Keeping Score

Nothing Clever to Say Here

Sorry it's been so long since the last post there. I don't like to let things lie fallow for more than three days at a time, and I really fell off the wagon, evidently.

Unfortunately, for the time being, I don't have anything funny to post, either.

I just found out yesterday that my Grandfather is having emergency brain surgery today at 1pm, so I'm not in the best of spirits. Sure, it's "routine" or whatever you want to call it. I know I've got my skull cracked open on a regular basis. Routine brain surgury is like saying painting the Sistine Chapel is a passtime.

I'm pretty nervous about it for a variety of reasons, none of which are the obvious "OMGBRAINSURGERY" ones everyone should normally consider going into something this delicate. My reasons are much more personal, first of which is an old, dear mentor of mine named Marty Lennon, who, god as my witness, I will never forget. Marty gave me my start in the industry. She believed in me and my skills when everyone else was passing me over, and she invited me to come interview at the company she was going to be a production manager at. Later that same year, she was diagnosed with brain cancer (note: radically different than what my grandfather is diagnosed with), and it was operated on. Marty Lennon died that day, and someone else came back from the hospital. The live brain tissue that was removed with the tumor was "minimal," but the difference was significant. For all we know about the brain, we could fill a mouse-sized thimble. Any wrong move, too much post-operative swelling, an ounce of foreign matter causing an infection, and I could be visiting someone very different at the end of this week. It's incredibly nerve-wracking for me.

Second is the fact that he went in to see the doctor for a chronic headache. He's had this one for three weeks now (although nobody knew because he wouldn't complain about it; that's not what a WWII veteran does). It was evidently causing a buzzing in his ears. The doctor had him take a quick MRI scan, and they didn't even wait for the test results to come back. They could see that he had excess liquid in his brain case, and it was causing too much pressure on his brain (thus the buzzing sound from pressure to the hearing zones). He was scheduled for emergency surgery the next day (which brings us to today, an hour ago).

In many ways I'm a carbon copy of my Grandfather. I have his face, his eyes, his hair (or at least his hair thickness). His body-type. His way of thinking. His headaches. My Grandfather's suffered from migraines his whole life. My mother suffers from ones that knock her off her feet and keep her bed-ridden and nauseous for days. I started getting them in college.

So now I'm wondering if this isn't The Family Disease. I guess I'll find out later if this condition is hereditary, or if it's just some random fluke. Right now none of us knows that much about it, and are just hoping that we get our Bill back. I'm probably freaking out more than I or anyone in my family needs to, but it's kinda hard not to, y'know?

[Update: He's out of surgery, and doing great! Wooooo!]