Change, when it comes, cracks everything open

 

Today began as normal, tending to my children and getting my husband out of the door, lunch in hand, to work. The day was progressing as normal too, kids needing breakfast, snacks, lunch, nap, diaper changes, nursing, playing, fighting, fussing, joys and frustrations...just a normal day in my busy life. And then came the phone call from out of the blue (I don't hear from too many people during the week), a semi-frantic sister calling to tell me about my brother undergoing further testing at the hospital for what appears to be some type of mass in his brain.

um, WHAT?!?

She realizes rather quickly that this is the first I'm hearing of the situation and begins to apologize profusely for blurting it out so abruptly. I tell her not to worry about it, allow her to fill me in on what she knows and then I call my mom. At this point all they know is my brother had been having a migraine for the past couple weeks and his wife finally got him to go to the ER. My brother has always hated....no, LOATHED....hospitals, he associates them with death and so it's always been a battle to get him to go even if his limbs were hanging at an awkward angle due to being obviously broken. While in the ER someone mentions that he had been slurring his words and when they ran a CT scan they found a mass...a very large mass. The doctors run an MRI and then transfer my brother to a different hospital to undergo surgery in the morning. All they can tell us is it's big and they are worried about the pressure it's putting on his brain so they want to get it out, get it biopsied and get him back to health. As far as the scans go the mass appears to be cystic and non-cancerous, but they cant say that for sure until they get it out and run the pathology of the thing.

As soon as my husband got home my sister comes and picks me up and we head to the hospital. My poor brother, still in pain and stuck in a place he is scared to death of, looks at me and nearly starts to cry. I'm the big sister and he looks so little to me as he lays in his hospital bed with IV's running meds into his tired body...of course the stubborn ass won't try to sleep he's so overwhelmed by the events of the last 12hrs. The assistant doc for the neurologist comes in to go over some basic information and answer what questions she can, then she takes the few of us there out to the computer to show us the images they captured earlier...I get a look, there is a cystic portion but then there is also a solid portion that makes up approx a quarter of the total size and the sinking feeling enters my stomach. After working in a radiology facility for a couple years you learn what things look like when they are unhealthy. I push the thought aside and return to my brothers side as the others stay to ask questions. He confides that he's worried as hell and his tears finally well-up and spill over sibling to sibling. I try to reassure him that the surgery will go okay and that it has to so we can pick on the baby brother when he returns from Afghanistan. He nods. I ask him if I should have a priest come visit, he says no and when I say that it may make him feel better since he's so worried he gives me a final, "That's the last thing I want right now"....which tells me he has one more thing to be angry with God for and I shouldn't push it. I say ok and then hug him, tell him I love him and that if I could I'd take away the pain I would. Everyone else comes back into the room and our "alone" time is over.

My sister brings me back home and all I keep thinking is not my brother, damn kid is only 29, let surgery go well, please not cancer....my world is cracking and there is a wait ahead of us as we see if any lasting damage will be done, as we wait for pathology results, as we wait for God's will to be done.

John Jr., Jessica and Jeremiah 2002