Infection!

The headache that wouldn’t go away.

I get to the office Sunday morning, groggy and hung over, worse than was typical after a Saturday night. My whole body hurts, especially my head. I drink several cups of coffee and tuck into that day’s spreadsheet, just like all the other analysts in the room. My grogginess soon disappears, but my headache stays with me, that day, and for the next week.

After about ten days, I g0 to see my doctor. “I’m not surprised,” he says. “You’ve been working too hard.” He prescribed me some pills. Cataflam. I’ve never heard of this medicine. It as a goofy and ineffectual-sounding name, but I start taking it, and my headaches go away, mostly. But not all the way.

I work about 15 hours a day for the next week and a half, gobbling down my Cataflam as prescribed. I run out, and my head starts hurting more. I go back to see my doctor. “This doesn’t seem normal to me,” I say. “I don’t usually have headaches.” He smiles, more to himself than to me. “As I told you, you work too hard. But if it will make you feel better, you can get a CAT scan.” I go to the radiology department and wait for a while. Eventually it’s my turn and I get my CAT scan. Then I drive back to the office.

When I get to my desk, there is a red light blinking on my phone. At first I don’t know what it is. Mark explains that we just got voicemail at the office. I listen to the message. It’s from my doctor. I can hear that he isn’t smiling anymore. “You need to have an MRI. I’ve scheduled you an appointment at St. Vincent’s tomorrow morning at 8.”

The next morning, I arrive at St. Vincents at 7:30. The radiology clinic is run by Howie Cockrill, an old family friend. He walks into the waiting room and over to me. “You’d better not break my machine,” he jokes. “Never again,” I reply. I get prepped for my MRI — remove all metal, don a hospital robe, get an injection of contrast — then lie down on on the narrow platform that slides into the MRI machine tube. A technician puts a thin strip of tape on one side of the platform, then across my forehead, then on the other side of the platform, immobilizing my head so I won’t flinch during the scan.

The platform starts moving, sliding me into the tube head first. I have to squeeze my shoulders in a bit to fit. Then I hear a sound like a jackhammer, that stops and starts for the next 40 or so minutes. I’ve heard that some people get claustrophobic and panicky in MRI’s, but I find it strangely relaxing, and at one point I doze off.

When I’m back at work later that afternoon, I get a call. “Hi Dad, how’s Florida?” “Son, we talked to Howie, we’re driving back this morning, will be home later tonight.” I’m pretty sure Howie violated at least one law by calling my parents, and I wonder, in a detached way, whether I would have the grounds to sue him. Really, though, I don’t care that he called them. In fact it seems kind of nice.

We have another family friend, Dick Dickens (yes his real name), who is a neurologist. He gets us an appointment with a surgeon in his practice, James Adametz. The night before my appointment I run out of Cataflam again, and the next morning I wake up with such a bad headache that when I get out of bed to get dressed, I throw up. My parents come get me and we head to the appointment.

Despite the fact that I’m 24, Dr. Adametz talks mainly to my parents. “He has a mass in the frontal right lobe, it’s about 4 centimeters. His brain is starting to rotate inside his skull, which creates a risk of stroke. So we’re scheduling him for surgery next Wednesday.”

“What is the mass?” I ask. “We don’t know. We’ll have to get in there and find out.” Dr. Adametz speaks flatly, but without gravity. Like he’s giving his credit card information to an airline over the phone.

My mom starts to cry a little bit. “Who will be doing the surgery?” “I will.” “Are you good?” “Yes.”

“Can I see the scan?” I ask. He brings in the film. In the dark grey shape of my head, there is a bright white egg. A five-year-old could diagnosis that something is wrong here, I think to myself. But mostly I’m filled with relief: the mystery is solved, that damn egg is the problem, Dr. Adametz is going to take it out, so no more headaches and no more stupid Cataflam.

The next few days are pretty fun for me — I stay home from work, catch up with some friends who are in town, go on a date. Everyone is kind of solemn around me though, which I don’t understand. I mean, sure, I’m having brain surgery, but it’s going to fix my headaches. The only worry I have is that Dr. Adametz flinches or something, and after the surgery I won’t be able to think as well as I could before. Though it’s not exactly the same, I think of Charlie from Flowers for Algernon. But this is just a small worry. Brain surgeons are brain surgeons for a reason. They don’t flinch.

Finally, the morning of my surgery rolls around. We have to be at the hospital early, 6:30am. I get prepped for surgery and am sitting on a gurney, with my parents but not saying much, and in walks the pastor Rev. Ed Matthews from my church. What is he doing here, I think. We are not very religious. My dad had asked him to come. He says a small prayer.

An orderly rolls me into the next staging area, where they hook me up to an IV and give me a mild sedative. “The surgery should last about 6 hours,” the nurse says. That sounds like a long time to me. My parents are still with me. Nobody has much to say. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight, so I’m pretty hungry and thirsty.

Finally they come to roll me into the operating room. I glance at a clock, it’s about 11 am. The anesthesiologist puts a mask over my face and asks me to count down from 10. I make it to 8, then everything goes black.

There is a deep, sharp, throbbing pain in my head. I slowly open my eyes. My name is Edward Lichty, I think to myself. I look at a clock, it’s 12:3o pm. I can tell time. I’m not Charlie. But something must have gone wrong. The surgery was supposed to be 6 hours, why am I waking up in the middle of it? This scares me. It doesn’t feel like anyone is doing anything — why have they stopped? I try to say something but I can’t talk. Finally I manage a weak “hello?”.

Now I see someone standing over me. Dick Dickens, the first time I’ve seen him today. He’s smiling.

“It’s an infection!” he says excitedly. I don’t understand what that means or why he’s so happy.

“Huh?”

“The mass in your head was an abscess caused by an infection. Once Jim cut through your skull — and by the way, that took forever, you have one seriously hard head — he was able to simply drain it and close you back up. You’ll have to have six weeks of intravenous antibiotics, then you’ll be good as new.”

I hadn’t planned on that. Why is this all such good news? “That kinda sucks,” I grumble.

Dick Dickens stops smiling. “It’s not cancer, Edward,” he says slowly and emphatically. “Did you ever see your scan? The mass was very discrete and defined, which usually means cancer. We’re all pretty surprised. So an infection does not suck. It’s probably the best news you have ever had in your life.”

Cancer?? That hadn’t crossed my mind once.