my left arm as a strong chemical
aroma fills my mouth and nose. The table begins retracting backwards into place
before I can see the tall man slipping behind the mirrored glass wall again.
The last ten or so minutes of
the MRI are extremely jarring, as the table begins jolting and shaking me
incessantly for sequences lasting several minutes at a time. During the shakiest
part of this ride arrives a welcome surprise as Bonnie Tyler's near six-minute epic
eighties ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart" comes through the headphone
speakers, and before I know it the test is over.
The young gentleman in scrubs
who administered the test returns to assist me in getting off of the table. His
entire demeanor has changed within the hour-long exam to seemingly over-concerned.
With a look of grief plastered across his round face, he asks me while I sit up
if “I felt okay?" I arrogantly reply that I am fine before trying to jump
off of the table. As much as I have enjoyed being jolted, shaken, and assaulted
with soft rock for a little under an hour, I am ready to leave. While wrapping
my arm in bandage tape after taking the IV out, he further instructs that once I change out of the scrubs that I return to the waiting area. He will meet me
there shortly with something that I will need to take with me. It all feels very strange, but I don’t pay much attention to it and take a seat just
outside of the door I entered in from.
He returns to the waiting
room ten minutes later with a gold disk that says “Erin Buckley 04/24/12” in
black permanent marker. He insists that I bring it to the doctor that made the
request for the test when I have time today. Be it that I have taken the
morning off of work to accommodate the scan and certainly not rushing to get
there, I decide to make the trip across town to drop off the disk at Dr.
Braedt's office.
I illegally park on one of
Napoleon Avenues side streets legally too close to the corner as I just plan to
run in. I step off of the elevator on the fourth floor, walk up to the front
desk and hand the disk to one of Dr. Braedt’s receptionists. I tell her that I
just had an MRI and am dropping off the disc from the imaging center for Dr.
Braedt to review and bid them both farewell. As I turn to walk out, she stops
me. “Ms. Buckley, please take a seat in the waiting room. The doctor will see
you as soon as he can.” I hastily respond that I do not have an appointment and
that I have just stopped in to drop off the disk, where she informs me that Dr.
Braedt is expecting me, and again, that “I should take a seat.”
As I walk the short distance from the front desk to the waiting room, it
finally dawns on me that something is amiss. I sit anxiously at the
edge of my chair for over an hour before his nurse moves me into a room that is
obviously not a patient examination room. After another grueling hour of
nervous stewing in a room filled with metal shelving and boxes of medical
supplies, the nurse returns showing me into an examination room; saying that
the doctor will be with me soon.
I have a seat in the navy
blue leather club chair placed in the corner, in front of the window wall
overlooking General Pershing Street. I had seen Dr. Braedt a little more than
one week before, but when I see his face this time he looks to be ill. His eyes
filled with despair, his voice cracks upon delivering the news. My heart
quickly sinks into the pit of my stomach, but somehow I manage to
maintain my composure. It may seem strange, but the news initially doesn't come
as much of a shock to me as one would expect. Intrinsically I knew something
was very wrong, and perhaps all of the waiting had better prepared me for the discovery.
It wasn't until I called my mother that I fell apart. Saying aloud,
"I have a brain tumor,"
for the first time was
nothing short of surreal. I didn't want to claim it. I didn't want it to be
true. My mother had obviously prepared herself for the worst. She knew in her
heart that something was seriously wrong.
She remained calm for the
both of us saying, "It's going to be okay, baby. Ask Dr. Braedt, what do
we need to do now?" I put the phone on speaker on the edge of his desk so that she can ask her share of questions." I may have physically been seated in the office
while my mother interrogates the doctor, but I have left my body and am
somewhere else.
When I stand up to leave his
office, Dr. Braedt hands me a prescription for dexamethasone, a corticosteroid
to suppress inflammation and any swelling related to the tumor, as well as a
post-it note with a couple of hand-written phone numbers.
I walk down the hall, enter
the elevator, exit the building, and walk to my Jeep. During the drive home alone I
go into emotional shock. I can hardly recollect the eight-mile drive from
Napoleon Avenue to my mother’s house in West Lakeshore. My mind balancing
between all out emotional hysteria and that of a zombie, rendered will-less by
a supernatural force. Hysterical zombie or not, I can recall having one of the
most heart-wrenching sobs of my life on that drive. Life as I know it, is
changed forevermore.
