My son has a brain tumour. Yes, I’m freaking out

“Hi Mom. I have a brain tumour.”

There are many phone calls a parent dreads, and this one is right up there. Christopher, 27, has been having excruciating headaches that reached beyond the bounds of even the migraines he inherited from me. An MRI was scheduled, and when they called the next day to tell him he had to come back for another one, a little hammer started knocking on my heart.

Christopher has been having a rough go of it of late. He and Pammy, his longtime girlfriend, moved this year to a lovely apartment in Hamilton that has a yard for the lads — their two pups. After having his arm destroyed in a work accident a few years back, work has been sporadic. The arm was supposed to get better; it hasn’t, and chasing down any kind of claim for help has proven elusive. Here’s this big bear of a kid who looks like he could lift up the world, barely able to lift five pounds with one arm.

About four years ago, he was diagnosed with a weird eye disease; they say it can be genetic, but I can’t even spell it, let alone tell him where it came from (keratoconus: I looked it up). He had surgery on the affected eye to stop it getting worse, but his vision has never been the same since.

The day last week he received the call about the tumour, he was sitting in the specialist’s office being told they had to operate on the other eye. Hey, OHIP? Be really nice if you covered this. It’s a progressive disease that robs sufferers of sight. It’s a disease that begins in youth: you know, when those youths rarely have $3,000 per eye so they can keep seeing.

He’s worked for UPS, he’s worked as a driver on a movie set, he’s been a bouncer in a strip club. Now his eyesight is so lousy, only Pammy drives. He did contract work on some computer sites, until the headaches started getting worse. I thought it was migraines, and nattered at him to reduce his screen time, get up and shower and walk around the block, and all the other things my mother used to say to me. I was wrong.

My son has a brain tumour. They’re sure it’s benign, which made me weep right there in the doctor’s office. It’s also very rare (hey, Sommerfelds are nothing if not special) and has to come out. They are going to go into my son’s head with sharp tools, for hours.

I’m terrified. I know he’s 27, but he’s my boy. If you’ve been reading this column, you met him when he was 12. He’s a gentle giant who began lifting me up when he was 13, calling me Little Mom. He proudly walks and cuddles two little dogs that each weigh less than my cats. He’s worried about me when he’s the one who has been getting slammed for years now. He’s worried about Pammy, who soldiers on, her narrow shoulders belying her incredible strength.

I feel guilty. What did I miss all those years? What did I overlook, what did I downplay, could I have known? I feel guilty for choosing an unstable career. If I’d taken the secure road, maybe I’d be better off, better able to not worry about surgeries that aren’t covered, while being eternally grateful for the ones that are. Knowing if we lived in the U.S., we would be financially destroyed. I know this.

I feel guilty for not insisting on Sunday dinners — every Sunday — as if I could have seen into his head while he ate. You let your adult kids go; they create their own lives and you’re anxious and proud and you bite your tongue more often than you care to admit.

I was on a work trip on his most recent birthday. I sent him a text telling him that 27 years ago he made my life more awesome than I ever thought it could be, and I meant every word of it. He’s amazing. We will get him through this. Of that, I’m certain. This isn’t the time for my fears and my guilt, and I’m certain we’re forged of very tough stuff.

I’m just so very tired of having it tested.