Good news-bad news report on my brain
Zane and I do not argue now nearly as much as when I was first diagnosed. Back then, whenever he asked me to buy him a hoodie or have a friend over at midnight and I said, “No,” he replied, “That’s the cancer on your brain.”
Since then, I’ve made it a point of honor not to have cancer on my brain. Oh, it’s in my right kidney, my left lung, my right hip, somewhere on my scapula, a nudge in my spine and basically bursting out of my lymph glands. But not in my brain.
But when headaches kept bothering me, Doctor Doogie, my genito-urological oncologist, wrote, “I fit you in for a brain scan this Saturday. Just to rule anything out.”
I replied, “Sure thing, Doc, but remember. Carcinoma everywhere — but not the brain.”
Most of our doctor’s appointments have occurred on weekdays, and in fact, our last weekend appointment was in April 2023. This was where we went from 0 to 60, from “possible arthritis” to “Stage IV kidney cancer.” So we don’t consider Saturday appointments to be lucky.
My husband, Brian, drove me down to the office on Berry. This was the same afternoon as a Giants baseball game, which explained why there were so many open appointments in the brain scan schedule and yet so few parking spots. Who would want gamma rays aimed at their heads when they could be watching the Giants?
When an oncologist calls me on Sunday about a Saturday exam, I know the news is not good. But still, I led with, “We have a deal. Not on the brain.”
“Well, that is the good news,” he started. “There’s no cancer on your brain. The bad news is that it appears that you have had a cerebrovascular event in your right parietal lobe.” “English, please.” “You’ve had a stroke. A small one, we think. But you have to go to the hospital now.” Before I could hit the red button to hang up, Brian had his car keys in hand.
Where did my husband and I celebrate our 39th Pride weekend together? The emergency room at UCSF’s Parnassus hospital. By the time we arrived, I had called Brother X and Googled effects of parietal strokes.
The scariest one I could find? Agraphia, or loss of the ability to write.
Turns out the treatment is worse than the microstroke. Oh, they did yet another brain scan, but then came the worst diagnostic tool ever: a lumbar puncture.
In my day, we called it a spinal tap. Dr. Kramer directed me to lie on my left side, tuck my legs up, then grab the hospital bed railings with both hands and feet. Oh, and to make sure I was completely embarrassed, to drop my pants. He splashed my back with iodine, then inserted the largest needle I have ever seen into my spinal column. There is no number high enough on my pain scale to describe this.
Eleven hours in the room, and what was the final treatment? “Take two aspirin, and we’ll see your doctor in the morning.”
People die from cancer every day: Nurse Vivian, Sister Lil and Glenna Kelly. Each one of them was a fighter. People survive cancer every day, too. Crazy Mike. My niece (daughter of X). They’re fighters, too.
For me it’s 439 days so far. Survival doesn’t make me any better. Survival today does not mean survival tomorrow. It means passing today’s test, showing up when I know the medical team is going to punch a hole in my kidney or stick a harpoon up my back. It means taking that pill that’s gonna make me nauseous.
Survival means I get one more day to be grateful for a sunrise over the San Francisco Bay. One more afternoon to watch Karlotta the Fog slide over the San Bruno Mountains. One more Giants baseball game. One more day to ask my son Aidan about the teaspoons. And one more evening to argue with my son Zane that, no, he cannot drive a car without a license. When he disagrees, I can say, “And that is not cancer on my brain talking.”
It will take him awhile to come up with the proper comeback: “But it might be a mini-stroke.”
Nope, I don’t have agraphia, you see. This column (I hope) stands proof.
Turns out the Giants weren’t any luckier than I was that Saturday. They lost to the Cubs, 5-3. It remains to be seen whether either of us will have a winning season.
Kevin Fisher-Paulson’s book “Secrets of the Blue Bungalow” (Fearless Books, $25) is available at fearless books.com and area bookstores.