Achmed, the almost dead brain tumor!

Have you ever received news so good that you couldn’t stop smiling? So unexpected that it almost made you breathless? So positive that it filled you with energy? So invigorating that it gave you a new sense of purpose? Have you ever had all of these things happen with the same piece of news?

Until today, I was never really sure if the General (Dr. Batten) even had any teeth. I had never seen him smile. In fact, I had hardly ever seen him look me in the eye when he spoke. I guess when you are in a profession that regularly delivering bad news to people, and when they are probably at their most vulnerable, it pays to be able to detach yourself emotionally from the situation. I actually get where he is coming from, I have always looked at my ability to emotionally detach myself from situations as an asset to help me negotiate my best result, be it personally or professionally.

Today General Batten (still not to be confused with General Patten, which still is a good movie) was anything but detached from the news he was delivering… well at least the second part of the news. Initially, when I sat in his office, shaking every extremity with the nervousness of a school girl on her first date, he looked at me and said, “So, your hearing is after getting worse, about 10 to 15 decibels. Did you get your MRI done yet?”

Over the past few weeks, we have had a lot of fog in my lovely city of St. John’s, so if it had not been for my complete lack of vitamin D, I am pretty sure the every ounce of colour in my face would have drained right to the floor. Somehow, my MRI was sitting in the wrong pile or something like that. He went to look for it while I almost threw up with panic.

A couple of minutes later he came back with an ear to ear grin on his face and muttered something in scientific language that was so far above my head that I am still not even sure if he was speaking English. I stared at him with a blank look and mumbled back, “What does that mean?” Normally I read people pretty well, and a big smile like that would have been all I really needed to see and hear to know that even if I didn’t understand it, it was good news.

“The centre of the tumor is dead. Normally that doesn’t happen for at least a year or more, but it shows that your radiation worked and it will probably start to shrink over the next year.”

I am not an emotional person, so I didn’t jump up and hug him… and quit honestly, if I had he probably would have insisted that I don’t come back to see him anymore because he is even less emotionally involved than I am. It’s been eight hours and I am still smiling, so maybe I am a little emotional sometimes, and I got to see Dr. Batten smile… I may be the only person who is not related to him that can even say that!

I am willing to bet that it is going to take some pretty shitty happenings to put me in a bad mood over the next little while.

From Achmed and Me… Live Life!