That Time I had Brain Surgery
It took me ten months to admit something might be wrong
One moment I was rehearsing a choreographed routine during dance team practice after school and the next moment I was on the floor unable to respond to my teammates shouting my name and shaking me — a moment after that it was as if it never happened. That’s how I wound up in the hospital for five nights.
Apparently, the doctors were less concerned that I passed out, and more concerned about the fact I hadn’t lost consciousness when I did. I guess, technically, I didn’t pass out but I don’t know how else to explain it. Either way, it stumped them. They ran almost every test they could think of on my heart and brain, but the only thing they found was a dark spot on a brain scan.
After five days I was allowed to leave under the condition I’d return in six months for a follow-up scan to see if the spot changes. I was more concerned about the fact they were preventing me from getting my driver’s license on my sixteenth birthday two months away.
Six months later, I returned for another scan to see if the spot had grown. It hadn’t. With a shrug of his shoulder, the doctor told me, “you’re free to go. Sometimes people just have spots on their brain.”
