Chapter Three

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 23^rd, 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 24^th, 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.